I.

One Saturday afternoon in the spring of 1876, as Farmer Joe-Bob Grissom was on his way to Hillsborough for the purpose of hearing the news and having an evening’s chat with his town acquaintances,—as was his invariable custom at the close of the week,—he saw, as he passed the old Bascom Place, an old gentleman and a young lady walking slowly along the road. The old gentleman was tall and thin, and had silvery white hair. He wore a high-crowned, wide-brimmed felt hat, and his clothes, though neat, were too glossy to be new. The young lady was just developing into womanhood. She had a striking face and figure. Her eyes were large and brilliantly black; her hair, escaping from under her straw hat with its scarlet ribbons, fell in dusky masses to her waist.

[193]

The two walked slowly, and occasionally they paused while the old gentleman pointed in various directions with his cane, as though impressing on the mind of his companion the whereabouts of certain interesting landmarks. They were followed at a little distance by a negro, who carried across his arm a light wrap which seemed to be a part of the outfit of the young lady.

As Farmer Joe-Bob Grissom passed the two, he bowed and tipped his hat by way of salutation. The old gentleman raised his hat and bowed with great courtliness, and the young lady nodded her head and smiled pleasantly at him. Farmer Joe-Bob was old enough to be grizzly, but the smile stirred him. It seemed to be a direct challenge to his memory. Where had he seen the young lady before? Where had he met the old gentleman? He was puzzled to such an extent that he paid no attention to the negro man, who touched his hat and bowed politely as the farmer passed—a fact that made the negro wonder a little; for day in and out he had known Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom nearly forty years, and never before had that worthy citizen failed to respond with a cordial “Howdy” when the negro took off his hat.

[194]

Farmer Joe-Bob Grissom walked on towards town, which was not far, and the old gentleman and the young lady walked slowly along the hedge of Cherokee roses that ran around the old Bascom Place, while the negro followed at a respectful distance. Once they paused, and the old gentleman rubbed his eyes with a hand that trembled a little.

“Why, darling!” he exclaimed in a tone of mingled grief and astonishment, “they have cut it down.”

“Cut what down, father?”

“Why, the weeping-willow. Don’t you remember it, daughter? It stood in the middle of the field yonder. It was a noble tree. Well, well, well! What next, I wonder?”

“I do not remember it, father; I have so much to”—

“Yes, yes,” the old gentleman interrupted. “Of course you couldn’t remember. The place has been so changed that I seem to have forgotten it myself. It has been turned topsy-turvy; it has been ruined—ruined!”

He leaned on his cane, and with quivering lips and moist eyes looked through the green perspective of the park, and over the fertile fields and meadows.

[195]

“Ruined!” exclaimed the young lady. “How can you say so, father? I never saw a more beautiful place. It would make a lovely picture.”

“And they have ruined the house, too. The whole roof has been changed.” The old man pulled his hat down over his eyes, his hand trembling more than ever. “Let us turn back, Mildred,” he said after a while. “The sight of all this frets and worries me more than I thought it would.”

“They say,” said the daughter, “that the gentleman who owns the place has made a good deal of money.”

“Yes,” replied the father, “I suppose so—I suppose so. Yes, so I have heard. A great many people are making money now who never made it before—a great many.”

“I wish they would tell us the secret,” said the young lady, laughing a little.

“There is no secret about it,” said the old gentleman; “none whatever. To make money you must be mean and niggardly yourself, and then employ others to be mean and niggardly for you.”

“Oh, it is not always so, father,” the young girl exclaimed.

“It was not always so, my daughter.[196] There was a time when one could make money and remain a gentleman; but that was many years ago.”

The young lady was apparently not anxious to continue the argument, for she lightly turned the conversation into a more agreeable channel; and so the two, still followed by the negro, made their way through the shaded streets of the town.

That evening, when Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom, after making some little purchases about town, went to the hotel, which he persisted in calling a tavern, he found Major Jimmy Bass engaged in a hot political discussion with a crowd which included a number of the townspeople, as well as a sprinkling of commercial travelers. Major Jimmy was one of the ancient and venerable landmarks of that region. He had once been an active politician, and had been engaged in political discussion for forty years or more. Old and fat as he was, he knew how to talk, and nothing pleased him more than to get hold of a stranger when a crowd of sympathetic fellow-citizens, young and old, was present to applaud the points he made.

Whenever Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom appeared in the veranda of the hotel he made[197] it a point to shake hands with every person present, friend and stranger alike. His politeness was a trifle elaborate, but it was genuine.

“Why, howdy, Joe-Bob, howdy!” exclaimed Major Bass with effusion. “You seem to turn up at the right time, like the spangled man in the circus. I’m glad you’ve come, an’ ef I’d ’a’ had my way you’d ’a’ come sooner, bekaze you’re jest a little too late fer to see me slap the argyments onto some of these here travelin’ drummers. They are gone now,” the major continued, with a sweeping gesture of his right arm. “They are gone, but I wisht mightily you’d ’a’ been here. New things is mortal nice, I know; but when these new-issue chaps set up to out-talk men that’s old enough to be their grand-daddy, it does me a sight of good fer to see ’em took down a peg er two.”

As soon as he could get in a word edgewise, farmer Joe-Bob Grissom attempted to turn the conversation in a direction calculated to satisfy his curiosity.

“Major,” he said in his deliberate way, “what’s this I see out yonder at the old Bascom Place?”

[198]

“The Lord only knows, Joe-Bob. What might be the complexion, er yet the character, of it?”

“Well,” said Mr. Grissom, “as I was makin’ to’rds town a little while ago, I seen some folks that don’t look like they b’long ’roun’ here. One of ’em was a old man, an’ t’ other one was a young gal, an’ a nigger man was a-follerin’ of ’em up—an’, ef I make no mistakes, the nigger man was your old Jess. I didn’t look close at the nigger, but arter I’d passed him it come to me that it wa’n’t nobody on the topside of the roun’ worl’ but Jess.”

“Why, bless your life an’ soul!” exclaimed Major Bass, giving farmer Joe-Bob a neighborly nudge, “don’t you know who them folks was? Well, well! Where’s your mind? Why, that was old Briscoe Bascom an’ his daughter.”

