"Br'er Jerry, de nex' time you want me ter cook pullets fer dat ar Lizzie Gaither, des fetch um 'long. I'll be glad ter 'blige you."
As the Rev. Jeremiah's wife was close at hand, the closing scenes can be better imagined than described. In this chronicle the veil of silence must be thrown over them.
It may be said, nevertheless, that Uncle Plato and his wife felt very keenly the awkward position in which they were placed by the increasing prejudice of the rest of the negroes. They were both sociable in their natures, but now they were practically cut off from all association with those who had been their very good friends. It was a real sacrifice they had to make. On the other hand, who shall say that their firmness in this matter was not the means of preventing, at least in Shady Dale, many of the misfortunes that fell to the lot of the negroes elsewhere? There can hardly be a doubt that their attitude, firm and yet modest, had a restraining influence on some of the more reckless negroes, who, under the earnest but dangerous teachings of Hotchkiss and his fellow-workers, would otherwise have been led into excesses which would have called for bloody reprisals.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nan and Her Young Lady Friends
Nan Dorrington found a pretty howdy-do at her house when she reached home the night the Union League was organised. The members of the household were all panic-stricken when the hours passed and Nan failed to return. Ordinarily, there would have been no alarm whatever, but a little after dark, Eugenia Claiborne, accompanied by a little negro girl, came to Dorrington's to find out why Nan had failed to keep her engagement. She had promised to take supper with Eugenia, and to spend the night.
It will be remembered that Nan was on her way to present her excuses to Eugenia when the spectacle of Mr. Sanders, tipsy and talkative, had attracted her attention. She thought no more of her engagement, and for the time being Eugenia was to Nan as if she had never existed. Meanwhile, the members of the Dorrington household, if they thought of Nan at all, concluded that she had gone to the Gaither Place, where Eugenia lived. But when Miss Claiborne came seeking her, why that put another face on affairs. Eugenia decided to wait for her; but when the long minutes, and the half hours and the hours passed, and Nan failed to make her appearance, Mrs. Absalom began to grow nervous, and Mrs. Dorrington went from room to room with a very long face. She could have made a very shrewd guess as to Nan's whereabouts, but she didn't dare to admit, even to herself, that the girl had been so indiscreet as to go in person to the rescue of Gabriel.
They waited and waited, until at last Mrs. Dorrington suggested that something should be done. "I don't know what," she said, "but something; that would be better than sitting here waiting."
Mrs. Absalom insisted on keeping up an air of bravado. "The child's safe wherever she is. She's been a rippittin' 'round all day tryin' to git old Billy Sanders sober, an' more'n likely she's sot down some'rs an' fell asleep. Ef folks could sleep off the'r sins, Nan'd be a saint."