IV.
There was one individual in Hillsborough who did not give the cold shoulder to 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.”
“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 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 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 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 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.
“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 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!” 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 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 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 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 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.
“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.”
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.