The Call of the South

by Robert Lee Durham

CHAPTER X

Hayward Graham, with an honourable discharge from the service of the United States buttoned up in his blouse, was taking a look at Washington before going back to re-enlist. He liked the army life, with all its restrictions; and having by his intelligence and aptitude attained the highest non-commissioned rank, he was optimistic enough to believe he could win a commission before another term of enlistment expired. In this hope he was not without a fair idea of the obstacle which his colour placed in the path of his ambition; but in weighing his chances he counted much on the friendliness of the newly inaugurated executive for the negro race generally, and most of all on the President's according his deserts to a man who had saved his life. He would keep his identity in that respect a secret till the time was ripe, so that the President's sense of obligation, if it existed, might not be dulled by the granting of any premature favours—and then he would see whether gratitude would make a man do justice.

He had more than a month yet in which to re-enlist without loss of rank or pay, and his visit to Washington was intended to be short, as he had several other little picnics planned with which to fill out his vacation. He had been there ten days or more and he had walked and looked and lounged till he was thoroughly tired of the city and was decided to leave on the morrow.

But that last afternoon he saw Helen Phillips. Her carriage was driven slowly across the sidewalk in front of him to enter the White House grounds. The sudden quickening of his pulses at sight of her was unaccountable to him. His gaze followed her as she went away from him, and for the first time in months he remembered in dumb pain he was a negro. He tried to separate the thought of his blood from his thought of the young woman, and to put the first and its unpleasantness out of his mind while he enjoyed the latter and its association with his college victory and his patriotic enthusiasms: but he could not think of her without that indefinable and subconscious heartache.

When he came to his lodgings and opened up the afternoon paper, the only item among all the notes of interest that had the power to catch or hold his thought for a moment was a brief statement to the effect that the veteran White House coachman was dead. Hayward sat and turned this over in his mind a few minutes and then asked himself "Why not?"

Next morning he applied for the vacant position of coachman to the President. With the purpose to conceal his identity during his little adventure, as he thought of it, he gave only his Christian names: John Hayward. With similar purpose he had dressed himself in civilian clothes; but these could not conceal his magnificent lines, and, though another employee had been given the dead coachman's place, Hayward's fine appearance was so much in his favour that he was engaged as footman on trial. This was really better suited to his wishes than the other. He had not foregone his army ambition in a night, but neither had he been able to resist the temptation to spend a short time—the remainder of his furlough at least—where he could see something of the young woman who was so closely associated in his mind with the events in his life that were worth while.

Hayward was not in love with Helen Phillips in any sense—at least not in the ordinary sense; for that undefined pain, a dumb monitor of the impossible, kept him hedged away from that. On the other hand, to his mite of natural feeling of inferiority was added the respect for rank and dignity which his army life had hammered into him; and his attitude toward her was the devotion which a loyalist peasant soldier might have for the daughter of his king. He wished to be near her, to serve her; and he counted himself fortunate that this opportunity had come to him.

—And a superb footman he made, having every aptitude and manner both of mind and body for form and show; and being relieved of any humiliation of spirit by his secret feeling that he had set himself to guard and serve a crown princess.

A superb footman he made—and a new-rich Pittsburger offered him double wages to enter his service. The sneer with which Hayward told him that he was not working for money ever will be a riddle to that Pittsburg brain.

A superb footman he made; and with the added distinction of the President's livery he always drew attention and comment. The veteran Senator Ruffin was entertaining a few friends with reminiscences once when Hayward passed. One of the party said: "Look at that footman. Phillips has a fine eye for form, hasn't he?"