“I say it!” exclaimed farmer Joe-Bob, hitching his chair closer to the major.

“Yes, sir,” said the major, “that’s who it was. Why, where on earth have you been? The old Judge drapped in on the town some weeks ago, an’ he’s been here ever sence. He’s been here long enough for the gal to make up a school. Lord,[199] Lord! What a big swing the world’s in! High on one side, high on t’ other, an’ the old cat a-dyin, in the middle! Why, bless your heart, Joe-Bob! I’ve seed the time when ef old Judge Briscoe Bascom jest so much as bowed to me I’d feel proud fer a week. An’ now look at ’im! Ef I knowed I’d be took off wi’ the dropsy the nex’ minute, I wouldn’t swap places wi’ the poor old creetur.”

“But what is old Jess a-doin’ doggin’ ’long arter ’em that a-way?” inquired Mr. Grissom, knitting his shaggy eyebrows.

“That’s what pesters me,” exclaimed the major. “Ef niggers was ree-sponsible fer what they done, it would be wuss than what it is. Now you take Jesse: you needn’t tell me that nigger ain’t got sense; yit what does he do? You seen ’im wi’ your own eyes. Why, sir,” continued the major, growing more emphatic, “I bought that nigger from Judge Bascom’s cousin when he wa’n’t nothin’ but a youngster, an’ I took him home an’ raised him up right in the house,—yes, sir, right in the house,—an’ he’s been a-hangin’ ’roun’ me off an’ on, gittin’ his vittles, his clozes, an’ his lodgin’. Yit, look at him now! I wisht I may die[200] dead ef that nigger didn’t hitch onto old Judge Bascom the minute he landed in town. Yes, sir! I’m a-tellin’ you no lie. It’s a clean, naked fact. That nigger quit me an’ went an’ took up wi’ the old judge.”

“Well,” said Mr. Grissom, stroking his unshorn face, “you know what the sayin’ is: Niggers ’ll be niggers even ef you whitewash ’em twice a week.”

“Yes,” remarked the major thoughtfully; “I hope to goodness they’ve got souls, but I misdoubt it. Lord, yes, I misdoubt it mightily.”
II.

As Major Jimmy Bass used to say, the years cut many queer capers as they go by. The major in his own proper person had not only witnessed, but had been the victim, of these queer capers. Hillsborough was a very small place indeed, and, for that very reason perhaps, it was more sensitive to changes in the way of progress and decay than many larger and more ambitious towns.

However this may have been, it is certain that the town, assisted by the major, had noted the queer capers the years had cut in[201] the neighborhood of the old Bascom Place. This attitude on the part of Hillsborough—including, of course, Major Jimmy Bass—may be accounted for partly by the fact that the old place had once been the pride and delight of the town, and partly by the fact that the provincial eye and mind are nervously alert to whatever happens within range of their observation.

Before and during the war the Bascom Place was part and parcel of a magnificent estate. The domain was so extensive and so well managed that it was noted far and wide. Its boundary lines inclosed more than four thousand acres of forests and cultivated fields. This immense body of land was known as the old Bascom Place.

Bolling Bascom, its first owner, went to Georgia not long after the close of the Revolution, with a large number of Virginians who proposed to establish a colony in what was then the far South. The colony settled in Wilkes County; but Bolling Bascom, more adventurous than the rest, pushed on into middle Georgia, crossed the Oconee, and built him a home, and such was his taste, his energy, and his thrift, that the results thereof may be seen and admired in Hillsborough to this day.

[202]

But the man, like so many of his fellow-citizens then and thereafter, was land-hungry. He bought and bought until he had acquired the immense domain, which, by some special interposition of fate or circumstance, is still intact. Meantime he had built him a house which was in keeping with the extent and richness of his landed possessions. It was planned in the old colonial style, but its massive proportions were relieved by the tall red chimneys and the long and gracefully fashioned colonnade that gave both strength and beauty to the spacious piazza which ran, and still runs, the whole length of the house.

When Bolling Bascom died, in 1830, aged seventy years, as the faded inscription on the storm-beaten tablet in the churchyard shows, he left his son, Briscoe Bascom, to own and manage the vast estate. This son was thirty years old, and it was said of him that he inherited the gentle qualities of his mother rather than the fiery energy and ambition of his father.

Bolling Bascom was neither vicious nor reckless, but he was a thorough man of the world. He was, in short, a typical Virginian gentleman, who for his own purposes had settled in Georgia.

[203]

Whatever the cause of his emigration, it is certain that Georgia gained a good citizen. It was said of him that he was a little too fond of a fiddle, but with all his faults—with all his love for horse-racing and fox-hunting—he found time to be kind to his neighbors, generous to his friends, and the active leader of every movement calculated to benefit the State or the people; and it may be remarked in passing, that he also found time to look after his own affairs.

Naturally, he was prominent in politics. He represented his county in the legislature, was at one time a candidate for governor, and was altogether a man who had the love and the confidence of his neighbors. He gave his son the benefit of the best education the country afforded, and made the tour of Europe with him, going over the ground that he himself had gone over in his young days.

But his European trip, undertaken when he was an old man, was too much for him. He was seized with an illness on his return voyage, and, although he lived long enough to reach home, he never recovered. In a few years his wife died; and his son, with little or no experience in such matters,—since[204] his time had been taken up by the schools and colleges,—was left to manage the estate as best he could.

It was the desire of Bolling Bascom that his son should study law and make that profession a stepping-stone to a political career. He had been ambitious himself, and he hoped his son would also be ambitious. Besides, was not politics the most respectable of all the professions? This was certainly the view in Bolling Bascom’s day and time, and much might be said to support it. Of all the professions, politics opened up the one career best calculated to tickle the fancy of the rich young men.

To govern, to control, to make laws, to look after the welfare of the people, to make great speeches, to become statesmen—these were the ideas that filled the minds of ambitious men in Bolling Bascom’s time, and for years thereafter. And why not? There were the examples of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Randolph, Hamilton, Webster, Calhoun, and the Adamses of Massachusetts. What better could a young man do than to follow in the footsteps of these illustrious citizens?

It may be supposed, therefore, that Bolling[205] Bascom had mapped out a tremendous career for his son and heir. No doubt, as he sat dozing on his piazza in the long summer afternoons near the close of his life, he fancied he could hear the voice of his boy in the halls of legislation, or hear the wild shouts of the multitudes that greeted his efforts on the stump in the heat and fury of a campaign. But it was not to be. The stormy politics of that period had no charms for Briscoe Bascom. He was a student, and he preferred his book to the companionship of the crowd.

He possessed both courage and sociability in the highest degree, but he was naturally indolent, and he was proud—too indolent to find pleasure in the whirling confusion of active politics, and too proud to go about his county or his State in the attitude of soliciting the suffrages of his fellow-citizens. That he would have made his mark in politics is certain, for he made it at the bar, where success is much more dearly bought. He finally became judge of the superior court, at a time when the judges of the circuit courts met annually and formed a court of appeals. His decisions in this appellate court attracted attention all over the country,[206] and are still referred to in the legal literature of to-day as models of their kind.

And yet all that Briscoe Bascom accomplished at the bar and on the bench was the result of intuition rather than of industry. Indolence sat enthroned in his nature, patient but vigilant. When he retired from the bench, he gave up the law altogether. He might have reclaimed his large practice, but he preferred the ease and quiet of his home.

He was an old man before he married—old enough, that is to say, to marry a woman many years his junior. His wife had been reared in an atmosphere of extravagance; and although she was a young woman of gentle breeding and of the best intentions, it is certain that she did not go to the Bascom Place as its mistress for the purpose of stinting or economizing. She simply gave no thought to the future. But she was so bright and beautiful, so gentle and unaffected in speech and manner, so gracious and so winsome in all directions, that it seemed nothing more than natural and right that her every whim and wish should be gratified.

Judge Bascom was indulgent and more[207] than indulgent. He applauded his wife’s extravagance and followed her example. Before many years he began to reap some of the fruits thereof, and they were exceeding bitter to the taste. The longest purse that ever was made has a bottom to it, unless, indeed, it be lined with Franklin’s maxims.

The Judge was forty-eight years old when he married, and even before the beginning of the war he found his financial affairs in an uncomfortable condition. The Bascom Place was intact, but the pocket-book of its master was in a state bordering on collapse.

The slow but sure approach to the inevitable need not be described here. It is familiar to all people in all lands and times. In the case of Judge Bascom, however, the war was in the nature of a breathing-spell. It brought with it an era of extravagance that overshadowed everything that had been dreamed of theretofore. During the first two years there was money enough for everybody and to spare. It was manufactured in Richmond in great stacks. General Robert Toombs, who was an interested observer, has aptly described the facility with which the Confederacy supplied itself with money. “A dozen negroes,” said he, “printed[208] money on the hand-presses all day to supply the government, and then they worked until nine o’clock at night printing money enough to pay themselves off.”

Under these circumstances, Judge Bascom and his charming wife could be as extravagant or as economical as they pleased without attracting the attention of their neighbors or their creditors. Nobody had time to think or care about such small matters. The war-fever was at its height, and nothing else occupied the attention of the people. The situation was so favorable, indeed, that Judge Bascom began to redeem his fortune—in Confederate money. He had land enough and negroes a plenty, and so he saved his money by storing it away; and he was so successful in this business that it is said that when the war closed he had a wagon-load of Confederate notes and shin-plaster packed in trunks and chests.

The crash came when General Sherman went marching through Hillsborough. The Bascom Place, being the largest and the richest plantation in that neighborhood, suffered the worst. Every horse, every mule, every living thing with hide and hoof, was driven off by the Federals; and a majority[209] of the negroes went along with the army. It was often said of Judge Bascom that “he had so many negroes he didn’t know them when he met them in the big road;” and this was probably true. His negroes knew him, and knew that he was a kind master in many respects, but they had no personal affection for him. They were such strangers to the Judge that they never felt justified in complaining to him even when the overseers ill-treated them. Consequently, when Sherman went marching along, the great majority of them bundled up their little effects and followed after the army. They had nothing to bind them to the old place. The house-servants, and a few negroes in whom the Judge took a personal interest, remained, but all the rest went away.

Then, in a few months, came the news of the surrender, bringing with it a species of paralysis or stupefaction from which the people were long in recovering—so long, indeed, that some of them died in despair, while others lingered on the stage, watching, with dim eyes and trembling limbs, half-hopefully and half-fretfully, the representatives of a new generation trying to build up the waste places. There was nothing left[210] for Judge Bascom to do but to take his place among the spectators. He would have returned to his law-practice, but the people had well-nigh forgotten that he had ever been a lawyer; moreover, the sheriffs were busier in those days than the lawyers. He had the incentive,—for the poverty of those days was pinching,—but he lacked the energy and the strength necessary to begin life anew. He and hundreds like him were practically helpless. Ordinarily experience is easily learned when necessity is the teacher, but it was too late for necessity to teach Judge Bascom anything. During all his life he had never known what want was. He had never had occasion to acquire tact, business judgment, or economy. Inheriting a vast estate, he had no need to practice thrift or become familiar with the shifty methods whereby business men fight their way through the world. Of all such matters he was entirely ignorant.

To add to his anxiety, a girl had been born to him late in life, his first and only child. In his confusion and perplexity he was prepared to regard the little stranger as merely a new and dreadful responsibility, but it was not long before his daughter was[211] a source of great comfort to him. Yet, as the negroes said, she was not a “luck-child;” and bad as the Judge’s financial condition was, it grew steadily worse.

Briefly, the world had drifted past him and his contemporaries and left them stranded. Under the circumstances, what was he to do? It is true he had a magnificent plantation, but this merely added to his poverty. Negro labor was demoralized, and the overseer class had practically disappeared. He would have sold a part of his landed estate; indeed, so pressing were his needs that he would have sold everything except the house which his father had built, and where he himself was born,—that he would not have parted with for all the riches in the world,—but there was nobody to buy. The Judge’s neighbors and his friends, with the exception of those who had accustomed themselves to seizing all contingencies by the throat and wresting tribute from them, were in as severe a strait as he was; and to make matters worse, the political affairs of the State were in the most appalling condition. It was the period of reconstruction—a scheme that paralyzed all whom it failed to corrupt.

