HIRAM STILL COLLECTS HIS DEBTS

The old Doctor had become the general adviser of his neighbors. There was that in his calm face and quiet manner which somehow soothed and sent them away with a feeling of being sympathized with, even when no practical aid was rendered. “I believe more people consults the old Doctor than does Mr. Bagby and General Legaie together,” said Andy Stamper; “and he don’t know any more about the way to do business these days than my baby. To be sure, they all seem to be helped somehow by goin’.”

It was soon a problem whether the Doctor could keep his own place from falling into the hands of the Commission. He had often wondered why it had not been listed, for he had not been able to keep the taxes down. Though he did not know, however, Hiram Still did.

All this while Blair had some secret on her mind. She was always working. She would be up before sunrise, looking after her chickens; and in the afternoons, when she came from school, and all day in the summer, she would be busy about the kitchen or in some shaded spot, back among the fruit trees, where kettles were hung over fires, and Mrs. Cary at times gave advice, and Mammy Krenda moved about with her arms full of dry wood, in a mist of blue smoke. Sometimes Steve Allen lounged in the shade, at the edge of the cloud, giving Blair what he termed his legal advice, and teasing Mammy Krenda into threats of setting him on fire “before his time.” “Making preserves and pickles,” was all the answer the Doctor got to his inquiries. Yet for all Miss Blair’s work there did not seem to be any increase in the preserves that came to the table, and when her father inquired once if all her preserves and pickles were spoilt, though she went with a laugh and a blush and brought him some, he saw no increase in them afterward. She appeared suddenly to have a great many dealings with Mr. and Mrs. Stamper, and several times Andy Stamper’s wagon came in the Doctor’s absence and took away loads of jars which were transported to the railroad, and when the Doctor accidentally met Andy and inquired of him as to his load and its destination, Andy gave a very shuffling and cloudy reply about some preserves his wife and some of her friends were sending to town. Indeed, when the Doctor reached home on that occasion, he spoke of it, declaring that Mrs. Stamper was a very remarkable young woman; she actually sent off wagon-loads of preserves. He asked Blair teasingly how it was that Mrs. Stamper could do this while they could hardly get enough for the table. Blair only laughed and made a warning sign to Mammy Krenda, who was sniffing ominously and had to leave the room.

At length the secret came out. One day the Doctor came home worn out. The taxes were due again. Blair left the room, and returning, placed a roll of money in his hands. It was her salary which she had saved, together with the proceeds of the kettle in the orchard.

“That will help you, papa,” she said, as she threw her arms round his neck. “These are my preserves.”

The old gentleman was too moved to speak before she had run out of the room. After a little he went to find his wife. That was the sanctuary he always sought, in joy and sorrow.

“I reckon now he know de Stampers ain’ de on’ies’ ones kin meek preserves,” said Mammy Krenda, with a sniff.

That very evening old Mrs. Bellows came to see the Doctor. Mrs. Bellows was the aunt of Delia Dove. Her husband had been a blacksmith, and had died the year after the war. They owned a little place near the fork in the road, just on the edge of the Birdwood plantation, where her husband had in old times made a good living. The house was a little cottage set back amid apple and peach trees some hundreds of yards from the shop. Since her husband’s death, Andy Stamper and Delia Dove had helped her; but now, since Andy had been turned out of his old home and was paying for another, the times had grown so hard that it was not a great deal they could do. Andy thought they’d better let this place go and that she should come and live with them, but the old woman had refused, and now her place among many others had been forfeited and was on the list of those advertised for sale. And Mrs. Bellows came to Dr. Cary. Still had his eye on her home, and intended to buy it for the Commission. Andy had heard that Nicholas Ash wanted it, and that Still had promised it to him—“just out of spite to Andy and Delia,” the old woman said. She was in a great state of excitement.

“I been tellin’ Andy ’twant no use to be fightin’ Still,” she wailed; “he’s too smart for him. If he could git hold o’ Red Rock, Andy might ’a’ known he could beat him.”

Dr. Cary sat in deep reflection for a moment. He had a pang as he thought of the money he had made Andy pay. The sum saved by Blair was only a small part of the taxes due on Birdwood, but was enough to pay all the back taxes and redemption fees on Mrs. Bellows’s place. It looked like Providence. The Doctor sent her away comforted. Still’s plans with regard to the Bellows place soon became an assured fact. He boasted of what he would do. He would show Andy Stamper who he was. The fact that it would be Delia Dove’s was enough for him, and it became known throughout the county that the Commission would take it. When the day of sale came, little Andy was on hand at the county seat. Still was there too, and so was Nicholas Ash. Still tried to find out why Andy came. He knew he did not have the money to redeem the place. He thought it was to pick a quarrel with him; but Andy’s face was inscrutable.

