The hindered hand

by Sutton E. Griggs

Ensal felt that the acceptance of slavery on the part of the Negro in preference to extermination was evidence of adaptability to conditions that assured the presence of the Negro on the earth in the final wind up of things, in full possession of all the advantages that time and progress promise. Earl rather admired the Indian and felt that the dead Indian refusing to be enslaved was a richer heritage to the world than the yielding and thriving Negro.

Ensal held that the course of the Negro during the Civil War in caring for the wives and children of the men fighting for their enslavement was a tribute to their humanity and would prove an invaluable asset in all future reckonings. While thoroughly approving of the Negro's protection of the women and children of the whites from violence, Earl was sorry that the thousand torches which Grady said would have disbanded the Southern armies were not lighted. Ensal deprecated all talk and thought of the sword as the final arbiter of the troubles between the races. Earl had his dreams—and his plans as well.

The procuring of the full recognition of the rights of the Negro was such a passion with Ensal that Earl relied upon it to finally bring him from the ranks of the conservatives to the radicals. Earl was fully convinced within himself that all of Ensal's hopes of a satisfactory, peaceful adjustment of matters were to be dashed to the ground, and knowing how thoroughly Ensal's soul was committed to the advancement of the race, he really expected Ensal to develop into the leader of the radicals. But this looming into view of a young woman, a friend of Ensal's, was liable, Earl thought, to complicate matters.

Earl had all along rejoiced in Ensal's determination to remain unmarried, fearing that family life might add to his conservatism. This accounts for the fact that Ensal's simple invitation to call on a Miss Tiara Merlow on the following evening so deeply affected Earl.

"Yes, yes, I'll go," said Earl slowly, almost as much to himself as to Ensal.

Ensal knew Earl so well that he could have told him the character of his (Earl's) thoughts.

On the following evening as Ensal and Earl sat in the parlor of the Crawford's chatting, Tiara parted the curtains shutting off an adjoining room, and stepped in. Her hair was arranged in two rich black braids tied up so as to extend only to her shoulders. The hair on the front part of her head was allowed to come forward, but not enough to forbid glimpses of a well rounded, beautiful forehead. As she stood there, symmetrical in form, just large and tall enough to be commanding in appearance, Ensal again inwardly declared that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, heard of or dreamed about. Her eyes would have made a face of less regular features appear beautiful. As for Tiara, they made her beauty simply dazzling.

When Earl's wits, swept away by Tiara's beauty, slowly returned, it dawned upon him to his great astonishment that he was face to face with the young woman who had ridden into Almaville with Ensal and himself.

"If she was Ensal's friend, why did he not make himself known to her on the train?" asked Earl of himself. But this query was soon dislodged from his mind by one of far more interest to him, to wit: "Is it not likely that I may utilize this young woman as a means of bringing to me a second glimpse of that girl that paid us a visit from the coach for whites?"

Earl was introduced in due form and joined in the conversation now and then; but it was evident to Ensal that he was, for some cause, ill at ease. Tiara and Ensal, however, enjoyed the evening, each intently weighing the remarks of the other.