Oldfield: A Kentucky Tale of the Last Century

by Nancy Huston Banks

Possibly Miss Judy may have been a shade slighter than she had been twenty years before, although she was never much stouter than a willow twig. Her hair can hardly have been whiter than it had been ever since anybody could remember, and it was just as curly, too, notwithstanding that she tried harder every day to brush it till it was prim and smooth, as she thought white hair should be.

Miss Sophia had never seemed very young, and she now appeared little if at all older. Her dark hair never whitened, and if the gray streaks over her placid temples had broadened slightly, it was no more trouble than it used to be to reach up the chimney and get a bit of soot on the tip of her finger—while Miss Judy was out of the room or looking the other way. It was an innocent artifice, but it remained always the darkest secret between the sisters. And this was probably not quite so dark a secret as Miss Sophia supposed it to be, since she, being so very plump, could not stand on tiptoe to look in the mirror, as Miss Judy did. Consequently, it was perhaps inevitable that the touching up intended for the gray streaks over Miss Sophia's placid temples, sometimes fell unawares on her honest little cheeks, or her guileless little ears.

Almost unaltered as the sisters were, their environment was, if possible, even less changed by the quiet passing of the uneventful years. For all outward changes, this March morning on which Miss Judy looked out over the sleeping village might have been the first morning after the first settlers had made their homes in this vale of peace. The folding hills were yet covered by the primeval forest. The log houses built by the Virginians still straggled beside a single thoroughfare. The highway, too, was the same buffalo track which they had followed through the wilderness—just as crooked in its direction, just as irregular in its width, just as muddy in winter and dusty in summer, and it was called the "big road" now, just as it had been in the beginning. And the sleepers in the still darkened houses were, with scarcely an exception, the descendants of the sounder sleepers in the graveyard on the furthest, highest hilltop. For the people of that far-off Pennyroyal Region came and went in those old days only with the coming and the going of the generations.

The night's shadows still lingered among the great, black tree-trunks draping the leafless boughs, but the sun's radiant lances were already lifting the white mists from the lowlands. Soft sounds coming up from the silent fields echoed the gentle awakening of flocks and herds, deepening, as the light brightened, into the eternal matin appeal of the dumb creature to human brotherhood. The birds alone were all wide awake and vividly astir. Flocks of plovers wheeled white-winged across the low-hung sky. A lonely sparrow-hawk swung high on seemingly motionless pinions. There were redbirds, too, and bluebirds and blackbirds—pewees, thrushes, vireos, kingfishers—all flocking in with the red and gold of the sunrise, making the dun meadows bright and melodious with their plumage and song. Miss Judy saw and heard them in pleased surprise. She could not recall having seen any of them that season, save two or three melancholy robins, drooping in the cold rain of the previous day. But here they all were, and singing as if they had no doubt that spring had come, however doubtful mere mortals might be.

It was light enough now to see the tavern which stood on the edge of the village. The sign of the tavern, a big rusty bell hung in a rough, rickety wooden frame, stood clear against the gray horizon, dangling its rotting rope, which few travellers ever came to pull.

The court-house and the jail faced the tavern from the other side of the big road. The court-house, with its stately little pillars and its queer little cupola, looked like some small and shabby old gentleman in a very high, very tight stock. There were two terms of circuit court, lasting about a month, one in the spring and one in the fall. The quarterly and the county courts convened at stated periods. The magistrate's court, which was also in the court-house, was held usually and almost exclusively as the peace of the colored population might require. Fortunately, the magistrate was regarded with a good deal of wholesome awe, and it was fortunate that he lived in the village, inasmuch as his pacific services were likely to be needed at irregular and unexpected times. The county judge, however, found it entirely convenient to live in the country, on a farm near Oldfield, though he rode into the village and spent an hour or so in his office nearly every day. Judge John Stanley of the higher court lived a long way off, quite on the other side of the district, coming and going twice a year with the convening and adjournment of the spring and fall terms. He had lived in Oldfield when a young man, and up to the time that a terrible thing had happened. He was not to blame, yet it had blighted his whole life; it had driven him in horror away from the place which he had loved. It was a great loss to him to be separated from Miss Judy, the only mother he had known. But he used to return to Oldfield now and then until another misfortune made the place forever unendurable to him. After this only the drag of his duty and his fondness for Miss Judy ever brought him back, and he went away again as soon as he could. He always called upon her when he came, and always went to bid her good-by before going away; but he visited no one else and knew nothing of the village outside the strict line of his official duties.

