The Quickening

by Francis Lynde

In a world full of puzzling questions for Thomas Jefferson, one of the chief clustering points of the persistent "whys" was Major Dabney's attitude, as a Man of Sin, and as the natural overlord of Paradise Valley.

That the Major was a Man of Sin there could be no manner of doubt. During the revival he had been frequently and pointedly prayed for by that name, and the groans from the Amen corner were conclusively damning. Just what the distinction was between a Man of Sin and a sinner—spelled with a small "s"—was something which Thomas Jefferson could never quite determine; but the desire to find out made him spy on Major Dabney at odd moments when the spying could be done safely and with a clear field for retreat in the event of the Major's catching him at it.

Thus far the spying had been barren of results—of that kind which do not have to be undone and made over to fit in with other things. Once, Thomas Jefferson had been picking blackberries behind the wall of his father's infield when the Major and Squire Bates had met on the pike. There was some talk of the new railroad; and when the Squire allowed that it was certain to come through Paradise, the Major had taken the name of God in vain in a way that suggested the fiery blast roaring from the furnace lip after the iron was out.

This was one of the results. But on reflection, Thomas Jefferson decided that this could not be The Sin. Profane swearing—that was what the Sunday-school lesson-leaf called it—was doubtless a mortal sin in a believer; was not he, Thomas Jefferson, finding the heavens as brass and the earth a place of fear and trembling because of that word to Nan Bryerson? But in other people—well, he had heard his father swear once, when one of the negroes at the furnace had opened the sand at the end of the sow and let the stream of molten iron run out into the creek.

The charge of profanity being tried and found wanting in the Major's case, there remained that of violence. One day, Tike Bryerson—Nan's father and the man who had tried to kill his Uncle Silas in the revival meeting—was beating his horses because they would not take the water at the lower ford. Tike had been stilling more pine-top whisky, and had been to town with some jugs hidden under the cornstalks in his wagon-bed. When he did that, he always came back with his eyes red like a squirrel's, and everybody gave him all the road.

But this time the Major had happened along, and when Tike would not stop beating the horses for a shouted cursing-out from the bank, the Major had spurred his Hambletonian into the creek and knocked Tike winding. More than that, he had made him lead his team out of the ford and go back to the bridge crossing.

Being himself committed to the theory of turning the other cheek, Thomas Jefferson could not question the acute sinfulness of all this; yet it did not sufficiently account for the Major as a Man of Sin. Had not Peter, stirred, no doubt, by some such generous rage as the Major's, snatched out his sword and smitten off a man's ear?

In the other field, that of overlordship, the subtleties were still more elusive. That the negroes, many of whom were the sons and daughters of the Major's former slaves, should pass the old-time "Mawstuh" on the pike with uncovered heads and respectful heel-scrapings, was a matter of course. Thomas Jefferson was white, free, and Southern born. But why his own father and mother should betray something of the same deference was not so readily apparent.

On rare occasions the Major, riding to or from the cross-roads post-office in Hargis's store, would rein in his horse at the Gordon gate and ask for a drink of water from the Gordon well. At such times Thomas Jefferson remarked that his mother always hastened to serve the Major with her own hands; this notwithstanding her own and Uncle Silas's oft-repeated asseveration touching the Major's unenviable preëminence as a Man of Sin. Also, he remarked that the Major's manner at such moments was a thing to dazzle the eye, like the reflection of the summer sun on the surface of burnished metal. But beneath the polished exterior, the groping perceptions of the boy would touch a thing repellent; a thing to stir a slow current of resentment in his blood.

It was Thomas Jefferson's first collision with the law of caste; a law Draconian in the Old South. Before the war, when Deer Trace Manor had been a seigniory with its six score black thralls, there had been no visiting between the great house on the inner knoll and the overgrown log homestead at the iron furnace. Quarrel there was none, nor any shadow of enmity; but the Dabneys were lords of the soil, and the Gordons were craftsmen.