This was pretty much the temper of the older people of Hillsborough even in 1876. They had no bitter prejudices against the old Judge; they were even tolerant and kindly; but they made it plain to him that he was regarded in a new light, and from a new standpoint. He was made to feel that his old place among them must remain vacant; that the old intimacies were not to be renewed. But this was the price that Judge Bascom was willing to pay for the privilege of spending his last days within sight of the old homestead. He made no complaints, nor did he signify by word or sign, even to his daughter, that everything was not as it used to be.
As for the daughter, she was in blissful ignorance of the situation. She was a stranger among strangers, and so was not affected by the lack of sociability on the part of the townspeople—if, indeed, there was any lack so far as she was concerned. The privations she endured in common with her father were not only sufficient to correct all notions of vanity or self-conceit, but they had given her a large experience of life; they had broadened her views and enlarged her sympathies, so that with no sacrifice of the qualities of womanly modesty and gentleness she had grown to be self-reliant. She attracted all who came within range of her sweet influence, and it was not long before she had broken down all the barriers that prejudice against her father might have placed in her way. She established a primary school, and what with her duties there and with her music-class she soon had as much as she could do, and her income from these sources was sufficient to support herself and her father in a modest way; but it was not sufficient to carry out her father’s plans, and this fact distressed her no little.
Sometimes Judge Bascom, sitting in the narrow veranda of the little house they occupied, would suddenly arouse himself, as if from a doze, and exclaim:—
“We must save money, daughter; we must save money and buy the old Place back. It is ours. We must have it; we must save money.” And sometimes, in the middle of the night, he would go to his daughter’s bedside, stroke her hair, and say in a whisper:—
“We are not saving enough money, daughter; we must save more. We must buy the old Place back. We must save it from ruin.”
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.