“You must get to the field tomorrow,”—his habitually calm, unfeeling positiveness left no ground for objection; “I cannot support you in idleness, you know.”
“Yes, Master Harry,” the other returned, with conciliatory eagerness; “I knows that—I knows it and I ain’t shirking. But, Master Harry, they ain’t doing me right ’bout my cabin—I just wants to show you.” He got out some dirty papers, and started to hobble forward, wincing with pain. Mary Taylor stirred in her seat under an involuntary impulse to help, but Cresswell touched the horse.
“All right, Uncle Jim,” he said; “we’ll look it over tomorrow.”
They turned presently to where they could see the Cresswell oaks waving lazily in the sunlight and the white gleam of the pillared “Big House.”
A pause at the Cresswell store, where Mr. Cresswell entered, afforded Mary Taylor an opportunity further to extend her fund of information.
“Do you go to school?” she inquired of the black boy who held the horse, her mien sympathetic and interested.
“No, ma’am,” he mumbled.
“What’s your name?”
“Buddy—I’se one of Aunt Rachel’s chilluns.”
“And where do you live, Buddy?”
“I lives with granny, on de upper place.”
“Well, I’ll see Aunt Rachel and ask her to send you to school.”
“Won’t do no good—she done ast, and Mr. Cresswell, he say he ain’t going to have no more of his niggers—”
But Mr. Cresswell came out just then, and with him a big, fat, and greasy black man, with little eyes and soft wheedling voice. He was following Cresswell at the side but just a little behind, hat in hand, head aslant, and talking deferentially. Cresswell strode carelessly on, answering him with good-natured tolerance.
The black man stopped with humility before the trap and swept a profound obeisance. Cresswell glanced up quizzically at Miss Taylor.
“This,” he announced, “is Jones, the Baptist preacher—begging.”
“Ah, lady,”—in mellow, unctuous tones—“I don’t know what we poor black folks would do without Mr. Cresswell—the Lord bless him,” said the minister, shoving his hand far down into his pocket.
Shortly afterward they were approaching the Cresswell Mansion, when the young man reined in the horse.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” he suggested, “I could introduce my sister to you.”
“I should be delighted,” answered Miss Taylor, readily.
When they rolled up to the homestead under its famous oaks the hour was past one. The house was a white oblong building of two stories. In front was the high pillared porch, semicircular, extending to the roof with a balcony in the second story. On the right was a broad veranda looking toward a wide lawn, with the main road and the red swamp in the distance.
The butler met them, all obeisance.
“Ask Miss Helen to come down,” said Mr. Cresswell.
Sam glanced at him.
“Miss Helen will be dreadful sorry, but she and the Colonel have just gone to town—I believe her Aunty ain’t well.”
Mr. Cresswell looked annoyed.
“Well, well! that’s too bad,” he said. “But at any rate, have a seat a moment out here on the veranda, Miss Taylor. And, Sam, can’t you find us a sandwich and something cool? I could not be so inhospitable as to send you away hungry at this time of day.”
Miss Taylor sat down in a comfortable low chair facing the refreshing breeze, and feasted her eyes on the scene. Oh, this was life: a smooth green lawn, and beds of flowers, a vista of brown fields, and the dark line of wood beyond. The deft, quiet butler brought out a little table, spread with the whitest of cloths and laid with the brightest of silver, and “found” a dainty lunch. There was a bit of fried chicken breast, some crisp bacon, browned potatoes, little round beaten biscuit, and rose-colored sherbet with a whiff of wine in it. Miss Taylor wondered a little at the bounty of Southern hospitality; but she was hungry, and she ate heartily, then leaned back dreamily and listened to Mr. Cresswell’s smooth Southern r’s, adding a word here and there that kept the conversation going and brought a grave smile to his pale lips. At last with a sigh she arose to her feet.
“I must go! What shall I tell Miss Smith! No, no—no carriage; I must walk.” Of course, however, she could not refuse to let him go at least halfway, ostensibly to tell her of the coming of her brother. He expressed again his disappointment at his sister’s absence.
Somewhat to Miss Taylor’s surprise Miss Smith said nothing until they were parting for the night, then she asked:
“Was Miss Cresswell at home?”
Mary reddened.
“She had been called suddenly to town.”
“Well, my dear, I wouldn’t do it again.”
The girl was angry.
“I’m not a schoolgirl, but a grown woman, and capable of caring for myself. Moreover, in matter of propriety I do not think you have usually found my ideas too lax—rather the opposite.”
“There, there, dear; don’t be angry. Only I think if your brother knew—”
“He will know in a very few weeks; he is coming to visit the Cresswells.” And Miss Taylor sailed triumphantly up the stairs.
But John Taylor was not the man to wait weeks when a purpose could be accomplished in days or hours. No sooner was Harry Cresswell’s telegram at hand than he hastened back from Savannah, struck across country, and the week after his sister’s ride found him striding up the carriageway of the Cresswell home.
John Taylor had prospered since summer. The cotton manufacturers’ combine was all but a fact; Mr. Easterly had discovered that his chief clerk’s sense and executive ability were invaluable, and John Taylor was slated for a salary in five figures when things should be finally settled, not to mention a generous slice of stock—watery at present, but warranted to ripen early.
While Mr. Easterly still regarded Taylor’s larger trust as chimerical, some occurrences of the fall made him take a respectful attitude toward it. Just as the final clauses of the combine agreement were to be signed, there appeared a shortage in the cotton-crop, and prices began to soar. The cause was obviously the unexpected success
