There was a magnetism about her that affected me strongly, and made me feel that, were we at all intimate, she would possess an unbounded influence over me, and that its exercise would constitute my supreme happiness.
The tender pity and brotherly love I had expected to feel were all gone, for she did not need them; the vast resources of her own deep soul, and the sympathy and love of mother, seemed to be enough for her. In all my thoughts I could only long for her friendship, and I felt that if I could awaken in her an interest in me as a friend, so that I could go to her ear and tell my troubles or joys, I would be the happier. In the common converse of our family circle I always looked to her first after my remarks, and her smile was a far greater reward to me than Lulie’s, perhaps because it meant more. And if I had done wrong I would rather ten times Lulie should know it than Carlotta; yet, with all these feelings, resembling so much indices of love, there was no spark of it in my heart. Her very beauty seemed to fix a great gulf between us, and down in my soul I felt that she would never love me, except as a member of the same family. With these thoughts came the image of Lulie—bright, laughing Lulie—whose heart I could get so near to, if I could not call it mine; who was something human, like myself, and whom I loved so tenderly without the slightest shade of awe. And I longed for the time when I could tell her of it.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
The afternoon was still and sultry, as I gazed out of my window, leaning on the sill, and waiting for Reuben to bring my fishing poles and bait.
From the corn fields in the distance a trembling haze was continually rising, and I could hear the occasional song of the negroes, as they moved behind their plows slowly up and down the long green rows. In the yard all was still; the chickens, with palpitating throats, were lying under the bushes, flirting the cool dark earth up into their feathers; and the ducks were gathered around the cool trough at the well, bubbling the water with their bills, and shaking their wings as if they wished to dive in it, if the trough were just wide enough; the bull-dog, at the door of his kennel, was lying on his side, with his head stretched out on the earth, from which he would raise it constantly to snap at the flies biting his flanks. A solitary peacock, with his tail all pulled out for the feathers, was sitting on the fence, with his blue neck and coroneted head reverted, as if gazing at the absence of his plumage. Down at the quarters I could catch the changing hum of the spinning wheel, making echo to the nasal minor strains of a negro woman at the wash tub. Everything was calculated to inspire reverie, and I leaned there, thinking of the cool shady bank of the creek, and of Lulie and myself sitting there alone; and musing on the pleasure of the evening, and wondering if anything would occur to mar it, I drew my eyes from the scenes in the yard, and gazed down the side of the house, noticing every little dent in the planking and the dark rain marks under the nails; and dropping bits of paper at a lazy red wasp that was crawling slowly up the weather-boarding. Reuben, passing under my window with the poles and a gourd full of worms, broke my reverie, and taking my hat and gloves I went down stairs, where Lulie was already awaiting me, looking sweeter than ever in a pink gingham sun-bonnet. Holding an umbrella carefully over her, Reuben leading the way with the poles, I went down the avenue through a long lane, down a wooded hill, and stopped at “de bes’ fishin’ hole on de creek,” as Reuben called it. ‘Twas a steep grassy bank under a large sycamore, at a sudden curve in the stream, where the water, running down heedlessly, struck the bank, and hurried off with many a curling dimple of confusion for its carelessness. After Reuben had undone and baited our lines, I dismissed him, and we both took our seats, pole in hand.
The thick branches overhead made an impervious shade, except where they opened here and there to let a little ray of sunlight dance upon the water. The lines, serpent-like, curled down from the poles, and the painted float circled up and down the eddy, but with no other motion but what the water gave. Presently Lulie’s stood still, then bobbed under and up, while the water rings retreated from it as if afraid; again it goes down, and Lulie—like all lady fishers—gave the pole such a jerk that the line and its hooked victim were lodged in the branches above. All my efforts to disengage it were unavailing till, at last, I broke off the line, and threw pieces of stick at the little fish till I battered it down, its mouth torn out by the hook, and its shining scales all beaten off. Lulie took her little victim in her hand very tenderly, and almost shed tears over it. She declared she would never come fishing again; that it was mean and cruel to catch the poor little creatures out of the water when they were so happy.
“And, John,” she continued, “I am so sorry I broke your hook and line, when you had fixed it up so nicely for me; I know you are really mad with me about it.”
I did not notice her remark about the hook and line, but said (winding the broken line around the pole, and laying it behind us on the grass):