Part 16

“Then set right still and do so,” commanded Judge Priest. “I'm goin' to take you into my confidences jest as soon as I see how my way of doin' the thing works out. We oughter git some definite results before dark this evenin'. And listen here, son, a minute--when all's said and done even Quintus Q. Montjoy, Esquire, ain't no more of a stickler for follering after the Code than whut I am. I'm jest ez full of time-hallowed precedents ez he is--and maybe even more so.”

“Callin' me, Jedge?” The speaker was Jefferson Poindexter, who appeared at the door leading into the hall.

“Yes, I was--been callin' you fur a half hour--more or less,” stated his master. “Jeff, you take this here parcel over to Mister Quintus Q. Montjoy's and present it with the compliments of Mister Houser. You needn't wait fur an answer--jest come on back. I reckin there won't be no answer fur some little time.” He turned again to his nephew with the air of a man who, having disposed of all immediate and pressing business affairs, is bent now upon pleasurable relaxation.

“Son, ef you ain't got nothin' better to do this evenin' I wish't you'd stay here and keep score fur the tournament. Playing crokay, I licked the pants off'en that poor old Jimmy Bagby yis'tiddy, and now he wants to git even.”

The judge spoke vaingloriously. “He's skeered to tackle me again single-handed, I reckin. So him and Father Tom Minor are coinin' over here to play me and Herman Felsburg a match game fur the crokay champeenship of Clay Street and adjacent thoroughfares. They oughter be here almost any minute now--I was jest layin' here, waitin' fur 'em and sort of souplin' up my muscles.”

Playing magnificently as partners, Father Minor and Sergeant Bagby achieved a signal victory--score three to one--over the Felsburg-Priest team. The players, with the official referee who maintained a somewhat abstracted, not to say a pestered, air, were sitting in the little summer house, cooling off after the ardours of the sport. Jeff Poindexter had been dispatched indoors, to the dining-room sideboard, to mix and fetch the customary refreshments. The editor of the _Daily Evening News_, who was by way also of being chief newsgatherer of that dependable and popular journal, came up the street from the corner below and halted outside the fence.

“Howdy, gentlemen!” over the paling he greeted them generally. “I've got some news for you-all. I came out of my way, going back to the office, to tell you.” He singled out the judge from the group. “Oh, you _Veritas_” he called, jovially.

“Sh-h-h, Henry, don't be a-callin' me that,” spoke up Judge Priest with a warning glance about him and a heavy wink at the editor. “Somebody that's not in the family might hear you and git a false and a misleadin' notion about the presidin; circuit judge of this district. Whut's your news?”

“Well,” said Mr. Tompkins, “it's sort of unprofessional to be revealing the facts before they're put in type but I reckon it's no great breach of ethics to tell a secret to an occasional contributor of signed communications--” he indicated Judge Priest, archly--“and the contributor's close friends and relatives. Anyhow, you'd all know it anyhow as soon as the paper comes out. Quintus Q. Montjoy is withdrawing from the race for State Senator.”

“What?” several voices spoke the word in chorus, only Sergeant Bagby pronounced it _Whut_ and Mr. Felsburg sounded the _W_ with the sound of _V_ as in _Vocal._

“Montjoy quits. I've got his card of withdrawal right here in my pocket now. Tobe, allow me to congratulate you on your prospect of getting the nomination without any opposition at the polls.”

“Quits, does he?” echoed Judge Priest. “Well, do you boys know, I ain't surprised. I've been lookin' fur him to do somethin' of that nature fur the last two hours. I wonder whut delayed him?” He addressed the query to space.

“He gives some reasons--maybe, yes?” asked Mr. Felsburg, releasing Mr. Houser's hand which he had been shaking with an explosive warmth.

“Oh, yes,” said Editor Tompkins, “I suppose he felt as if he had to do that. The principal reason he gives is that he finds he cannot spare the time from his business interests for making an extended canvass--and also his repugnance to engaging further in a controversy with a man who so far forgets himself as to resort to physical violence in the course of a joint debate upon the issues of the day. That's a nice little farewell side-slap at you, Houser.

