The Call of the South

by Robert Lee Durham

"So we combined the schools and were getting along very well when one day as your father was coming out of the post-office in the little town near which we taught, a young man named Bush stepped up in front of him and cursed him and said something about me that your father never would tell me. Your father knocked him down and he was nearly killed by striking his head against a hitching-post as he fell. The next morning a committee of some of the citizens came to the schoolhouse, and Colonel Allen, who was one of them, told your father that the community was greatly aroused by the condition of affairs, and that the injury done to young Bush, while they didn't approve of Bush's conduct, had brought the trouble to a head. He said that sober-minded citizens didn't want any outbreak, but that the peculiar relation existing between your father and me outraged the sentiments of every respectable man and woman in the county."

"Did father hit him?"

"No, honey; but he rose right up without waiting to hear any more and told Colonel Allen that as for the injury to young Bush he had done nothing more than defend the good name of a woman and had no apologies or explanations to offer. He talked quite a long time to them, and I could see that they didn't like some of the things he said. As he finished he told them that he could see that our condition, cut off as we were from association with respectable people by prejudice and from the lower classes because of their dense ignorance, and thrown into intimacy by our work, was somewhat unusual, but that was because of conditions we could not control and be true to our work. He would try to arrange, he told them, if they would give him a week, so that there would be no grounds for these criticisms. They asked him what he proposed to do, but he said he couldn't answer them then.

"They gave him the week he asked for, and left us. He dismissed the school when the committee was gone, and when all the children had scampered out of the schoolhouse he told me that while we could not be blamed for the way things had come about, it was true that our being so much together and cut off from everybody else gave our critics a chance to talk, and his solution of the difficulty was for us to be married—at once. He went on to say a whole lot of things, honey, that I never imagined he thought of, and wound up by declaring that I owed it to the work we had begun to make any sacrifices to carry it on. Now, honey, there was never a better, braver man than your father, nor a better looking one, I think, and there was no reason why I should not love him. I was younger then than I am now and I was not a bad-looking girl myself, and I did not think till long afterwards that when he spoke of my sacrifices he was thinking of his own.

"Well, he made what arrangements were necessary that evening, and we were married by a Bureau officer of some kind or other next morning before time for school. When school assembled he sent a note by one of the boys to Colonel Allen, saying that we had arranged the matter so that there could be no further objection to our running the school in together, and informed him that we were married."

"And what reply did Colonel Allen send to that note?" Hayward asked his mother with great interest.

"He didn't send any," she replied; "but came along with some others of the committee in about half an hour to bring his answer himself."

"What did he say?"

"Well, he started off by saying to your father that there could be no doubt that what we had done would make the people forget their former objections, but he thought it would be because the former offence against their notions of propriety would be lost sight of in their unspeakable indignation at this method we had adopted, which, he said, struck at the very foundation of their civilization. He talked very high and mighty, I thought, and though he pretended to try to hold himself down and not get mad, he ripped and charged a long time right there before the whole school, and finally told us he would do all he could to keep the people from doing us harm, but he advised us to leave the community just as soon as we could, as he wouldn't be responsible for the result of our act."

"What did father say to that?" Hayward asked eagerly.