[212]

Finally the Judge’s wife took matters into her own hand. She had relatives in Atlanta, and she prevailed on him to go to that lively and picturesque town. He closed his house, being unable to rent it, and became a citizen of the thrifty city. He found himself in a new atmosphere. The north Georgia crackers, the east Tennesseeans,—having dropped their “you-uns” and “we-uns,”—and the Yankees had joined hands in building up and pushing Atlanta forward. Business was more important than politics; and the rush and whirl of men and things were enough to make a mere spectator dizzy. Judge Bascom found himself more helpless than ever; but through the influence of his wife’s brother he was appointed to a small clerkship in one of the State departments, and—“Humiliation of humiliations!” his friends exclaimed—he promptly accepted it, and became a part of what was known as the “carpet-bag” government. The appointment was in the nature of a godsend, but the Judge found himself ostracized. His friends and acquaintances refused to return his salutation as he met them on the street. To a proud and sensitive man this was the bitterness of death, but Judge Bascom[213] stuck to his desk and made no complaint.

By some means or other, no doubt through the influence of Mrs. Bascom, the Judge’s brother-in-law, a thrifty and not over-scrupulous man, obtained a power of attorney, and sold the Bascom Place, house and all, to a gentleman from western New York who was anxious to settle in middle Georgia. Just how much of the purchase-money went into the Judge’s hands it is impossible to say, but it is known that he fell into a terrible rage when he was told that the house had been sold along with the place. He denounced the sale as a swindle, and declared that as he had been born in the house he would die there, and not all the powers of earth could prevent him.

But the money that he received was a substantial thing as far as it went. Gradually he found himself surrounded by various comforts that he had sadly missed, and in time he became somewhat reconciled to the sale, though he never gave up the idea that he would buy the old place back and live there again. The idea haunted him day and night.

After the downfall of the carpet-bag[214] administration a better feeling took possession of the people and politicians, and it was not long before Judge Bascom found congenial work in codifying the laws of the State, which had been in a somewhat confused and tangled condition since the war. Meanwhile his daughter Mildred was growing up, developing remarkable beauty as well as strength of mind. At a very early age she began to “take the responsibility,” as the Judge put it, of managing the household affairs, and she continued to manage them even while going to school. At school she won the hearts of teachers and pupils, not less by her aptitude in her books than by her beauty and engaging manners.

But in spite of the young girl’s management—in spite of the example she set by her economy—the Judge and his wife continued to grow poorer and poorer. Neither of them knew the value of a dollar, and the money that had been received from the sale of the Bascom Place was finally exhausted. About this time Mrs. Bascom died, and the Judge was so prostrated by his bereavement that it was months before he recovered. When he did recover he had lost all interest in his work of codification,[215] but it was so nearly completed and was so admirably done that the legislature voted him extra pay. This modest sum the daughter took charge of, and when her father was well enough she proposed that they return to Hillsborough, where they could take a small house, and where she could give music lessons and teach a primary school. It need not be said that the Judge gave an eager assent to the proposition.
III.

As Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom passed the Bascom Place on his way home, after gathering from Major Jimmy Bass all the news and gossip of the town, he heard Mr. Francis Underwood, the owner of the Place, walking up and down the piazza, singing. Mr. Underwood appeared to be in a cheerful mood, and he had a right to be. He was young,—not more than thirty,—full of life, and the world was going on very well with him. Mr. Grissom paused a moment and listened; then he made up his mind to go in and have a chat with the young man. He opened the gate and went up the avenue under the cedars and Lombardy poplars. A little[216] distance from the house he was stopped by a large mastiff. The great dog made no attempt to attack him, but majestically barred the way.

“Squire,” yelled Joe-Bob, “ef you’ll call off your dog, I’ll turn right ’roun’ an’ go home an’ never bother you no more.”

“Is that you, Joe-Bob?” exclaimed Mr. Underwood. “Well, come right on. The dog won’t trouble you.”

The dog thereupon turned around and went up the avenue to the house and into the porch, where he stretched himself out at full length, Joe-Bob following along at a discreet distance.

“Come in,” said Underwood heartily; “I’m glad to see you. Take this large rocking-chair; you will find it more comfortable than the smaller one.”

Mr. Grissom sat down and looked cautiously around to see where the dog was.

“I did come, Squire,” he said, “to see you on some kinder business, but that dratted dog has done skeered it clean out ’n me.”

“Prince is a faithful watcher,” said Underwood, “but he never troubles any one who is coming straight to the house. Do you, old fellow?” The dog rapped an answer on the floor with his tail.

[217]

“Well,” said Joe-Bob, “I’d as lief be tore up into giblets, mighty nigh, as to have my sev’m senses skeered out’n me. What I’m afeared of now,” he went on, “is that that dog will jump over the fence some day an’ ketch old Judge Bascome whilst he’s a-pirootin’ ’roun’ here a-lookin’ at the old Place. An’ ef he don’t ketch the Judge, it’s more’n likely he’ll ketch the Judge’s gal. I seen both of ’em this very evenin’ whilst I was a-goin’ down town.”

“Was that the Judge?” exclaimed young Mr. Underwood, with some show of interest; “and was the lady his daughter? I heard they had returned.”

“That was jest percisely who it was,” said Joe-Bob with emphasis. “It wa’n’t nobody else under the shinin’ sun.”

“Well,” said Mr. Underwood, “I have seen them walking by several times. It is natural they should be interested in the Place. The old gentleman was born here?”

“Yes,” said Joe-Bob, “an’ the gal too. They tell me,” he went on, “that the old Judge an’ his gal have seed a many ups an’ downs. I reckon they er boun’ fer to feel lonesome when they come by an’ look at the prop’ty that use’ to be theirn. I hear tell[218] that the old Judge is gwine to try an’ see ef he can’t git it back.”

Francis Underwood said nothing, but sat gazing out into the moonlight as if in deep thought.

“I thinks, says I,” continued Joe-Bob, “that the old Judge’ll have to be lots pearter ’n he looks to be ef he gits ahead of Squire Underwood.”

