CHAPTER SIX
THE JADE, A NONENTITY, BECOMES THE ILLUSTRIOUS NANCE
When our grandfathers were snub-nosed little boys, quaintly dressed in the toggery of near a century ago, every town in the South boasted of its college. It was long before the coming of the state universities and the heavily endowed Church institutions. They were usually the property of some pompous individual whose pedantry and assumption, among the simple folk about him, went by the name of culture and learning. He was usually looked upon as being something sacred. His authority upon matters generally, and letters specifically, was indisputable. That being a day when, though there were no poor, there were also no rich, ancestry and one's mind counted for something. Therefore these old scholars, whose charlatanry was what they deemed an honest part of pedagogy, were honored with the very highest esteem. These schools soon acquired an atmosphere very dear to the Southern heart: a quiet air of good breeding. This was frequently abused by the institutions themselves inasmuch as it was made an inducement to secure attendance. To-day our very same grandparents are not so proud of the education attained, for that was usually very meager, but of the aristocratic name left to the now tottering buildings.
One of the most popular of all of these in its day was Oldmeadow College. Even to this time its legends are passed by careful and reverent tongues to those born in so unfortunate a period as not to have been able to attend it. In the narrow vision of many of our cracker-barrel philosophers there never existed men so erudite, so acceptably great as many of the old professors. Now and then, with modifications, this was true. Our village had no doubt whatever that she was the moral and culture center of Kentucky. It might please you to know that from Lexington, with Transylvania University, down to the least hamlet possessed of her college, every town in the State thought the same thing ... feel reasonably sure each one of them was right!
There was but one part of Oldmeadow which might boast of being anything like a hill. On the western edge of the town beside the river this knoll, many feet higher than the surrounding country, was entirely within the college campus. At its apex was the college itself. A brick building consisting of a basement with three stories and a half above it—these stories were higher than the average—made a rather imposing structure which sat like a monitor upon a stool overlooking the conduct of the village spread before it. On the first floor were an assembly and two recitation rooms. In the five apartments on the second lived the President and his family. The third was devoted to music and class rooms. On the pilot-house-like tower, which crowned the building, there rested a huge bell once the property of a boastful steamboat, the General Litell, which had blown up at a point just below town, in a vain attempt to run faster than a rival. I used to believe the bell, rope and all, had been neatly blown over upon the roof, but I am now inclined to believe that friends must have rescued it from the sand-bar for its present position. It is still a mystery to me how it was ever mounted to where it is to-day.
Now all of this was very long ago, before you knew anything about Oldmeadow and my river beside it. When we first knew the village, you will remember, all that was left of the college was the building, the bell, and the wonderful view of the most beautiful stream in the world, from its windows, or its top. Standing beside the relic of the General Litell, you may see the great Ohio wandering idly, vagabondishly, through the valley, until it looks like a silver thread losing itself in the misty distance. Just think of being able to see, on a clear sunny morning, twenty miles or more of the river you love. By your side it drifts, broad, full of strength, in pleasing sinuosity, covered by a thousand hurrying little ripples. Beyond it becomes smoother, the yellow of the water turning a clearer green, and motionless it winds in and out among the farms and woodland until it may be followed only by the line of blue vapor between the hills. Here and there hangs the smoke of a steamboat; a forest shuts it momentarily from sight only that you may catch a glimpse of silver sheen, lake-like, smiling in the happy sunshine; a farmhouse, as a silent, contemplative fisherman, sits here and there on the bank; and over it all, as if with satisfaction the master builder were viewing his work, there broods the great mystery.
Though all of these things remained, when we came into our inheritance the college was no longer a "college," but had fallen into the vulgar times of being used as the public school building. Here some erstwhile student held forth for six months in the year, teaching on the first floor, living on the second, his children making a playhouse out of the third.
I will not presume to say how long I had been attending the "college" when, upon a certain cheerful September morning, I saw old Doctor Longstreet come walking up the campus with the timid fingers of our Nance held protectingly in his own. She seemed very much scared, a trifle knock-kneed, and just a bit too starched up to be as pretty as I acknowledged her in my heart. She passed us—a group of boys at play—with scarcely a look of recognition. I watched them climb the steps into the building, her two huge red plaits seeming to be about all there was of her. These same plaits looked quite lonely and as if they wanted to turn and run for it. I do not think I have ever seen her so humble, so unassuming as she was that day. To be sure it did not last long. Before another week she had figuratively made a crack in the fence and slipped through to victory.