Under the formality of the law, a party interested could redeem the land at any time before it was sold, paying the amount due to the clerk, with interest and fees. Still examined the list just before the crying began. The Bellows place was still on it. So the auction began. Andy was closeted with old Mr. Dockett, whose duty it was, as clerk, to receive the redemption money; but when the sale started, he came out and sauntered up into the crowd. Several places belonging to persons whose names began with A, were put up and knocked down to “Hiram Still, Commissioner,” and as each one went to him there were groans and hoots, and counterbalancing cheers from the negroes. At length the Bellows place was reached. The amount of taxes for the several years for which it was delinquent was stated, and the sheriff, a creature of Leech’s, offered the place. There was a dead silence throughout the crowd, for it was known that it was between Still and Stamper. Still was the only bidder. The crowd looked at Stamper, but he never stirred. He looked the most indifferent man on the ground. Still, on the other side of the crowd, whispered with Ash and made a sign to the sheriff, and the latter, having made his preliminary notice, announced:

“And there being no other bid than that of the Commissioner, I knock this place also down to——”

There was a movement, and a voice interrupted him.

“No, you don’t. That place has been redeemed.” Andy spoke quietly, but with a sudden blaze in his eyes. He held up the certificate of payment, gripped in his hand, and looked across at Hiram Still.

There was a moment’s pause, and then cheer after cheer broke out from the crowd of whites; and the long, pent-up feeling against Still burst forth so vehemently that he turned and pushed deep into the middle of the throng of blacks about him, and soon left the ground.

The excitement and anxiety, however, proved too much for old Mrs. Bellows, and she died suddenly a few nights later.

“One more notch on the score against Hiram and Major Leech,” said Andy Stamper, grimly, as he turned the key in the door of the empty house, and, taking it out, put it in his pocket.

Andy’s wife, as the old woman’s heir, was the owner of the place; but a few days after Mrs. Bellows’s death Andy rode up to Dr. Cary’s door.

Delia had sent him over, he said (he always laid the credit of such things on Delia, he was simply clay in the potter’s hands).—Delia had sent him to say that the place belonged to Miss Blair. “She had found out where the money came from which bought it back, and she wan’t goin’ to take it. She couldn’t take care of the place anyhow—’twas all she could do to keep the place they had now; and she would not have this one if she was to pay taxes on it. All she wanted, was to beat Hiram. So if Miss Blair wouldn’t take it, she s’posed Nicholas Ash would git it next year, after all.”

Andy pulled out a deed, made in due form to Miss Blair Cary, and delivered it to the Doctor, meeting every objection which the Doctor raised, with a reason so cogent that it really looked as if he were simply trying to shield Delia Dove from some overwhelming calamity. So the Doctor finally agreed to hold the place for his daughter, though only as security for the sum advanced, and with the stipulation that Andy should at any time have the privilege of redeeming it. It was well for Dr. Cary that he had placed his money as he did.

A few days after this sale at the county seat, Dr. Cary received a letter from Mr. Ledger, telling him that the condition of affairs had become so gloomy that his correspondents in the North were notifying him that they could not continue their advances to him at present, and as the notes given him by Dr. Cary and General Legaie, which had already been renewed several times, were about to fall due again, he found himself under the disagreeable necessity of asking that they would arrange to pay them at their next maturity. General Legaie, who had received a similar letter, rode up to see Dr. Cary next morning, and the following day they went to the city together. They rode on horseback, as they had no money to pay even the small sum necessary for the railway fares.

When the Doctor and General Legaie called on Mr. Ledger he was at the moment talking to a youngish, vigorous-looking man, whose new clothes and alert speech gave him almost a foreign air beside the stately manner of the two old gentlemen. Mr. Clough, the stranger, rose to go, but both Dr. Cary and General Legaie begged him to remain, declaring that they had “no secrets to discuss,” and that they should themselves leave if he did so, as he had been there first.

They had exhausted every resource in their power to raise the means to pay Mr. Ledger, they said. And now they had come to him with a proposition. They looked at each other for support. It manifestly cost an effort to make it. They proposed that he should take, at a proper valuation, so much of their lands as would meet his debt. A sigh followed the proposal. It was evidently a relief to have got it out.

“It is good land, and not an acre has ever been sold from the original grant,” said Dr. Cary. It manifestly added to the value of the terms offered.

“My dear sirs, what would I do with your lands?” said Mr. Ledger. “I already have the security of the lands in addition to your personal obligation. My advice to you is to try and sell them—or, at least, so much of them as will enable you to discharge your debts. There are one or two men up in your section who have plenty of money.—This man Leech—and that man Still—they are land-buyers. Why don’t you sell to them?”

“What!” exclaimed both Dr. Cary and General Legaie, in one breath. “Sell our old family places to that man Leech?”

“My dear sirs, it will come to this, I fear—or worse. My correspondents are all calling in their loans. I know that Mr. Still would not be averse to buying a part of your place or, indeed, all of it, Doctor; and I think Leech would like to have yours, General.”

The two old gentlemen stiffened.

“Why, that man Leech is a thief!” said the little General, with the air of one making a revelation. “He could not pay me a dollar that had not been stolen, and that fellow Still, he’s a harpy, sir.”

“Yes, I know, but I tell you frankly, gentlemen, it is your only chance. They mean to tax your land until you will find it impossible to hold on to it.”

“In that case we should not wish to put it off even on those men,” said the Doctor with dignity, rising. “I shall see if I cannot raise the money elsewhere to relieve you. Meantime I shall hold on to the old place as long as I can. I must make one more effort.” And the two old gentlemen bowed themselves out!

“A very striking-looking pair,” said the stranger, “but they don’t seem to have much business in them.”

“No,” said Mr. Ledger, “they haven’t. They are about as able to cope with the present as two babies.” He sat in deep abstraction for a minute and then broke out suddenly: “But I’ll tell you what: if you up yonder would just hold off they could clean up that pen on the hill in fifteen minutes. And I believe it would be the best thing for you to have them do it.” His eyes blazed with a light that gave his visitor a new idea of him.

In consequence of this talk, Mr. Clough, when he had concluded his business, went for amusement to observe the proceedings of the State Legislature which was in session. It was undoubtedly strange to see laws being enacted by a body composed of blacks who but a few years before had been slaves, and he went away with a curious sense of the incongruity of the thing. But it was only amusing to him. They appeared good-natured and rather like big children playing at something which grown people do. His only trouble was the two old gentlemen.

“Of course it is all nonsense, those slaves being legislators,” he admitted to Major Welch, on his arrival at home, and to his father-in-law, Senator Rockfield. “But they are led by white men who know their business. The fact is, they appear to know it so well that I advise calling in all the debts at once.”

What simply amused this casual visitor, however, was a stab in the heart of the two old gentlemen he had met.

Dr. Cary and General Legaie returned home without being able to raise anywhere the money that was due.

In reply to the letter announcing this, Dr. Cary received a letter from Mr. Ledger, informing him that he had just had an offer from someone to take up the Doctor’s notes, and he had felt it his duty to notify him before he assigned them. The person who had made the offer had insisted that his name should not be known at present, but he had intimated that it was with friendly intentions toward Dr. Cary, though Mr. Ledger stated, he would not like the Doctor to rely too much on this intimation. He would much prefer that Dr. Cary should take up the notes himself, and he would not for a moment urge him if it were not that he himself was absolutely obliged to have the money to meet his obligations.

To this letter the Doctor replied promptly. Mr. Ledger must accept the offer from his unnamed correspondent if it were a mere business transaction, and the Doctor only asked that he would do so without in any way laying him under any obligation to the person referred to, for a pretended kindness.

“The old Doctor evidently knows his man,” was Mr. Ledger’s reflection.

The next day Hiram Still held Dr. Cary’s notes secured by deed of trust on the whole Birdwood estate.

Still was sitting in the big hall at Red Rock on his return home, and he took out the notes and laid them on the table before his son.

“Ah! Dr. Wash,” he said, with a gleam in his eyes; “things is comin’ roun’. Now you’ve got it all your own way. With them cards in your hand if you can’t win the game, you ain’t as good a player as yer pappy. I don’t want nothin’ for myself, I just want ’em to know who I am—that’s all. And with you over yonder at the old Doctor’s, and Virgy in Congress or maybe even in the Governor’s house down yonder, I reckon they’ll begin to find out who Hiram Still is.”

The son was evidently pleased at the prospect spread out before him, and his countenance relaxed.

“‘Twon’t do to let Leech get too far ahead—I’m always telling you so.” Young Still was beginning to show some jealousy of Leech of late.

“Ahead? He ain’t ahead. He just thinks he is.” The speaker’s voice changed. “What’s the matter with Virgy these days? I’ve done set her up in the biggest house in the county, and brought the man who’s goin’ to be one of the biggest men in the State to want her to marry him, and she won’t have nothin’ to do with him. It clean beats my time. I don’t know what’s got into her. She ain’t never been the same since I brought her here. Looks like these pictures round here sort o’ freezes her up.”

As he glanced around Hiram Still looked as if he were freezing up a little himself.

“She’s a fool,” said the brother, amiably.

“I thought maybe she’s been kind o’ ailin’ an’ I’d git the old Doctor to come and see her. Say what you please, he have a kind o’ way with him women folks seems to like. But she won’t hear of it.”

“She’s just a fool. Let her alone for awhile, anyhow.”

His father looked at him keenly.

“Well, you go ahead—and as soon as you’ve got your filly safe, we’ll take up t’other horse—time enough. Thar’s the bridle.” He touched the notes on the table and winked at his son.

