Gabriel Tolliver: A Story of Reconstruction

by Joel Chandler Harris

It is a fine night, Gabriel thought—and the Silence might have answered, "Yes, a fine night and a fateful." It was a night that was to leave its mark on many lives.

At supper, Gabriel's grandmother had informed him that three of his friends had come by to invite him to accompany them to a country dance on the further side of Murder Creek—a dance following a neighbouring barbecue. These friends, his grandmother said, were Francis Bethune, Paul Tomlin, and Jesse Tidwell. They had searched the town over for Gabriel, and were disappointed at not finding him at home.

"Where do you hide yourself, Gabriel?" his grandmother had asked him. "And why do you hide? This is not the first time by a dozen that your friends have been unable to find you."

Gabriel shook his curly head and laughed. "Let me see, grandmother: directly after dinner, I said my Latin and Greek lessons to Mr. Clopton. Bethune was upstairs in his own room, for I heard him singing. After that, I went into the library, and read for an hour or more. Then I selected a book and went over the hill to the big poplar—you know where it is—and there I stayed until dark."

"It is all very well to read and study, Gabriel, and I am sure I am glad to know that you are doing both," said his grandmother, with a smile, "but you must remember that there are social obligations which cannot be ignored. You will have to go out into the world after awhile, and you should begin to get in the habit of it now. You should not avoid your friends. I don't mean, of course, that you should run after them, or fling yourself at their heads; I wouldn't have you do that for the world; but you shouldn't make a hermit of yourself. To be popular, you should mix and mingle freely with your equals. I know how it was in my day. I was not fond of society myself, but my mother always insisted that I should sacrifice my own inclinations for the pleasure of others, and in this way earn the only kind of popularity that is really gratifying. And I really believe I was the most popular of all the girls." The dear old lady tossed her head triumphantly.

"That's what Mr. Clopton says," remarked Gabriel; "but you know, grandmother, your time was different from our time"—oh, these youngsters who persist in reminding us of our fogyism—"and you were a girl in those days, while I am a boy in these. I am lazy, I know; I can loaf with a book all day long; but for the life of me, I can't do as Bethune does. He doesn't read, and he doesn't study; he just dawdles around, and calls on the girls, and talks with them by the hour. He used to be in love with Nan (so Mr. Sanders says) and now he's in love with Margaret Bridalbin; he's just crazy about her. Now, I'm not in love with anybody"—"oh, Gabriel!" protested a still, small voice in his bosom—"and if I were, I wouldn't dawdle around, and whittle on dry-goods boxes, and go and sit for hours at a time with Sally, and Susy, and Bessy, and Molly." Decidedly, Gabriel was coming out; here he was with strong views of his own.

His grandmother laughed aloud at this, saying, "You are very much like your grandfather, Gabriel. He was a very serious and masterful man. He detested small-talk and tittle-tattle, and I was the only girl he ever went with. But Francis Bethune is very foolish not to stick to Nan; she is such a delightful girl. It would be very unfortunate indeed if those two were not to marry."

If the dear old lady had not been so loyal to her sex, she would have told Gabriel that Nan had visited her that very day, and had asked a thousand and one questions about her old-time comrade. Indeed, Nan, with that delightful spirit of unconventionality that became her so well, had made bold to rummage through Gabriel's books and papers. She found one sheet on which he had evidently begun a letter. It started out well, and then stopped suddenly: "Dear Nan: I hardly know——" Then the attempt was abandoned in despair, and on the lower part of the sheet was scrawled: "Dearest Nan: I hardly know, in fact I don't know, and you'll never know till Gabriel blows his horn." This sheet the fair forager promptly appropriated, saying to herself "Boys are such funny creatures."

The conversation between Gabriel and his grandmother, as has been said, took place while they were eating their supper. The youngster was not sorry that he was absent when his friends called for him. It was a long ride to the Samples plantation, where the dance was to be, and a long, long ride back home, when the fiddles were in their bags, the dancers fagged out, and the fun and excitement all over and done with. The Bermuda hill was good enough for Gabriel, unless he could arrange his own dances, and have one partner—just one—from early candle-light till the grey dawn of morning.

It was late when Gabriel returned from the Bermuda hill, later than he thought, for he had completely lost himself in the solemn imaginings that overtake and overwhelm a young man who is just waking up to the serious side of existence, and on whose mind are beginning to dawn the possibilities and responsibilities of manhood. Ah, these young men! How lovable they are when they are true to themselves—when they try boldly to live up to their own ideals!