The “Squire” continued to gaze reflectively down the dim perspective of cedars and Lombardy poplars. Finally he said:—

“Have a cigar, old man. These are good ones.”

Joe-Bob took the cigar and lighted it, handling it very gingerly.

“I ain’t a denyin’ but what they are good, Squire, but somehow er nuther me an’ these here fine seegyars don’t gee,” said Joe-Bob, as he puffed away. “They’re purty toler’ble nice, but jest about the time I git in the notion of smokin’ they’re done burnted up, an’ then ef you ain’t got sev’m or eight more, it makes you feel mighty lonesome. Now I’ll smoke this’n’, an’ it’ll sorter put my teeth on edge fer my pipe, an’ when I git home I’ll set up an’ have a right nice time.”

[219]

“And so you think,” said Underwood, speaking as if he had not heard Joe-Bob’s remarks about the cigar—“and so you think Judge Bascom has come to buy the old Place.”

“No, no!” said Joe-Bob, with a quick deprecatory gesture. “Oh, no, Squire! not by no means! No, no! I never said them words. What I did say was that it’s been talked up an’ down that the old Judge is a-gwine to try to git his prop’ty back. That’s what old Major Jimmy Bass said he heard, an’ I thinks, says I, he’ll have to be monst’us peart ef he gits ahead of Squire Underwood. That’s what I said to myself, an’ then I ast old Major Jimmy, says I, what the Judge would do wi’ the prop’ty arter he got it, an’ Major Jimmy, he ups an’ says, says he, that the old Judge would sell it back to Frank Underwood, says he.”

The young man threw back his head and laughed heartily, not less at the comical earnestness of Joe-Bob Grissom than at the gossip of Major Jimmy Bass.

“It seems, then, that we are going to have lively times around here,” said Underwood, by way of comment.

“Yes, siree,” exclaimed Joe-Bob; “that’s[220] what Major Jimmy Bass allowed. Do you reckon, Squire,” he continued, lowering his voice as though the matter was one to be approached cautiously, “do you reckon, Squire, they could slip in on you an’ trip you up wi’ one of ’em writs of arousement or one of ’em bills of injectment?”

“Not unless they catch me asleep,” replied Underwood, still laughing. “We get up very early in the morning on this Place.”

“Well,” said Joe-Bob Grissom, “I ain’t much of a lawyer myself, an’ so I thought I’d jest drap in an’ tell you the kind of talk what they’ve been a-rumorin’ ’roun’. But I’ll tell you what you kin do, Squire. Ef the wust comes to the wust, you kin make the old Judge an’ the gal take you along wi’ the Place. Now them would be my politics.”

With that Joe-Bob gave young Underwood a nudge in the short ribs, and chuckled to such an extent that he nearly strangled himself with cigar smoke.

“I think I would have the best of the bargain,” said the young man.

“Now you would! you reely would!” exclaimed Joe-Bob in all seriousness. “I can’t tell you the time when I ever seed a[221] likelier gal than that one wi’ the Judge this evenin’. As we say down here in Georgia, she’s the top of the pot an’ the pot a-b’ilin’. I tell you that right pine-blank.”

After a little, Mr. Grissom rose to go. When Mr. Underwood urged him to sit longer, he pointed to the sword and belt of Orion hanging low in the southwest.

“The ell an’ yard are a-makin’ the’r disappearance,” he said; “an’ ef I stay out much longer, my old ’oman’ll think I’ve been a-settin’ up by a jug somewheres. Now ef you’ll jest hold your dog, Squire, I’ll go out as peaceful as a lamb.”

“Why, I was just going to propose to send him down to the big gate with you,” said young Underwood. “He’ll see you safely out.”

“No, no, Squire!” exclaimed Joe-Bob, holding up both hands. “Now don’t do the like of that. I don’t like too much perliteness in folks, an’ I know right well I couldn’t abide it in a dog. No, Squire; jest hold on to the creetur’ wi’ both hands, an’ I’ll find my way out. Jest ketch him by the forefoot. I’ve heard tell before now that ef you’ll hold a dog by his forefoot he can’t git loose, an’ nuther kin he bite you.”

[222]

Long after Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom had gone home young Francis Underwood sat in his piazza smoking and thinking. He had a good deal to think about, too, for he was perhaps the busiest and the thriftiest person that Hillsborough had ever seen. He had a dairy farm stocked with the choicest strains of Jersey cattle, and he shipped hundreds of pounds of golden butter all over the country every week in the year; he bred Percheron horses for farm-work and trotting-horses for the road; he had a flourishing farm on which he raised, in addition to his own supplies, a hundred or more bales of cotton every year; he had a steam saw-mill and cotton-gin; he was a contractor and builder; and he was also an active partner in the largest store in Hillsborough. Moreover he took a lively interest in the affairs of the town. His energy and his progressive ideas seemed to be contagious, for in a few years the sleepy old town had made tremendous strides, and everything appeared to move forward with an air of business—such is the force of a genial and robust example.

There is no doubt that young Underwood was somewhat coolly received when he first[223] made his appearance in Hillsborough. He was a New Yorker and therefore a Yankee; and some of the older people, who were still grieving over the dire results of the war, as old people have a right to do, made no concealment of their prejudices. Their grief was too bitter to be lightly disposed of. Perhaps the young man appreciated this fact, for his sympathies were wonderfully quick and true. At any rate, he carried himself as buoyantly and as genially in the face of prejudice as he did afterwards in the face of friendship.

The truth is, prejudice could not stand before him. He had that magnetic personality which is a more precious possession than fame or fortune. There was something attractive even in his restless energy; he had that heartiness of manner and graciousness of disposition that are so rare among men; and, withal, a spirit of independence that charmed the sturdy-minded people with whom he cast his lot. It was not long before the younger generation began to seek Mr. Underwood out, and after this the social ice, so to speak, thawed quickly.