Dr. Still, armed with the assurance which the possession of Dr. Cary’s notes gave, drove over to Birdwood the very next evening in a double buggy. He was met by Dr. Cary, who treated him with his usual graciousness, and who so promptly assumed that the visit was merely a professional one that the caller never found the opportunity to undeceive him.

When Washington Still arrived at home that night his father was watching for him with eagerness. He met him as the buggy drove up into the yard; but Wash’s face was sphinx-like. It was not until nearly bedtime, when the father had reinforced his courage with several drinks of whiskey, that he got courage to open the subject directly.

“Well, what news?” he asked, with an attempt at joviality.

“None,” said Wash, shortly.

“How’d you come out?”

“Same way I went in.” This was not encouraging, but another glass added to Mr. Still’s spirit.

“How was she lookin’?”

“Didn’t see her.—Didn’t see anybody but the old Doctor; never do see anybody but him—and the old nigger that opens the door. He thought I’d come over to consult him about that sick nigger down at the mill, so I let him think so. I wish the d—d nigger would die!”

“And you didn’t even ask for her?”

The young man shifted in his chair.

“What’s the use! That old fool’s got a way with him. You know how it is. If he wa’n’t so d—d polite!”

“Ah! Washy, you’re skeered,” said the father, fondly. “You can’t bridle a filly if you’re afeard to go in, boy. If you don’t git up the grit I’ll go over thar myself, first thing you know. Why don’t you write her a letter?”

“What’s the good! I know’m. She wouldn’t look at me. She’s for Lord Jacquelin or Captain Steve Allen.”

“She wouldn’t!” Still rose from his chair in the intensity of his feeling. “By——she shall! I’ll make her.”

“Make her! You think she’s Virgy? She ain’t.”

A day or two later a letter from Dr. Still was brought to Birdwood by a messenger. Dr. Cary received it. It was on tinted paper and was for Blair. That afternoon another messenger bore back the same letter unopened, together with one from Dr. Cary, to the effect that his daughter was not accustomed to receive letters from young men, and that such a correspondence would not be agreeable to him.

Dr. Still was waiting with impatience for a reply to his missive. He was not especially sanguine. Even his father’s hope could not reassure him. When he looked at the letter his countenance fell. He had not expected this. It was a complete overthrow. It not only was a total destruction of his hopes respecting Miss Cary, but it appeared to expose a great gulf fixed between him and all his social hopes. He had not known till then how much he had built on them. In an instant his feeling changed. He was enraged with Blair, enraged with Dr. Cary, enraged with Jacquelin Gray and Captain Allen, and enraged with his father who had counselled him to take the step. He took the letter to his father, and threw it on the table before him.

“Read that.”

Hiram Still took up the letter and, putting on his glasses, read it laboriously. His face turned as red as his son’s had turned white. He slammed the letter on the table and hammered his clenched fist down on it.

“You ain’t good enough for ’em! Well, I’ll show ’em. I’ll turn ’em out in the road and make their place a nigger settlement. I’ll show ’em who they’re turnin’ their noses up at. I’ll show ’em who Hiram Still is. I’ll make Leech Governor, and turn him loose on ’em, if it takes every cent I’ve got in the world.” He filled his glass. “We’ll show ’em yet who we are. When I’m settin’ up here and you’re settin’ up thar they’ll begin to think maybe after all they’ve made a little mistake.”

Still was as good as his word. Within a day or two, Dr. Cary received a letter from him asking the payment of his obligations which he held. He assigned the necessity he was under to raise a large sum of money himself.

The Doctor wrote in reply that it was quite impossible for him to raise the money to pay the debts, and begged that Still would without delay take the necessary steps to close the matter up, assuring him that he should not only not throw any obstacle in his way, but would further his object as far as lay in his power.

Steve urged the Doctor to make a fight, declaring that he could defer the sale for at least two years, maybe more, and times might change; but Dr. Cary declined.

“What can I do? I owe a debt and I cannot pay it. I might as well save the man the mortification of telling a multitude of unnecessary lies.”

So in a little while Still, through Leech, his counsel, had subjected the Doctor’s property to his debts and was in possession of Birdwood as well as Red Rock.

Mrs. Cary and Blair left their roses and jonquils and with the Doctor moved to the old Bellows place, where they were as happy as they had ever been in the days of their greatest prosperity. Old Tarquin, who accompanied them, observed his master closely and followed his example, carrying his head as high as if he still walked the big halls and polished floors of Birdwood. Mammy Krenda alone was unhappy. She could not reconcile herself to the change. The idea of “dat nigger-trader an’ overseer ownin’ her old marster’s place, an’ o’ her young mistis havin’ to live in de blacksmiff’ house,” was more than the old woman could bear.