“But I gleaned from what I picked up after I got over to Montjoy's in answer to his telephone message asking me to call that there may have been other reasons which are not set forth in his card of withdrawal,” continued Mr. Tompkins. “In fact, about the time I got over there--to his house--Hod Maydew arrived in a free state of perspiration and excitement--Hod's been up in Louisville on business, you know, and didn't get in until the two-thirty train came--and I rather gathered from what he said a little bit ago to Quintus Q., in the privacy of the dining room while I was waiting in the library, that he was considerably put out about something. His voice sounded peeved--especially when he was calling Montjoy's attention to the fact that even if he should win the race now, he wouldn't be able to take the oath of office. Anyhow, I think that's what he was saying.

“Say, Judge, just for curiosity's sake now and strictly between ourselves--just what was the message, or whatever it was, that you sent over to Montjoy's right after dinner? I overheard something about that too.”

“Oh, that?” said the judge, as all eyes turned in his direction. “That was jest a spare copy of the Code that I happened to have 'round the house--with a page in it marked and turned down.”

“The Code--what Code?” Mr. Tompkins pressed the point like the alert collector of news that he was.

“The Code and the Statutes--with the accent on the Code,” answered the old judge, simply. “Although, speakin' pussonally, I pay more attention to the Statutes than some folks do. In fact it would seem like some persons who are reasonably well informed on most subjects--ancestors fur instance--ain't never took the time to peruse them old Statutes of ourn with the care they should give to 'em ef they're aimin' to engage in the job of bein' a statesman.” He faced his nephew. “Tobe, my son, this oughter be a great lesson to you--it's a work that'll bear consid'able study frum time to time. I'm afeared you ain't ez well posted on the subject ez you should be. Well, this is a mighty good time to begin. You kin take your first lesson right now.”

He stooped and lifted the lid of the croquet box, beneath the bench upon which they had been sitting, and fetched forth a large, heavy volume, bound in splotchy law calf. “I put my other copy here jest a little while ago, thinkin' somebody might be interested later on in its contents,” he explained as he ran through the leaves until he came to a certain page. Upon that page, with a blunt forefinger, he indicated a certain paragraph as he handed the tome over to his nephew.

“There, Tobe,” he ordered, “you've got a good strong voice. Read this here section--aloud.”

So then, while the others listened, with slowly widening grins of comprehension upon their several faces, and while Judge Priest stood alongside, smiling softly, young Tobe read. And what he read was this:

“Oath to be taken by all officers--Form of Members of the General Assembly and all officers, before they enter upon the execution of the duties of their respective offices, and all members of the bar, before they enter upon the practice of their profession, shall take the following oath or affirmation: I do solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and be faithful and true to the Commonwealth of Kentucky so long as I continue a citizen thereof, and that I will faithfully execute, to the best of my ability, the office of ------------ ------------ according to law; and I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that since the adoption of the present Constitution, I, being a citizen of this State, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this State, nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted as second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending, so help me God.”

Having read it aloud, young Houser now reread it silently to himself. He was rather a slow-thinking and direct-minded person. Perhaps time was needed for the full force and effect of the subject-matter to soak into him. It was Mr. Tompkins who spoke next.

“Judge Priest,” he said, “what do you suppose those two fellows over yonder at Montjoy's are thinking about you right now?”

“Henry,” said Judge Priest, “fur thinkin' whut they do about me, I reckin both of them boys could be churched.”

VII. FORREST'S LAST CHARGE

TOWARD morning, after a spell of unusually even-tempered and moderate weather, it blew up cold, snowed hard for two or three hours, and turned off to be clear and freezing. The sun, coming up at seven-thirty-five, according to his curtailed December schedule, peeped out on a universe that was clothed all in white, whereas when he retired the night before in his west bedroom he left it wearing a motley of faded yellows and seasoned greens. Swinging in the east as a pale coppery disk, he blinked his astonishment through a ragged grey veil of the last of the storm clouds.

