SAME AFTERNOON

Suez had never seen so busy a winter. Never before in the same number of weeks had so much cotton been hauled into town or shipped from it. Goods had never been so cheap, gross sales so large, or Blackland darkeys and Sandstone crackers so flush.

And naturally the prosperity that worked downward had worked upward all the more. Rosemont had a few more students than in any earlier year; Montrose gave her young ladies better molasses; the white professors in the colored “university,” and their wives, looked less starved; and General Halliday, in spite of the fact that he was part owner of a steamboat, had at last dropped the title of “Agent.” Even John March had somehow made something.

Barbara, in black, was shopping for Fannie. Johanna was at her side. The day was brisk. Ox-wagons from Clearwater, mule-teams from Blackland, bull-carts from Sandstone, were everywhere. Cotton bales were being tumbled, torn, sampled, and weighed; products of the truck-patch and door-yard, and spoils of the forest, were changing hands. Flakes of cotton blew about under the wheels and among the reclining oxen. In the cold upper blue the buzzards circled, breasted the wind, or turned and scudded down it. From chimney tops the smoke darted hither and yon, and went to shreds in the cedars and evergreen oaks. On one small space of sidewalk which was quiet, Johanna found breath and utterance.

“Umph! dis-yeh town is busy. Look like jess ev’ybody a-makin’ money.” She got her mistress to read a certain sign for her. “Jawn Mawch, Gen’lemun! k-he-he! dass a new kine o’ business. An’ yit, Miss Barb, I heah Gen’l Halliday tell Miss Fannie ’istiddy dat Mr. Mawch done come out ahade on dem-ah telegraph pole’ what de contractors done git sicken’ on an’ th’ow up. He mus’ be pow’ful smart, dat Mr. Mawch; ain’t he, Miss Barb?”

“I don’t know,” murmured Barbara; “anybody can make money when everybody’s making it.” She bent her gaze into a milliner’s window.

The maid eyed her anxiously. There were growing signs that Barbara’s shopping was not for the bride-elect only, but for herself also, and for a long journey and a longer absence.

“Miss Barb, yondeh Mr. Mawch. Miss Barb, he de hayn’somess mayn in de three counties!”

“Ridiculous! Come, make haste.” Haste was a thing they were beginning to make large quantities of in Suez. It has some resemblance to speed.

“Miss Garnet, pardon me.” March gave the Rosemont bow, she gave the Montrose. “Don’t let me stop you, please.” He caught step.

“Is General Halliday in town? I suppose, of course, you’ve seen Miss Fannie this morning?” His boyish eyes looked hungry for a little teasing. She stopped in a store doorway. Her black garb heightened the charm of her red-brown hair, and of the countenance ready enough for laughter, yet well content without it.

“Yes. I’m shopping for her now.” Her smiling lip implied the coming bridal, but her eyes told him teasing was no longer in order. General Halliday was in Blackland, she said, but would be back by noon. March gave the Rosemont bow, she gave the Montrose, Johanna unconsciously courtesied.

In the post-office John found two letters. One he saw instantly was from Leggett. He started for his office, opening the other, which was post-marked Boston. It ran:

“MY DEAR MR. MARCH. My father has carefully considered your very
clear and elaborate plan, and, while he freely admits his judgment
may be wrong, he deems it but just to be perfectly frank with you.”

The reader’s step ceased. A maker of haste jostled him. He did not know it. His heart sank; he lost the place on the page. He leaned against an awning-post and read on:

“He feels bound to admire a certain masterly inventiveness and courage in your plan, but is convinced it will cost more than you estimate, and cannot be made at the same time safe and commercially remunerative.”

There was plenty more, but the wind so ruffled the missive that, with unlifted eyes, he folded it. He looked across the corner of the court-house square to his office, whose second month’s rent was due, and the first month’s not yet paid. He saw his bright blue sign with the uncommercial title, which he had hoped to pay the painter for to-day. For, had his proposition been accepted, the letter was to have contained a small remittance. A gust of wind came scurrying round the post-office corner. Dust, leaves, and flakes of cotton rose on its wave, and ah! his hat went with them.

Johanna’s teeth flashed in soft laughter as she waited in a doorway. “Run,” she whispered, “run, Mr. Jawn Mawch, Gen’lemun. You so long gitt’n’ to de awffice hat cayn’t wait. Yass, betteh give it up. Bresh de ha’r out’n yo’ eyes an’ let dat-ah niggeh-felleh ketch it. K-he! I ‘clare, dat’s de mos’ migracious hat I eveh see! Niggeh got it! Dass right, Mr. Mawch, give de naysty niggeh a dime. Po’ niggeh! now run tu’n yo’ dime into cawn-juice.”

At his desk March read again:

“We appreciate the latent value of your lands. Time must bring changes which will liberate that value and make it commercial; but it was more a desire to promote these changes than any belief in their nearness which prompted my father’s gifts to Rosemont College and Suez University. Not that he shares the current opinion that you are having too much politics. Progress and thrift may go side by side with political storms, and I know he thinks your State would be worse off to-day if it could secure a mere political calm.

“In reply to your generous invitation to suggest changes in your plan, I will myself venture one or two questions.

“First Is not the elaborateness of your plan an argument against it? Dixie is not a new, wild country; and therefore does not your scheme to establish not only mines, mills and roads, but stores, banks, schools and churches under the patronage and control of the company imply that as a community and commonwealth you are, in Dixie, in a state of arrested development?

“Else why propose to do through a private commercial corporation what is everywhere else done through public government by legislation, taxation, education, and courts? Cannot or will not your lawmakers and taxpayers give you their co-operation?

“The spirit of your plan is certainly beyond criticism. It seeks a common welfare. It does not offer swift enrichment to the moneyed few through the use of ignorant labor unlifted from destitution and degradation, but rather the remuneration of capital through the social betterment of all the factors of a complete community. But will the plan itself pay? Have not the things around you which paid been those which cared little if savings-bank, church or school lived or died, or whether laws or customs favored them?

“Suppose that on your own lands your colony should seem for a time to succeed, would you not be an island in an ocean of misunderstanding and indifference? If you should need an act of county or township legislation, could you get it? Is this not why capital seeks wilder and more distant regions when it would rather be in Dixie?

“I make these points not for their own sake, but to introduce a practical suggestion which my father is tempted to submit to you. And this, it may surprise you to find, is based upon the contents of the paper handed you as I was leaving Suez, by the colored man, Leggett, whose peculiar station doubtless makes it easy for him to see relations and necessities which better or wiser men, from other points of view, might easily overlook.

“This man would make your scheme as public as you would make it private, and my father is inclined to think that if public interest, action, and credit could be enlisted as suggested in Leggett’s memorandum, your problem would have new attractions much beyond its present merely problematic interest, and might find financial backers. Alliance with Leggett is, of course, out of the question; but if you can consent and undertake to exploit your lands on the line of operation sketched by him we can guarantee the pecuniary support necessary to the effort, and you may at once draw on us at sight for the small sum mentioned in your letter, if your need is still urgent. With cordial regard,

“Yours faithfully,

“HENRY FAIR.”

March started up, but sat again and gazed at the missive.

“Well, I will swear!” He smiled, held it at arm’s length, and read again facetiously. “’Alliance with Leggett is, of course, out of the question; but if you can consent and undertake to exploit your lands on the line of operation sketched by him ’

“Now, where’s that nigger’s letter? I wonder if I ” a knock at the door “come in! could have dropped it when my hat O come in ha! ha! this isn’t a private bedroom; I’m dressed.”