Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

“Well, befo’ Gawd, I knowed sumpin’ had been gwine on pretty hot, for I never seed you so b’ilin’ as when you come home, Colonel,” replied the old servant, bowing low at the mark of his master’s confidence. “I spec’, though, I’d better put a couple o’ corks in der moufs so we kin hab ’em ready if anythin’ comes out o’ dis yere caanin’ business. I’ve seen ’em put away befo’ in my time,” he added in a louder voice, looking towards me as if to include me in his declaration; “but they allus hab to come for ’em agin, when dey get to caanin’ one another.” And he patted the box meaningly and left the room.

The Colonel again turned to me.

“I have vehy few secrets from Chad, Major, and none of this kind. By the way, I suppose that yaller dog has gotten over his gout by this time.”

“Don’t call him names, Colonel. He will write his own for a million if he goes on. I was in Fitz’s office this morning, and I hear that Klutchem and his Boston crowd have got about every share of Consolidated Smelting issued, and the boys are climbing for it. Fitz told me it went up fifteen points in an hour. By the by, Fitz is coming up to-night.”

“I am not surprised, suh,—I am not surprised at anything these Yankees do. A man who could not appreciate a gentleman’s feelin’s placed as I was would never feel for a creditor, suh. He thinks of nothin’ but money and what it buys him, and it buys him nothin’ but vulgaarity, suh.”

The Colonel was in the saddle now; I never interrupt him in one of these moods. He had risen from his chair and was standing on the mat before the fire in his favorite attitude, thumbs in his armholes, his threadbare, well-brushed coat thrown wide.

“They’ve about ruined our country, suh, these money-grubbers. I saw the workin’ of one of their damnable schemes only a year or so ago, in my own town of Caartersville. Some Nawthern men came down there, suh, and started a Bank. Their plan was to start a haalf dozen mo’ of them over the County, and so they called this one the Fust National. They never started a second, suh. Our people wouldn’t permit it, and befo’ I get through you’ll find out why. They began by hirin’ a buildin’ and movin’ in an iron safe about as big as a hen-coop. Then they sent out a circular addressed to our prominent citizens which was a model of style, and couched in the most co’teous terms, but which, suh, was nothin’ mo’ than a trap. I got one and I can speak by the book. It began by sayin’ that eve’y accommodation would be granted to its customers, and ended by offerin’ money at the lowest rates of interest possible. This occurred, suh, at a time of great financial depression with us, following as it did the close of hostilities, and their offer was gladly accepted. It was the fust indication any of us had seen on the part of any Yankee to bridge over the bloody chasm, and we took them at their word. We put in what money we had, and several members of our oldest families, in order to give chaaracter to the enterprise, had their personal notes discounted and used the money they got for them for various private purposes—signin’ as a gaarantee of their good faith whatever papers the bank people requi’ed of them. Now, suh, what do you think happened—not to me, for I was not in need of financial assistance at the time, Aunt Nancy havin’ come into possession of some funds of her own in Baltimo’,—but to one of my personal friends, Colonel Powhatan Tabb, a near neighbor of mine and a gentleman of the highest standin’? Because, suh”—here the Colonel spoke with great deliberation—“his notes had not been paid on the vehy day and hour—a thing which would have greatly inconvenienced him—Colonel Tabb found a sheriff in charge of his home one mornin’ and a red flag hangin’ from his po’ch. Of co’se, suh, he demanded an explanation of the outrage, and some words followed of a blasphemous nature which I shall not repeat. I shall never forget my feelin’s, suh, as I stood by and witnessed that outrage. Old family plate that had been in the Tabb family for mo’ than a century was knocked down to anybody who would buy; and befo’ night, suh, my friend was stripped of about eve’ything he owned in the world. Nothin’ escaped, suh, not even the po’traits of his ancestors!”

“What became of the bank, Colonel?” I asked in as serious a tone as I could command.

“What became of it? What could become of it, Major? Our people were aroused, suh, and took the law into their own hands, and the last I saw of it, suh, the hen-coop of a safe was standin’ in the midst of a heap of smokin’ ashes. I heard that the Bank people broke it open with a sledge-hammer when it cooled off, put the money they had stolen from our people in a black caarpet-bag, and escaped. Such pi’acies, suh, are not only cruel but vulgaar. Mr. Klutchem’s robries are quite in line with these men. He takes you by the throat in another way, but he strangles you all the same.”

The Colonel stroked his goatee in a meditative way, reached over my chair, picked up his half-emptied wine-glass, sipped its contents absent-mindedly and said in an apologetic tone: