The Earth Trembled

by Edward Payson Roe

"I won't say 'darned,'" said the old lady, almost trembling in her irritation and excitement, for she was being treated to more of a drama than she had bargained for. "It is a word I never heard my husband use. Bah! all words are inadequate. I say anything is better than that you should go to this old Houghton for what little he may choose to give you."

"Now, I appeal to you, Mara—is this fair, four against one?"

"But, dear Captain Bodine, you don't know how deeply we feel about this."

"Ah, that is the charge our enemies bring against us. We feel, but don't reason, they say. We have much reason to retort, 'You reason, but have no feeling and little comprehension for those that have.' Come, I will be serious now," and his expression became grave and firm. "Cousin Sophy, Mr. Houghton will never give me a penny, nor would I take a gift from him even if starving, yet I have a genuine respect for the man. Let me, as a soldier, illustrate my course, and then I will explain more fully. Suppose I was on a march and was hungry. On one hand were ample provisions in the camp of the enemy; on the other a small farmhouse occupied by friends who had already been robbed of nearly all they had. If I went to these friends they would, as Mara has said, share their last crust. Do you not think it would be more in accordance with the feelings of a man to make a dash at the enemy's overflowing larder, and not only get what I needed but also bring away something for my impoverished friends? I reckon it would. I much prefer spoiling the Egyptians, cost me what it may. My dear child," turning to Mara, "do you think I would take half your crust when I know you need the whole of it? No, indeed. Then you must remember that we got in the habit of living off the enemy during the war. To drop all this figurative talk, let me put the matter in plain English, as I did to Mr. Houghton this morning. We had a pretty hot action, I can tell you. There was no compromise in word or manner on either side, but he listened to reason, and so will you. Pick out your most blue-blooded, stanchest South Carolinians, in the city, and they deal with Mr. Houghton. They sell to him; they buy of him, and there it all ends. I have no cotton to sell, but I told him to regard my labor as a bale of cotton and to buy it, if he so wished, at what it was worth. I also told him that apart from our business relations we would be strangers, so you see I am neither better nor worse, practically, no different from other Charlestonians."

Mrs. Bodine leaned back in her chair, and laughed till the tears came into her eyes. "I do declare," she gasped: "God made men different from women, and I reckon He knew what He was about. I surrender, Cousin Hugh. Your argument has blown me out of the water. Spoil this old Egyptian to your heart's content, only remember when there are no Egyptians to spoil, if you don't come to your friends you will have one savage old woman to deal with."

Mrs. Hunter shook her head dubiously. "I don't know what to think of all this," she said. "It appears to me that it tends to break down the partition wall between us and those from whom we have received wrongs which should never be forgiven."

"My dear Mrs. Hunter," replied the captain, urbanely, "the more the partition wall is broken down in one sense, the better. Isn't it wiser for me to get money out of Mr. Houghton than to sulk and starve? I had to break through the wall to get bread. Of course," he added quietly, "we all understand one another. My military figures of speech must not be pressed too far. I do not propose to knock Mr. Houghton on the head, or even take the smallest possible advantage of him. On the contrary, because we are hostile, I shall be over-scrupulous, if possible, to do his work well. From him, as I told him, I expect not the slightest allowance, consideration, or kindness."

"Oh," thought Mara, "how clearly he has put my own thought and wish. Why could not Owen Clancy have earned his own bread and mine by taking the course of this brave Southern man? I have been shown to-night how noble, how dignified and how easy it was. Why should he talk of love when he will not see what is so reasonable in the action of another?"

"Cousin Hugh, you said one thing which needs explanation. You said you had a respect for this man floughton, who we all know has not a particle of good-will toward us."

"Chiefly because he is such an honest enemy," Bodine replied. "He makes hard bargains with our people when he can, but have you ever heard of his cheating or doing anything underhand? I learned a good deal about his business character while in Georgia, and his course to-day corresponded with what I had been told. Moreover, his feelings got the better of him, and he revealed in one passionate sentence that his eldest son was killed, and, as he says, lies at the bottom of our harbor here. This fact enabled me to stand better what I had to take from him," and in answer to his cousin's questions he revealed the substance of the interview. "I do this," he concluded, "that you and other friends may better understand my course. To-morrow Mr. Houghton becomes my employer, and I shall owe a certain kind of loyalty. The more seldom we mention his name thereafter, the better; and I shall never speak of him except in terms of cold respect."