The Southerner. Jr. Thomas Dixon
Boy's gourds were placed beside the new garden and the noise of chattering martins echoed over the cabin. The toughened muscles of his strong, slim body no longer ached in rebellion at his tasks. Work had become a part of the rhythm of life. He could sing at his hardest task. The freedom and strength of the woods had gotten into his blood. In this world of waving trees, of birds and beasts, of laughing sky and rippling waters, there were no masters, no slaves. Millions in gold were of no value in its elemental struggle. Character, skill, strength and manhood only counted. Poverty was teaching him the first great lesson of human life, that man shall eat his bread in the sweat of his brow and that industry is the only foundation on which the moral and material universe has ever rested or can rest.
Solitude and the stimulus of his mother's mind were slowly teaching him to think—to think deeply and fearlessly, and think for himself.
Entering now in his ninth year, he was shy, reticent, over-grown, consciously awkward, homely and ill clad—he grew so rapidly it was impossible to make his clothes fit. But in the depths of his hazel-grey eyes there were slumbering fires that set him apart from the boys of his age. His mother saw and understood.
A child in years and yet he had already learned the secrets of the toil necessary to meet the needs of life. He swung a woodman's axe with any man. He could plow and plant a field, make its crop, harvest and store its fruits and cook them for the table. He could run, jump, wrestle, swim and fight when manhood called. He knew the language of the winds and clouds, and spoke the tongues of woods and field.
And he could read and write. His mother's passionate yearning and quenchless enthusiasm had placed in his hand the key to books and the secrets of the ages were his for the asking.
He would never see the walls of a college, but he had already taken his degree in Industry, Patience, Caution, Courage, Pity and Gentleness.
The beauty and glory of this remarkable spring brought him into still closer communion with his mother's spirit. They had read every story of the Bible, some of them twice or three times, and his stubborn mind had fought with her many a friendly battle over their teachings. Always too wise and patient to command his faith, she waited its growth in the fulness of time. He had read every tale in "Æsop's Fables" and brought a thousand smiles to his mother's dark face by his quaint comments. She was dreaming now of new books to place in his eager hands. Corn was ten cents a bushel, wheat twenty-five, and a cow was only worth six dollars. Whiskey, hams and tobacco were legal tender and used instead of money. She had ceased to dream of wealth in goods and chattels until conditions were changed. Her one aim in life was to train the minds of her children and to this joyous task she gave her soul and body. It was the only thing worth while. That God would give her strength for this was all she asked.
And then the great shadow fell.
The mother and children were walking home from the woods through the glory of the Southern spring morning in awed silence. The path was hedged with violets and buttercups. The sweet odor of grapevine, blackberry and dewberry blossoms filled the air. Dogwood and black-haw lit with white flame the farthest shadows of the forest and the music of birds seemed part of the mingled perfume of flowers.
The boy's keen ear caught the drone of bees and his sharp eye watched them climb slowly toward their storehouse in a towering tree. All nature was laughing in the madness of joy.
The Boy silently took his mother's hand and asked in subdued tones:
"What is the pest, Ma, and what makes it?"
"Nobody knows," she answered softly. "It comes like a thief in the night and stays for months and sometimes for years. They call it the 'milk-sick' because the cows die, too—and sometimes the horses. The old Indian women say it starts from the cows eating a poison flower in the woods. The doctors know nothing about it. It just comes and kills, that's all."
The little hand suddenly gripped hers with trembling hold:
"O Ma, if it kills you!"
A tender smile lighted her dark face as the warmth of his love ran like fire through her veins.
"It can't harm me, my son, unless God wills it. When he calls I shall be ready."
All the way home he clung to her hand and sometimes when they paused stroked it tenderly with both his.
"What's it like?" he asked at last. "Can't you take bitters for it in time to stop it? How do you know when it's come?"
"You begin to feel drowsy, a whitish coating is on the tongue, a burning in the stomach, the feet and legs get cold. You're restless and the pulse grows weak."
"How long does it last?"
"Sometimes it kills in three days, sometimes two weeks. Sometimes it's chronic and hangs on for years and then kills."
Every morning through the long black summer of the scourge he asked her with wistful tenderness if she were well. Her cheerful answers at last brought peace to his anxious heart and he gradually ceased to fear. She was too sweet and loving and God too good that she should die. Besides, both his father and mother had given him a lesson in quiet, simple heroism that steadied his nerves.
He looked at the rugged figure of his father with a new sense of admiration. He was no more afraid of Death than of Life. He was giving himself without a question in an utterly unselfish devotion to the stricken community. There were no doctors within thirty miles, and if one came he could but shake his head and advise simple remedies that did no good. Only careful nursing counted for anything. Without money, without price, without a murmur the father gave his life to this work. No neighbor within five miles was stricken that he did not find a place by that bedside in fearless, loving, unselfish service.
And when Death came, this simple friend went for his tools, cut down a tree, ripped the boards from its trunk, made the coffin, and with tender reverence dug a grave and lowered the loved one. He was doctor, nurse, casket-maker, grave-digger, comforter and priest. His reverent lips had long known the language of prayer.
With tireless zeal the mother joined in this ministry of love, and the Boy saw her slender dark figure walk so often beside trembling feet as they entered the valley of the great shadow, that he grew to believe that she led a charmed life. Nor did he fear when Dennis came one morning and in choking tones said that both his uncle and aunt were stricken in the little half-faced camp but a few hundred yards away. He was sorry for Dennis. He had never known father or mother—only this uncle and aunt.
"Don't you worry, Dennis," the Boy said tenderly. "You'll live with us if they die."
They both died within a few days. The night after the last burial, Dennis crawled into the loft with the Boy to be his companion for many a year.
And then the blow fell, swift, terrible and utterly unexpected. He had long ago made up his mind that God had flung about his mother's form the spell of his Almighty power and the pestilence that walked in the night dared not draw near. An angel with flaming sword stood beside their cabin door.
Last night in the soft moonlight a whip-poor-will was singing nearby and he fancied he saw the white winged sentinel, and laughed for joy.
When he climbed down from his loft next morning his mother was in bed and Sarah was alone over the fire cooking breakfast.
His heart stood still. He walked with unsteady step to her bedside and whispered:
"Are you sick, Ma?"
"Yes, dear, it has come."
He grasped her hot outstretched hand and fell on his knees in sobbing anguish. He knew now—it was the angel of Death he had seen.
XIII
Death stood at the door with drawn sword to slay not to defend, but the Boy resolved to fight. She should not give up—she should not die. He would fight for her with all the hosts of hell and