Others beside the sun were taken by surprise. It was the first snowfall of the year and a good, hard, heavy one. Down our way, some winters, we had hardly any snows at all; then, again, some winters we had a plenty; but scarcely ever did we have them before Christmas. This one came as a profound and an annoying visitation, taking the community at large unawares and unprepared, and making a great nuisance of itself from the start. Practically without exception, doorstep hydrants had tight colds in the head that morning. On being treated with lavings of hot water they dripped catarrhally from their cast-iron noses for a little while and then developed the added symptoms of icicles.

Cooks were hours late coming to cook breakfast, and when they did come uttered despairing moans to find range boilers frozen up and kitchen taps utterly unresponsive to first-aid measures. At some houses it was nearly eight o'clock before the milkman got round, with wooden runners under his milk wagon in place of wheels and rosaries of rusted sleigh bells on the necks of his smoking team. Last year's rubber boots came out of the closet and any old year's toy sled came out of the attic.

The old negro man who did whitewashing in the spring, picked blackberries for his summertime living, and in the fall peddled corn-shuck doormats and scaly-bark hickory nuts, made the circuit of his regular patrons, equipped with a shovel over his shoulder and his venerable feet done up in burlaps, to shovel footpaths for a price. Where the wind piled the snow in little drifts he left a wake behind him as though a baby elephant had floundered through there.

In the back yard Sir Rooster squawked his loud disgust as his naked legs sank shank-deep into the feathery mass. His harem, a row of still and huddled shapes on the roosts, clamped their chilled toes all the tighter to their perch and stared out through the chicken-house door at a transformed and unfamiliar world. With them--except for their eyes--rigor mortis seemed far advanced. Small boys, rabbit dogs, plumbers and the few persons in town who owned sleighs rejoiced. Housewives, house cats and thin-blooded old ladies and gentlemen were acutely miserable--and showed it.

There were tramps about in numbers. It took a sudden cold snap, with snow accompaniments such as this one, to fetch the tramps forth from their sleeping places near the tracks, and make the citizen realise how many of these southbound soldiers of misfortune the town harboured on any given date between Thanksgiving Day and New Year's. Judge Priest did not know it--and probably would not have much cared if he had known it--but on the right-hand-side post of his front gate, just below the wooden letter box, was scratched the talismanic sign which, to an initiated nation-wide brotherhood, signified that here, at this place, was to be had free and abundant provender, with no stove wood to chop afterward and no heavy buckets of coal to pack in.

Wherefore and hence, throughout the rising hour and well on into the forenoon, a succession of ragged and shivering travellers tracked a straggling path up his walk and round to the back door, coming, with noses a frostbitten red and hands a frostbitten blue, to beg for sustenance. It was part and parcel of the judge's creed of hospitality to turn no stranger away from his door unfed.

“Jedge!” Aunt Dilsey Turner bulged into the old sitting room, where her master sat with his feet close to the grate toasting his shoesoles. “Jedge, they's 'nother one of 'em miz'ble wuthless w'ite trash out yere axin' fur vittles. Tha's de fo'th one inside er hour. Whut you reckin I best do wid 'im?”

“Well, Aunt Dilsey,” the old man answered, “ef vittles is what he asts fur, I believe, under the circumstances, I'd give him some.”

“Whar we goin' git vittles fur 'im?” she demanded.

“Wasn't there anything left over frum breakfast?” He risked the inquiry mildly--almost timidly.

“Breakfus'!” She sniffed her contempt for masculine ignorance. “Breakfus'? How long does you think one li'l' batch of breakfus' is goin' last round yere? I ain't never tek much fur myse'f--jes' swallers a mossil of hot coffee to stay my stomach, but you's suttinly a mighty stiddy feeder; and ez fur 'at nigger Jeff of yourn--huh!--he acks lak he wuz holler cl'ar down to his insteps. Ef dat nigger had de right name, de name would be Famine! 'Sides, ain't I done tole you they's been three of dem trafflin', no-'count vagroms here already dis mawnin', a-eatin' us plum' out of house and home? Naw, suh; dey ain't nary grain of breakfus' lef'--de platters is done lick' clean!”

