The Cromptons. Mary Jane Holmes
the cheers were so deafening. When they subsided he went on rapidly:
"I will build the house, too. Such an one as will not shame District No. 5 in Crompton. It shall be a model house, well lighted and ventilated, with broad, comfortable seats, especially for the little ones, whose feet shall touch the floor. It shall be commenced at once, and finished before the winter term."
He bowed and sat down, white and perspiring at every pore, and hardly knowing to what he had committed himself. The cheers were now a roar which went echoing out into the night, and were heard nearly as far as the village on the beach, the people wondering more and more at his generosity, and sudden interest in their little ones. And no one wondered more than himself. He did not care a picayune for children, nor whether their feet touched the floor or not, and he had not intended pledging himself to build the house when he began. But as he talked, the palmetto clearing stared him in the face, shutting out everything from his vision, except a long seat directly in front of him, on which several little girls whose feet could not touch the ground were fast asleep, their heads falling over upon each other, and the last one resting upon the arm of the settee. It was a pretty picture, and stirred in him feelings he had never experienced before. He would do something for the children, expiatory, he said to himself, as he sat down, thinking he ought to be the proudest and happiest of men to have the town called for him, and to stand so high in the esteem of his fellow citizens. What would they say if they knew what he did, and how cowardly he was because of his pride. Sometime they must know. It could not be otherwise, but he would put off the evil day as long as he could, and when, at last, his guests began to leave, and he went down to bid them good-night, his head was high with that air of patronage and superiority natural to him, and which the people tolerated because he was Col. Crompton.
That night he had a chill—the result of so much excitement to which he was not accustomed, he said to Peter, who brought him a hot-water bag and an extra blanket, and would like to have suggested his favorite remedies, quinine and cholagogue, but experience had taught him wisdom, and putting down the hot-water bag and blanket, he left the room with a casual remark about the fine day, and how well everything had passed off, "only a few men a little boozy," he said, "and three or four children with bruised heads caused by a fall from a swing."
The lawn-party had been a great success, and the Colonel knew he ought to be the happiest man in town, whereas he was the most miserable. He could not hear Mandy Ann's curses as she knelt on her mistress's grave, nor see her dusky arms swaying in the darkness to emphasize her maledictions. He didn't know there was a grave, but something weighed him down with unspeakable remorse. Every incident of his first visit South came back to him with startling vividness, making him wonder why God had allowed him to do what he had done. Then he remembered his trip on the "Hatty," when he kept himself aloof from everybody, with a morbid fear lest he should see some one who knew him, or had heard of him, or would meet him again. He remembered the log-house and his supper, when Mandy Ann served from a dinner-plate, and his napkin was a pocket handkerchief. He remembered the mumbling old woman in her chair; but most of all he remembered the girl who sat opposite him. Her face was always with him, and it came before him now, just as it was in the moonlight, when she said: "You can trust me. I will do the best I can."
She had stood with her hands upon the fence and he saw them as they looked then, and holding up his own he said, "They were little brown hands, but they should have been white like mine. Poor Dory!"
There was a throb of pity in his heart as his remorse increased, and the hot night seemed to quiver with the echo of Mandy Ann's "cuss him, cuss him wherever he may be, and if his bed is soff as wool doan' let him sleep a wink." His bed was soft as wool, but it had no attraction for him, and he sat with his hot-water bag and blanket until his chill passed, and was succeeded by a heat which made him put blanket and bag aside, and open both the windows of his room. The late moon had risen and was flooding the grounds with its light, bringing out distinctly the objects nearest to him. Some tables and chairs were left standing, a few lanterns were hanging in the trees, and in front of him was the long bench on which the little girls had been sleeping, with their feet from the ground, when he made his speech. The sight of this brought to his mind the day three years before when, just as his plans were perfected, there had come a letter which made him stagger as from a heavy blow, while all around him was chaos, dark and impenetrable. In most men the letter would have awakened a feeling of tenderness, but he was not like most men. He was utterly selfish, and prouder than any Crompton in the long line of that proud race, and, instead of tenderness or pity, he felt an intense anger against the fate which had thus dealt with him when he was trying to do right.
What to do next was the question, which Tom Hardy, as cold and unfeeling as himself, answered for him.
"You are in an awful mess," he wrote, "and the only course I see is to keep them supplied with money, and let things run until they come to a focus, as I suppose they must, though they may not. Florida is a long ways from Massachusetts. Few Northerners ever go to Enterprise, and if they do they may not hear of the clearing and its inmates. The girl is not over-bright. I beg your pardon, but she isn't, and will be apt to be quiet when she makes up her mind that she is deserted. The only one you have to fear is that nigger, Jake; but I reckon we can manage him; so cheer up and never make such an infernal fool of yourself again."
Something in this letter had grated on the Colonel's feelings—the reference to the girl, perhaps—but he had decided to follow Tom's advice, and let things run until they came to a focus. They had run pretty smoothly for three years, and only a few letters, forwarded by his friend who now lived in Palatka, and kept a kind of oversight of the clearing, came to trouble him. These he always burned, but he could not forget, and the past was always with him, not exactly as it was on the night after his lawn-party, when it seemed to him that all the powers of the bottomless pit had united against him, and if ever a man expiated his wrong-doing in remorse and mental pain he was doing it. The laudations of the crowd which had cheered him so lustily were of no account, nor the honor conferred by giving the town his name. Nothing helped him as he stood with the sweat rolling down his face, and looked out upon his handsome grounds, which he did not see because of the palmetto clearing, and the little child, and the young mother on whose grave the moon was shining. Mandy Ann's curse was surely taking effect, for no sleep came to him that night, and the next day found him worn and pale, and when Peter, sure of a malarious attack worse than usual, ventured to offer his cholagogue and quinine, he was sworn at, and told to take himself off with his infernal drugs.
"I am tired with yesterday's mob. I shall be better when I am rested, and get the taste out of my mouth of Tom, Dick, and Harry tramping over the premises," he thought.
This was not very complimentary to the Tom's, and Dick's, and Harry's who had tramped through his grounds, but they did not know his thoughts, and were full of the lawn-party, and the new school-house, the work on which was commenced early in August, when a large number of men appeared, and were superintended and urged on by the Colonel himself. He did not work, but he was there every day, issuing orders and making suggestions, and in this way managing to dissipate in part the cloud always hanging over him, and which before long was to assume a form which he could not escape.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CHILD OF THE CLEARING
The school-house was finished, and was a model of comfort and convenience. It was well lighted and ventilated, and every child of whatever age could touch its feet to the floor. If it were in any sense expiatory, it had proven a success, for the palmetto clearing did not haunt the Colonel as it had done on the day of the lawn-party. It was a long time since he had heard from there, and he was beginning to wonder if anything had happened, when Peter brought him an odd-looking letter, directed wrong side up, written with a pencil, and having about it a faint perfume of very bad tobacco. It