In short, young Underwood, by reason of a strong and an attractive individuality, became[224] a very prominent citizen of Hillsborough. He found time, in the midst of his own business enterprises, to look after the interests of the town and the county. One of his first movements was to organize an agricultural society which held its meeting four times a year in different parts of the county. It was purely a local and native suggestion, however, that made it incumbent on the people of the neighborhood where the Society met to grace the occasion with a feast in the shape of a barbecue. The first result of the agricultural society—which still exists, and which has had a wonderful influence on the farmers of middle Georgia—was a county fair, of which Mr. Underwood was the leading spirit. It may be said, indeed, that his energy and his money made the fair possible. And it was a success. Young Underwood had not only canvassed the county, but he had “worked it up in the newspapers,” as the phrase goes, and it tickled the older citizens immensely to see the dailies in the big cities of Atlanta, Macon, and Savannah going into rhetorical raptures over their fair.

As a matter of fact, Francis Underwood, charged with the fiery energy of a modern[225] American, found it a much easier matter to establish himself in the good graces of the people of Hillsborough and the surrounding country than did Judge Bascom when he returned to his old home with his lovely daughter. Politically speaking, he had committed the unpardonable sin when he accepted office under what was known as the carpet-bag government. It was an easy matter—thus the argument ran—to forgive and respect an enemy, but it was hardly possible to forgive a man who had proved false to his people and all their traditions—who had, in fact, “sold his birthright for a mess of pottage,” to quote the luminous language employed by Colonel Bolivar Blasingame in discussing the return of Judge Bascom. It is due to Colonel Blasingame to say that he did not allude to the sale of the Bascom Place, but to the fact that Judge Bascom had drawn a salary from the State treasury while the Republicans were in power in Georgia.

This was pretty much the temper of the older people of Hillsborough even in 1876. They had no bitter prejudices against the old Judge; they were even tolerant and kindly; but they made it plain to him that[226] he was regarded in a new light, and from a new standpoint. He was made to feel that his old place among them must remain vacant; that the old intimacies were not to be renewed. But this was the price that Judge Bascom was willing to pay for the privilege of spending his last days within sight of the old homestead. He made no complaints, nor did he signify by word or sign, even to his daughter, that everything was not as it used to be.

As for the daughter, she was in blissful ignorance of the situation. She was a stranger among strangers, and so was not affected by the lack of sociability on the part of the townspeople—if, indeed, there was any lack so far as she was concerned. The privations she endured in common with her father were not only sufficient to correct all notions of vanity or self-conceit, but they had given her a large experience of life; they had broadened her views and enlarged her sympathies, so that with no sacrifice of the qualities of womanly modesty and gentleness she had grown to be self-reliant. She attracted all who came within range of her sweet influence, and it was not long before she had broken down all the barriers[227] that prejudice against her father might have placed in her way. She established a primary school, and what with her duties there and with her music-class she soon had as much as she could do, and her income from these sources was sufficient to support herself and her father in a modest way; but it was not sufficient to carry out her father’s plans, and this fact distressed her no little.

Sometimes Judge Bascom, sitting in the narrow veranda of the little house they occupied, would suddenly arouse himself, as if from a doze, and exclaim:—

“We must save money, daughter; we must save money and buy the old Place back. It is ours. We must have it; we must save money.” And sometimes, in the middle of the night, he would go to his daughter’s bedside, stroke her hair, and say in a whisper:—

“We are not saving enough money, daughter; we must save more. We must buy the old Place back. We must save it from ruin.”
IV.

There was one individual in Hillsborough who did not give the cold shoulder to[228] Judge Bascom on his return, and that was the negro Jesse, who had been bought by Major Jimmy Bass some years before the war from Merriwether Bascom, a cousin of the Judge. Jesse made no outward demonstration of welcome; he was more practical than that. He merely went to his old master with whom he had been living since he became free, and told him that he was going to find employment elsewhere.

“Why, what in the nation!” exclaimed Major Bass. “Why, what’s the matter, Jess?”

The very idea was preposterous. In the Bass household the negro was almost indispensable. He was in the nature of a piece of furniture that holds its own against all fashions and fills a place that nothing else can fill.

“Dey ain’t nothin’ ’t all de matter, Marse Maje. I des took it in my min’, like, dat I’d go off some’r’s roun’ town en set up fer myse’f,” said Jesse, scratching his head in a dubious way. He felt very uncomfortable.

“Has anybody hurt your feelin’s, Jess?”

“No, suh! Lord, no, suh, dat dey ain’t!” exclaimed Jesse, with the emphasis of astonishment. “Nobody ain’t pester me.”

[229]

“Ain’t your Miss Sarah been rushin’ you roun’ too lively fer to suit your notions?”

“No, suh.”

“Ain’t she been a-quarrelin’ after you about your work?”

“No, Marse Maje; she ain’t say a word.”

“Well, then, Jess, what in the name of common sense are you gwine off fer?” The major wanted to argue the matter.

“I got it in my min’, Marse Maje, but I dunno ez I kin git it out straight.” Jesse leaned his cane against the house, and placed his hat on the steps, as if preparing for a lengthy and elaborate explanation. “Now den, hit look dis way ter me, des like I’m gwine ter tell you. I ain’t nothin’ but a nigger, I know dat mighty well, en nobody don’t hafter tell me. I’m a nigger, en you a white man. You’re a-settin’ up dar in de peazzer, en I’m a-stan’in’ down yer on de groun’. I been wid you a long time; you treat me well, you gimme plenty vittles, en you pay me up when you got de money, en I hustle roun’ en do de bes’ I kin in de house en in de gyarden. Dat de way it been gwine on; bofe un us feel like it all sati’factual. Bimeby it come over me dat maybe I kin do mo’ work dan what I been a-doin’ en[230] git mo’ money. Hit work roun’ in my min’ dat I better be layin’ up somepin’ n’er fer de ole ’oman en de chillun.”

“Well!” exclaimed Major Bass with a snort. It was all he could say.

“En den ag’in,” Jesse went on, “one er de ole fambly done come back ’long wid his daughter. Marse Briscoe Bascom en Miss Mildred dey done come back, en dey ain’t got nobody fer ter he’p um out no way; en my ole ’oman she say dat ef I got any fambly feelin’ I better go dar whar Marse Briscoe is.”

For some time Major Jimmy Bass sat silent. He was shocked and stunned. Finally Jesse picked up his hat and cane and started to go. As he brushed his hat with his coat-sleeve his old master saw that he was rigged out in his Sunday clothes. As he moved away the major called him:—

“Oh, Jess!”