“Well, Aunt Dilsey, ez a special favour to me, I'd be mighty much obliged to you ef you'd cook up a little somethin' fur the pore feller.”

“Po' feller! Po', you sez? Jedge, dat ole tramp out yonder at my kitchen do' is mighty nigh ez fat ez whut you is. Still, you's de cap'n. Ef you sez feed 'im, feed 'im I does. Only don't you come round blamin' me w'en we-all lands in de po'house--tha's all I asts you.”

And out the black tyrant flounced, leaving the judge grinning to himself. Aunt Dilsey's bark was worse than her bite and there was no record of her having bitten anybody. Nevertheless, in order to make sure that no breakfast applicant departed hungry, he lingered on past his usual time for starting the day's work. It was cozily warm in his sitting room. Court was not in session either, having adjourned over for the holidays. It was getting well on toward ten o'clock when, with Jeff Poindexter's aid, he struggled into his ancient caped overcoat and buckled his huge red-lined galoshes on over his shoes, and started downtown.

Midway of the next block a snowball sailed out and over from behind a hedge fence and knocked his old black slouch hat half off his head. Showing surprising agility for one of his years and bulk, he ran down the fleeing sharpshooter who had fired on him; and, while with one hand he held the struggling youngster fast, with the other he vigorously washed his captive's face in loose snow until the captive bawled for mercy. Then the judge gave him a dime to console him for his punishment and went on his way with a pleasant tingling in his blood and a ruby tip on his already well-ruddied nose.

His way took him to Soule's Drug Store, the gathering place of his set in fair weather and in foul. He was almost there before he heard of the trouble. It was Dave Baum who brought the first word of it. Seeing him pass, Dave came running, bareheaded, out of his notions store.

“Judge Priest, did you know what's just happened?” Dave was highly excited. “Why, Beaver Yancy's been cut all to pieces with a dirk knife by one of those Dagos that was brought on here to work on the new extension--that's what just happened! It happened just a little bit ago, down there where they've got those Dagos a-keepin' 'em. Beave, he must've said somethin; out of the way to him, and he just up with his dirk knife and cut Beave to ribbons.”

Really it required much less time for little Mr. Baum to make this statement than it has taken for me to transcribe it or for you to read it. In his haste he ran the syllables together. Dan Settle came up behind them in time to catch the last words and he pieced out the narrative:

“They toted poor old Beaver into Doctor Lake's office--I just came from there--there's a big crowd waitin' to hear how he comes out. They don't think he's goin' to live but a little while. They ain't got the one that did the cuttin'--yet. There's quite a lot of feelin' already.”

“That's what the railroad gets for bringin' all those foreigners down here.” Mr. Baum, who was born in Bavaria, spoke with bitterness. “Judge, what do you think ought to be done about this business?”

“Well, son,” said Judge Priest, “to begin with, ef I was you I'd run back inside of my store and put my hat on before I ketched a bad cold. And ef I was the chief of police of this city I'd find the accused party and lock him up good and tight. And ef I was everybody else I'd remain ez ca'm ez I could till I'd heared both sides of the case. There's nearly always two sides to every case, and sometimes there's likely to be three or four sides. I expect to impanel a new grand jury along in January and I wouldn't be surprised ef they looked into the matter purty thoroughly. They ginerally do.

“It's too bad, though, about Beaver Yancy!” added the judge; “I certainly trust he pulls through. Maybe he will--he's powerful husky. There's one consolation--he hasn't got any family, has he?”

And, with that, Judge Priest left them and went on down the snow-piled street and turned in at Mr. Soule's door. What with reading a Louisville paper and playing a long game of checkers with Squire Rountree behind the prescription case, and telephoning to the adjutant regarding that night's meeting of Gideon K. Irons Camp, and at noontime eating a cove oyster stew which a darky brought him from Sherill's short-order restaurant, two doors below, and doing one thing and another, he spent the biggest part of the day inside of Soule's and so missed his chance to observe the growing and the mounting of popular indignation.

