AN OPEN WINDOW
It was, apart from the pecuniary relief that his coming had brought us, a great satisfaction to have old Joe again with us. Remembering his habit of not speaking until he was, as he sometimes expressed it, “plumb ready,” we forbore to ask any more questions until he had finished his supper, and smoked his pipe afterward. Smoking is a bad habit, I know, but I am afraid that there are few good habits from which people derive more comfort than fell to Joe when he was puffing contentedly away at his old clay pipe. After a long interval of blissful enjoyment he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, pocketed it, and then remarked, rather wistfully, apparently to the fire as much as to either of us: “I reckons he’s fas’ asleep, shore’ nuff!” “He” meant Ralph, of course.
“Yes,” Jessie said, “he’s been asleep ever since a little while before dark.”
“Yo’ reckons hit gwine fur ’sturb him, jess fur me ter tek’ a look at him, honey?”
“Surely not, Joe.” Accordingly I took up a lamp, and stepped with it into the next room—the sitting-room, in which Ralph’s crib was stationed. The crib stood close to the window, which was open. I was surprised that Jessie had left it so, knowing, as she did, that Ralph caught cold with painful facility. Joe cast a disapproving look at the opening as we stood by the crib side, but, fearful of awakening the little sleeper, he said nothing. All children are lovely in their sleep, but as I held the lamp aloft, while we admiringly surveyed this one, I think the same idea occurred to us both—that never was there one more beautiful than our Ralph. Joe, cautiously advancing a horny fore-finger, softly touched the moist, dimpled little hand that lay relaxed outside the coverlet. Then he drew the coverlet a little closer over the baby sleeper’s shoulders, and, noiselessly closing the window, turned away with a sigh that belonged, I felt, not to Ralph, but to some one whom he seemed to the old man to resemble.
When we were again in the kitchen, he said decidedly: “I ’clar fo’ hit, Miss Jessie—fo’ hit mus’ ’a’ been yo, w’at done hit; fo’ yo’ said Miss Leslie done been gone—I’se ’sprised fur to see yo’ a-puttin’ dat chile ter bed wid the winder beside him wide open, an’ the nights plumb cole an’ varmints a wanderin’ roun’—”
“Why, Joe, what are you talking about? I never left it open. I’d be afraid that that cat of Ralph’s would jump in and wake him, if nothing else. When it’s open at all I’m careful to open it from the top; but it’s so cool to-night that I didn’t open it.”
“I jess reckons yo’ furgot ter shet it, honey,” Joe insisted.
“I’m quite sure it hasn’t been opened,” returned Jessie, who did not give up a point easily. I could see, though I had no doubt that Joe was right, that the matter really puzzled her.
“Ralph, he de libin’ picter ob Mas’r Ralph, w’en he was a little feller, an’ hit in’ no ways likely dat I gwine ter set still an’ see Mas’r Ralph’s onliest son lose his ’heritance; not ef I can holp it,” Joe remarked reflectively, after Jessie had again proclaimed that she did not leave the window open.
The words reminded me of the danger which still threatened us, in spite of the providential help that Joe’s coming had brought us.
A new idea occurred to me. “Jessie,” I said, “there’s nothing to hinder your going down to town as early as you please to-night, now that Joe has come, and Mr. Wilson will be left free to go with you.”
Jessie sprang to her feet, as if she would go on the instant.
“That is so!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Joe, how glad I am that you came just as you did!”
The matter was then explained to Joe, who volunteered to go over at once to Mr. Wilson’s and arrange to take his place in the morning, thus leaving him free to go with Jessie.
It was past ten o’clock and the moon was just coming up over the tree-tops when Joe started on his two-mile tramp to Mr. Wilson’s.
“You’d better take one of the horses,” Jessie had told him.
“W’at fur I want ob a hoss? Rudder hab my own two footses to trabbel on—if dey is kine o’ onsartain some times—dan airy four-legged hoss dat eber libed,” Joe returned, disrespectfully.
Sure that our good neighbor would return with him, Jessie proceeded to make ready for the trip. We were not disappointed. After a wait of about an hour we heard the rattle of approaching wheels, and presently Mr. Wilson, with Joe in the cart beside him, stopped the fast colt before the gate.
“All ready, Miss Jessie?” he sang out in response to our eager greeting.
“Yes,” said Jessie, “I’m quite ready.”
“Climb right in, then, and we’ll get well started before midnight. Whatever Horton does, he can’t beat that, for we’ll have our forces—part of ’em, any way—drawn up in battle array before the Land Office doors when they open at seven o’clock. We won’t need to hurry to do it, either. We’ll have time to brush up and eat our breakfasts like a couple of Christians after we get there.”
“Had I better take the money with me?” Jessie asked.
“Certainly, all you can rake and scrape.”