“Suh?”

“I allers knowed you was a durned fool, Jess, but I never did know before that you was the durndest fool in the universal world.”

Jesse made no reply, and the major went into the house. When he told his wife[231] about Jesse’s departure, that active-minded and sharp-tongued lady was very angry.

“Indeed, and I’m glad of it,” she exclaimed as she poured out the major’s coffee; “I’m truly glad of it. For twenty-five years that nigger has been laying around here doing nothing, and we a-paying him. But for pity’s sake I’d ’a’ drove him off the lot long ago. You mayn’t believe it, but that nigger is ready and willing to eat his own weight in vittles every week the Lord sends. I ain’t sorry he’s gone, but I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to give him a piece of my mind. Now, don’t you go to blabbing it around, like you do everything else, that Jesse has gone and left us to go with old Briscoe Bascom.”

Major Bass said he wouldn’t, and he didn’t, and that is the reason he expressed surprise when Joe-Bob Grissom informed him that Jesse was waiting on the old Judge and his daughter. Major Jimmy was talkative and fond of gossip, but he had too much respect for his wife’s judgment and discretion to refuse to toe the mark, even when it was an imaginary one.

The Bascom family had no claim whatever on Jesse, but he had often heard his[232] mother and other negroes boasting over that they had once belonged to the Bascoms, and fondness for the family was the result of both tradition and instinct. He had that undefined and undefinable respect for people of quality that is one of the virtues, or possibly one of the failings, of human nature. The nearest approach to people of quality, so far as his experience went, was to be found in the Bascom family, and he had never forgotten that he had belonged to an important branch of it. He held it as a sort of distinction. Feeling thus, it is no wonder that he was ready to leave a comfortable home at Major Jimmy Bass’s for the privilege of attaching himself and his fortunes to those of the Judge and his daughter. Jesse made up his mind to take this step as soon as the Bascoms returned to Hillsborough, and he made no delay in carrying out his intentions.

Early one morning, not long after Judge Bascom and his daughter had settled themselves in the modest little house which they had selected because the rent was low, Mildred heard some one cutting wood in the yard. Opening her window blinds a little, she saw that the axe was wielded by a stalwart[233] negro a little past middle age. Her father was walking up and down the sidewalk on the outside with his hands behind him, and seemed to be talking to himself.

A little while afterwards Mildred went into the kitchen. She found a fire burning in the stove, and everything in noticeably good order, but the girl she had employed to help her about the house was nowhere to be seen. Whereupon the young lady called her—

“Elvira!”

At this the negro dropped his axe and went into the kitchen.

“Howdy, Mistiss?”

“Have you seen Elvira?” Mildred asked.

“Yes’m, she wuz hangin’ roun’ yer when I come roun’ dis mornin’. I went in dar, ma’m, en I see how de kitchen wuz all messed up, en den I sont her off. She de mos’ no ’countest nigger gal what I ever laid my two eyes on. I’m name’ Jesse, ma’m, en I use’ ter b’long ter de Bascom fambly when I wuz a boy. Is you ready fer breakfus, Mistiss?”

“Has my father—has Judge Bascom employed you?” Mildred asked. Jesse laughed as though enjoying a good joke.

[234]

“No ’m, dat he ain’t! I des come my own se’f, kaze I know’d in reason you wuz gwine ter be in needance er somebody. Lord, no ’m, none er de Bascoms don’t hafter hire me, ma’m.”

“And who told you to send Elvira away?” Mildred inquired, half vexed and half amused.

“Nobody ain’t tell me, ma’m,” Jesse replied. “When I come she wuz des settin’ in dar by de stove noddin’, en de whole kitchen look like it been tored up by a harrycane. I des shuck her up, I did, en tell her dat if dat de way she gwine do, she better go ’long back en stay wid her mammy.”

“Well, you are very meddlesome,” said Mildred. “I don’t understand you at all. Who is going to cook breakfast?”

“Mistiss, I done tell you dat breakfus is all ready en a-waitin’,” exclaimed Jesse in an injured tone. “I made dat gal set de table, en dey ain’t nothin’ ter do but put de vittles on it.”

It turned out to be a very good breakfast, too, such as it was. Jesse thought while he was preparing it that it was a very small allowance for two hearty persons. But the[235] secret of its scantiness cropped out while the Judge and his daughter were eating.

“These biscuits are very well cooked. But there are too many of them. My daughter, we must pinch and save; it will only be for a little while. We must have the old Place back; we must rake and scrape, and save money and buy it back. And this coffee is very good, too,” he went on; “it has quite the old flavor. I thought the girl was too young, but she’s a good cook—a very good cook indeed.”

Jesse, who had taken his stand behind the Judge’s chair, arrayed in a snow-white apron, moved his body uneasily from one foot to the other. Mildred, glad to change the conversation, told her father about Jesse.

“Ah, yes,” said Judge Bascom, in his kindly, patronizing way; “I saw him in the yard. And he used to belong to the Bascoms? Well, well, it must have been a long time ago. This is Jesse behind me? Stand out there, Jesse, and let me look at you. Ah, yes, a likely negro; a very likely negro indeed. And what Bascom did you belong to, Jesse? Merriwether Bascom! Why, to be sure; why, certainly!”[236] the Judge continued with as much animation as his feebleness would admit of. “Why, of course, Merriwether Bascom. Well, well, I remember him distinctly. A rough-and-tumble sort of man he was, fighting, gambling, horse-racing, always on the wing. A good man at bottom, but wild. And so you belonged to Merriwether Bascom? Well, boy, once a Bascom always a Bascom. We’ll have the old Place back, Jesse, we’ll have it back: but we must pinch ourselves; we must save.”

Thus the old Judge rambled on in his talk. But no matter what the subject, no matter how far his memory and his experiences carried him away from the present, he was sure to return to the old Place at last. He must have it back. Every thought, every idea, was subordinate to this. He brooded over it and talked of it waking, and he dreamed of it sleeping. It was the one thought that dominated every other. Money must be saved, the old Place must be bought, and to that end everything must tend. The more his daughter economized the more he urged her to economize. His earnestness and enthusiasm impressed and influenced the young girl in a larger measure[237] than she would have been willing to acknowledge, and unconsciously she found herself looking forward to the day when her father and herself would be able to call the Bascom Place their own. In the Judge the thought was the delusion of old age, in the maiden it was the dream of youth; and pardonable, perhaps, in both.