During these early years in school, to prove my prowess, when I believed her looking, I never lost an opportunity to stand on my head. I did not realize at the time how ungallant was the undue advantage I took of her. Long, long since I have learned that she secretly practised it at home. As a consequence, that which at first so won her admiration soon was the cause of contempt. Though I could never know, she was sure that she could do it with better grace than her one-time hero. I am now told that I only maintained my prestige by my ability to suddenly seize upon and throw down the boy nearest by. This was something of which she might only make a dream.
All of this showing off and the confidence in my own powers fully convinced me how much superior was man to woman. All she could do was to look on—at least so far as I knew—with an occasional attempt at being something, by a sudden and unexpected getting of my tag. This I frequently treated with contempt. Once in a while I risked my reputation for being manly by running pell-mell after her until the tag was successfully recovered.... And yet I was to be humiliated by this red-headed jade.
Jean François had caused consternation by announcing that within a few days he must be off for the white highways. Already he had remained too long in one place. However much he might love us, he could not afford to let his liver atrophy. Besides, were they not waiting for their happy pedler in another far-off gracious land?... "They await my pack," said he restlessly, "for fine knacks for ladies—pins, points, laces, gloves, and the thousand flimsy, silky things they adore!" And he bowed with a smile full of splendid mockery.... Our hearts were sad. Did we not want him forever?
The story of my humiliation comes here.... You will remember how we used to have to memorize long verses and recite them from the platform on Friday afternoons before visitors and the high and mighty school committee? It was upon such an auspicious occasion. Your speech—I am sure of the terminology—was, "I Am Dying, Egypt, Dying." Mine, with swimming gestures and trembling voice, was "Bingen, Fair Bingen on the Rhine." Who, dear friends, could think of greater recitations than these? Were they not time-honored? Were they not a part of the tradition of Oldmeadow? Certainly, I answer.
Now Jean François had been prevailed upon to enter for at least one hour beneath a roof. The pedler had serious objections to hats, which he never wore, and houses, which he rarely entered. Yet, out of compassion because of his leaving us, he had come to hear our speech-making. He sat with uneasy grace upon a front bench by Doctor Longstreet, who found much to amuse him in the umbrella man's discomfort.... It was when Nance stood before us, scared white, with tears beneath just the surface of her restless eyes, that Jean François lost his self-consciousness. Mr. Finus Appleblossom, proprietor of the store, chairman of the board, prominent in lodge and church circles, cleared his august throat ostentatiously and swelled with importance. Something seemed to be in the atmosphere.... Then in a very pretty little voice, which at once gained confidence, Nance began a song. Didn't I know it? Certainly, I assert. Had I not heard Jean François sing it a hundred times, but who, save the jade, would have ever thought of toppling custom, tradition, and the school board by singing a song—a very short one at that—Friday afternoon? And such a song!
This was the song of the jade:
"Lawn as white as driven snow;
Cypress black as e'er was crow;
Gloves as sweet as damask roses;
Masks for faces, and for noses;
Bugle-bracelets, necklace amber;
Perfume for a lady's chamber;
Golden quoifs and stomachers,
For my lads to give their dears;
Pins and poking-sticks of steel,
What maids lack from head to heel:
Come, buy of me, come; come, buy, come, buy;
Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry:
Come, buy."
For a moment after she had concluded she stood as if dumb, half-frightened, heart-sick, and then, bursting into tears, with a stifled little cry of despair, she rushed and fell all in a heap at the knees of Jean François. Forgetting all of us, he picked her up in his big, strong arms—she who was but a fragile child—and, smoothing the rumpled hair from her eyes, kissed her brow.
"Dear little jade," said he quite tenderly, "I didn't know that it made all of this difference."
"You won't go, Jean François?" she smiled through her tears.
"I must," said he regretfully. "I cannot help it.... But next June I'll come again. And every June that follows, as long as I shall live, the happy caravan shall be yours."
A few moments later, as we hurried into the open, I noticed that Nance was actually growing. It had never occurred to me that she would ever be any larger than the day she first thrust herself through my crack in the fence. As she passed with her grandfather, Jean François, and Mr. Appleblossom, she nodded to me quite as if she were an equal. In my humiliation I quite forgot to walk on my hands, a feat I was holding in reserve. Instead, off I skipped down to the river and "went-in" by myself. I felt that the world was very unappreciative and unsympathetic.