Adjoining the court-house was the county jail, a tumble-down pile of mossy brick. Only the bars across the window indicated the character of the building. A prisoner was occasionally enterprising enough to pull out the bars, but they were always put in again sooner or later. There were two rooms, one above and one below, with a movable ladder between. When, at long and rare intervals a stranger was brought to the jail as a prisoner, he was put in the upper room and—as an extreme measure of precaution—the ladder was taken away during the night. Both the rooms were apt to be chilly in cold weather on account of the broken window-panes, yet the jail was on the whole more comfortable than many of the cabins in which the negroes lived, and any one—no matter what the color of his skin—can endure a good deal of cold without great discomfort, when abundantly and richly fed. The jailer, Colonel Fielding, and his family never thought of taking so much trouble or of being so mean and selfish as to make any difference in the food sent to the jail and that which was served on their own table. Now and then in the winter the turkey and the pudding would, it is true, get rather cold in transit, the jail and the jailer's residence being some distance apart; but the prisoners did not mind that. They used to stand at the windows good-humoredly hailing the passers-by to kill time; and waiting with such patience as they could muster for the coming of the good dinner, especially when they knew that there was more "quality" company than usual in the jailer's house. The colonel, a beautiful old man—tall, stately, clear-eyed, clean and upright in heart and mind and body—was a gentleman of the old school who had never earned a penny in all the days of his blameless life. Such a picture as he was to look at, with his long silver hair curling on his shoulders and his tall erect form draped in the long cloak which he wore like a Roman toga!

"By the o'wars!" he used to declare, "the older I am the faster and thicker my hair grows. As for my cloak—it's the only suitable thing, sir, for a gentleman's wear."

His house had always been the social centre of Oldfield. When his friends elected him to the office of jailer, deeming that the best and easiest way of providing for him, since it was the nearest to a sinecure afforded by county politics, his family became still more active leaders of society. In those good old days of the Pennyroyal Region, a gentleman of birth and breeding might engage in any honest avocation, without the slightest injury to his social position. The only difference that the colonel's election to the office of jailer made to his family and his neighbors was, that the salary enabled him to indulge his hospitable and generous inclinations more fully. The salary was small, to be sure, but it was more than he had ever had before. About this time, too, the colonel's five beautiful daughters—all famous beauties—were in the perfection of bloom, and none of them had yet married, thus beginning the breaking up of the happy home. Such dinners, such suppers, such dances as there were in that plain old house! The colonel's handsome, indolent, sweet-tempered wife used to say that they were always ready for company, because they had the best they could get every day. Usually there was not the slightest conflict between the colonel's large social obligations and his small official duties. On the contrary, the more fine dinners and suppers he gave the higher the prisoners lived, and the happier everybody was. In fact, the colored vagrant who managed to get into the jail when winter was near—when there were no vegetables in anybody's garden, no fruit in anybody's orchard, no green corn in anybody's field—was regarded by his fellows as very fortunate indeed.

It chanced, however, that a wandering stranger was one day locked in among the prisoners who were otherwise all home-folks. On that very evening the Fielding girls were giving a grand ball and supper, to which the whole fashion of the county was invited. The prisoners, with the exception of the stranger, were as deeply interested in what they saw and heard of the great stir of preparation as the guests could possibly have been. The stranger probably knew nothing of his companions' glowing and confident expectation of a generous share of the feast. If they told him anything of the feasting which the next day was sure to bring, he either did not believe it, naturally enough—having had most likely some experience with jails and jailers—or he preferred liberty to luxury. At all events on that eventful evening the colonel, whose mind was full of the ball, incidentally forgot to lock the door of the jail. The strange prisoner had, therefore, nothing to do but to open the door as soon as the jailer's back was turned; and this he did at once, disappearing in the darkness, never to be seen or heard of again. The other prisoners had tried to prevent his going, and they now did their utmost to give the alarm. They hallooed long and loud at the top of their strong lungs. But the wind was blowing hard in the wrong direction, the jail was too far from the house, and they could not make themselves heard above the music and dancing and laughter and drinking of toasts. Finally one of them, who was a sort of leader because he wintered regularly in the jail, offered to go to the colonel's house in order to let him know what had occurred. And he did go—willingly too—although the night was very cold and very dark, and the mud so deep that the very bottom seemed to have dropped out of the big road. The colonel himself with his youngest daughter was leading the Virginia reel, and just going down the middle to the tune of Old Dan Tucker; so that the bearer of the evil tidings had to wait a few moments looking in on the ball before he found a chance to tell his story. It was a cruel blow to come at such a time, and the colonel felt it sorely. The prisoner reported to his companions, after his return alone to the jail, that he thought "Marse Joe was about to swear" then and there. It was in vain that the colonel's guests hastened to reassure him; to tell him that it would be a great saving to the county—so all the gentlemen said—if every one of the lazy black rascals could be induced to run away. But the colonel felt the wound to his pride. It was a matter touching his honor. And finally, finding him inflexible in his determination to do his duty under the circumstances, the men present offered—almost to a man—to go with him when he went to search for the fugitive; and they kept their word on the following day about noon when the sun was warmest, just to please the colonel, although they knew beforehand how futile the pursuit would be with vast canebrakes near by and the Cypress Swamp just beyond the hills.