Their hopes and desires running thus in one channel, they loved to wander of an evening in the neighborhood of the old Place—it was just in the outskirts of the town—and long for the time when they should take possession of their home. On these occasions Mildred, by way of interesting her father, would suggest changes to be made.

“The barn is painted red,” she would say. “I think olive green would be prettier.”

“No,” the Judge would reply; “we will have the barn removed. It was not there in my time. It is an innovation. We will have it removed a mile away from the house. We will make many changes. There are hundreds of acres in the meadow yonder that ought to be in cotton. In my time we tried to kill grass, but this man is doing his best to propagate it. Look at that field of Bermuda[238] there. Two years of hard work will be required to get the grass out.”

Once while the Judge and his daughter were passing by the old Place they met Prince, the mastiff, in the road. The great dog looked at the young lady with kindly eyes, and expressed his approval by wagging his tail. Then he approached and allowed her to fondle his lionlike head, and walked by her side, responding to her talk in a dumb but eloquent way. Prince evidently thought that the young lady and her father were going in the avenue gate and to the house, for when they got nearly opposite, the dog trotted on ahead, looking back occasionally, as if by that means to extend them an invitation and to assure them that they were welcome. At the gate he stopped and turned around, and seeing that the fair lady and the old gentleman were going by, he dropped his bulky body on the ground in a disconsolate way and watched them as they passed down the street.

The next afternoon Prince made it a point to watch for the young lady; and when she and her father appeared in sight he ran to meet them and cut up such unusual capers, barking and running around, that his master[239] went down the avenue to see what the trouble was. Mr. Underwood took off his hat as Judge Bascom and his daughter drew near.

“This is Judge Bascom, I presume,” he said. “My name is Underwood. I am glad to meet you.”

“This is my daughter, Mr. Underwood,” said the Judge, bowing with great dignity.

“My dog has paid you a great compliment, Miss Bascom,” said Francis Underwood. “He makes few friends, and I have never before seen him sacrifice his dignity to his enthusiasm.”

“I feel highly flattered by his attentions,” said Mildred, laughing. “I have read somewhere, or heard it said, that the instincts of a little child and a dog are unerring.”

“I imagine,” said the Judge, in his dignified way, “that instinct has little to do with the matter. I prefer to believe”—He paused a moment, looked at Underwood, and laid his hand on the young man’s stalwart shoulder. “Did you know, sir,” he went on, “that this place, all these lands, once belonged to me?” His dignity had vanished, his whole attitude changed. The pathos in his voice, which was suggested[240] rather than expressed, swept away whatever astonishment Francis Underwood might have felt. The young man looked at the Judge’s daughter and their eyes met. In that one glance, transitory though it was, he found his cue; in her lustrous eyes, proud yet appealing, he read a history of trouble and sacrifice.

“Yes,” Underwood replied, in a matter-of-fact way. “I knew the place once belonged to you, and I have been somewhat proud of the fact. We still call it the Bascom Place, you know.”

“I should think so!” exclaimed the Judge, bridling up a little; “I should think so! Pray what else could it be called?”

“Well, it might have been called Grasslands, you know, or The Poplars, but somehow the old name seemed to suit it best. I like to think of it as the Bascom Place.”

“You are right, sir,” said the Judge with emphasis; “you are right, sir. It is the Bascom Place. All the powers of earth cannot strip us of our name.”

Again Underwood looked at the young girl, and again he read in her shining but apprehensive eyes the answer he should make.

[241]

“I have been compelled to add some conveniences—I will not call them improvements—and I have made some repairs, but I have tried to preserve the main and familiar features of the Place.”

“But the barn there; that is not where it should be. It should be a mile away—on the creek.”

“That would improve appearances, no doubt; but if you were to get out at four or five o’clock in the morning and see to the milking of twelve or fifteen cows, I dare say you would wish the barn even nearer than it is.”

“Yes, yes, I suppose so,” responded the Judge; “yes, no doubt. But it was not there in my time—not in my time.”

“I have some very fine cows,” Underwood went on. “Won’t you go in and look at them? I think they would interest Miss Bascom, and my sister would be glad to meet her. Won’t you go in, sir, and look at the old house?”

The Judge turned his pale and wrinkled face towards his old home.

“No,” he said, “not now. I thank you very much. I—somehow—no, sir, I cannot go now.”

[242]

His hand shook as he raised it to his face, and his lips trembled as he spoke.

“Let us go home, daughter,” he said after a while. “We have walked far enough.” He bowed to young Underwood, and Mildred bade him good-bye with a troubled smile.

Prince went with them a little way down the street. He walked by the side of the lady, and her pretty hand rested lightly on the dog’s massive head. It was a beautiful picture, Underwood thought, as he stood watching them pass out of sight.

“You are a lucky dog,” he said to Prince when the latter came back, “but you don’t appreciate your privileges. If you did you would have gone home with that lovely woman.” Prince wagged his tail, but it is doubtful if he fully understood the remark.
V.

One Sunday morning, as Major Jimmy Bass was shaving himself, he heard a knock at the back door. The major had his coat and waistcoat off and his suspenders were hanging around his hips. He was applying the lather for the last time, and the knocking was so sudden and unexpected that he[243] rubbed the shaving-brush in one of his eyes. He began to make some remarks which, however appropriate they may have been to the occasion, could not be reported here with propriety. But in the midst of his indignant monologue he remembered that the knocking might have proceeded from some of Mrs. Bass’s lady friends, who frequently made a descent on the premises in that direction for the purpose of borrowing a cupful of sugar or coffee in a social way. These considerations acted as powerful brakes on the conversation that Major Bass was carrying on with some imaginary foe. Holding a towel to his smarting eye, he peeped from his room door and looked down the hall. The back door was open, but he could see no one.

“Who was that knocking?” he cried. “I’ll go one eye on you anyways.”
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