It would seem Beaver Yancy had more friends than any unprejudiced observer would have credited him with having. Mainly they were the type of friends who would not have lent him so much as fifty cents under any conceivable circumstance, but stood ready to shed human blood on his account. Likewise, as the day wore on, and the snow, under the melting influence of the sun, began to run off the eaves and turn to slush in the streets, a strong prejudice against the presence of alien day labourers developed with marvellous and sinister rapidity.

Yet, had those who cavilled but stopped long enough to take stock of things, they might have read this importation as merely one of the manifestations of the change that was coming over our neck of the woods--the same change that had been coming for years, and the same that inevitably would continue coming through years to follow.

Take for example, Legal Row--that short street of stubby little brick buildings where all the lawyers and some of the doctors had their offices. Summer after summer, through the long afternoons, the tenants had sat there in cane-bottomed chairs tilted back against the housefronts, swapping gossip and waiting for a dog fight or a watermelon cutting to break the monotony. But Legal Row was gone now and lawyers did not sit out on the sidewalks any more; it was not dignified. They were housed, most of them, on the upper floor levels of the sky-scraping Planters' Bank building. Perhaps Easterners would not have rated it as a skyscraper; but in our country the skies are low and friendly skies, and a structure of eight stories, piled one on the other, with a fancy cornice to top off with, rears mightily high and imposing when about it, for contrast, are only two and three and four story buildings.

Kettler's wagon yard, where the farmers used to bring their tobacco for overnight storage, and where they slept on hay beds in the back stalls, with homemade bedquilts wrapped round them, had been turned into a garage and smelled now of gasoline, oils and money transactions. A new brick market house stood on the site of the old wooden one. A Great White Way that was seven blocks long made the business district almost as bright as day after dark--almost, but not quite. There was talk of establishing a civic centre, with a regular plaza, and a fountain in the middle of the plaza. There was talk of trying the commission form of government. There was talk of adopting a town slogan; talk of an automobile club and of a country club. And now white labour, in place of black, worked on a construction job.

When, after many false alarms, the P. A. & O. V. got its Boaz Ridge Extension under way the contractors started with negro hands; but the gang bosses came from up North, whence the capital had likewise come, and they did not understand the negroes and the negroes did not understand them, and there was trouble from the go-off. If the bosses fraternised with the darkies the darkies loafed; if, taking the opposite tack, the bosses tried to drive the gangs under them with hard words the gangs grew sullen and insolent.

There was a middle ground, but the perplexed whites could not find it. A Southem-born overseer or a Southem-born steamboat mate could have harried the crews with loud profanity, with dire threats of mutilation and violent death, and they would have grinned back at him cheerfully and kept right on at their digging and their shovelling. But when a grading expert named Flaherty, from Chicago, Illinois, shook a freckled fist under the nose of one Dink Bailey, coloured, for whom, just the night before, he had bought drinks in a groggery, the aforesaid Dink Bailey tried to disarticulate him with a razor and made very fair headway toward the completion of the undertaking, considering he was so soon interrupted.

Having a time limit ever before their pestered eyes, it sorely irked the contractors that, whereas five hundred black, brown and yellow men might drop their tools Saturday night at six o'clock, a scant two hundred or so answered when the seven-o'clock whistle blew on Monday morning. The others came straggling back on Tuesday or Wednesday, or even on Thursday, depending on how long their wages held out.

“Whut I wants to go to work fur, Mist' W'ite Man? I got 'most two dollars lef.' Come round to see me w'en all dat's done spent and mebbe we kin talk bus'ness 'en.”

The above statement, made by a truant grading hand to an inquiring grading boss, was typical of a fairly common point of view on the side of Labour. And this one, below, which sprang from the exasperated soul of a visiting contractor, was just as typical, for it was the cry of outraged Capital:

“It takes two white men, standing over every black man, to make the black man work--and then he won't! I never was a Southern sympathiser before, but I am now--you bet!”