Jessie laughed gleefully; it was evident that Joe had not told Mr. Wilson of his recent financial transaction. When Jessie told him, he got up—the colt had been tied at the gate and we were all within doors again, in spite of Mr. Wilson’s first entreaty to Jessie to “get right in”—crossed the room and held out his hand to the old negro.
“Shake, friend!” As Joe, rather reluctantly, I thought, for he was a shy old man, laid his black hand in Mr. Wilson’s clasp, the latter continued: “I reckon I know a man when I see one, be he white or black, and I tell you I’m proud to have the chance of shaking hands with you!”
Joe, furtively rubbing the hand that he had released—for, in his earnestness, Mr. Wilson had evidently given it a telling pressure—hung his head, and responded, sheepishly: “I reckons I’se be a whole Noah’s A’k full of animals ef dish yer sort ob t’ing gwine keep on. Miss Leslie, she done call me a angel, and now yo’ done says I’se a man. Kine o’ ha’d on a ole feller like me, hit is!”
Mr. Wilson laughed good-humoredly.
“You’re all right, Joe; we won’t talk about it. And now, how is Miss Jessie to get the money?”
“I’se gwine draw a check on de bank in Fa’hplay to cobber de whole ’posit,” returned Joe, with dignity; “I done axed the cashier ’bout hit, an’ he tole me w’at ter do. He gin me some papers w’at he called blanket checks, an’ tole me how to fill ’em out. I’se done been keepin’ ob ’em safe.” In proof of which statement Joe drew an old-fashioned leather wallet from an inner pocket of his ragged coat, undid the strap with which it was bound, and, opening it, carefully extracted therefrom two or three bits of paper, that a glance sufficed to show were blank checks on the First National Bank of Fairplay. While he was getting the checks out another paper, loosely folded and yellow with age, slipped from the wallet, falling to the hearth. As it fell there slid from its loose folds a soft curl of long, bright hair, of the exact hue of little Ralph’s. Stooping, Jessie picked up the shining tendril, pausing to twine it gently around her finger before tendering it to Joe.
“Ralph’s hair is a little darker, I believe, than it was when you cut this, Joe,” she remarked, going to the light for a nearer view.
“Dat ar’ cu’l didn’ grow on dis Ralph’s head, honey; I cut dat offen de head ob dat odder Ralph w’at’s a lyin’ in de grabeya’d, w’en he was littler dan dis one; an’ I’se ’done carried dat cu’l close to my heart fo’ upwa’ds ob fo’ty yeah,” responded Joe simply, as he took the bit of hair from Jessie’s finger, and carefully replaced it. “W’en I dies,” he continued, “I ain’ carin’ w’at sort ob a berryin’ I gets, ner w’at sort ob clo’se my ole body is wrapped up in, but I’d like fur to be suah dat dish yer bit o’ hair goes inter de groun’ wid me.”
He looked up at us, his beloved young master’s children, solemnly and questioningly, as though exacting a promise, which was given, though no words were spoken on either side. Eyes have a language of their own.
“Now ef yo’ll done fotch me de ink bottle, Miss Leslie, honey, I’se boun’ ter fill out dish yer blanket check, same like de cashier done tole me,” Joe went on with a business-like change of tone.
The ink bottle, with pen and holder, was produced and placed on the table which Joe immediately cleared for action by removing every article upon it until he had a clear sweep of some three or four feet, then he sat down and proceeded, slowly, slowly, to fill out the check in Jessie’s favor. It was a task that required time and infinite painstaking. We had not known that Joe could write, and I am afraid that, even when he announced that the work was done and the check filled out, we were by no means sure of it, for wonderful indeed were the hieroglyphics through whose agency Joe proclaimed his purpose. There was one thing certain, however, no sane cashier, having once seen that unique signature, could for a moment doubt its authenticity.
Mr. Wilson glanced over the document, as Joe at length put it in Jessie’s hand. “That’s all right,” he said, in his hearty, re-assuring way. “You’ve got it all as straight as a string, Joe”—which he had not, so far as mechanical execution went—“we’ll have no trouble now. Put that away safely, Jessie, and let’s be going.”
“Shall we take the Bible now?” Jessie asked, after she had complied with his directions.
“Oh, no; time enough for that when Joe comes down. Put on a warm bonnet and shawl, now,” he continued, “for the nights are chilly.”
In the days of his youth women and girls wore bonnets and shawls, and I never knew him to refer to their cloaks or headgear in any other terms. Jessie assured him that she was well protected, and Joe and I followed her and her sturdy escort out to the gate.
“Had Leslie better come down with the others to-morrow?” Jessie inquired after they were seated in the cart, and while Joe was tucking the lap robe around her feet.
“Oh, no! By no means. It isn’t necessary, and her being here will enable us to swear that the house hasn’t been vacant, day or night, since the claim was first filed on, and ain’t vacant even at the present minute. We can’t be too careful, you know. Good night to you both!”
He spoke to the colt; Jessie echoed his good night, and they were gone.