Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction

by Thomas Nelson Page

There was a movement, and a voice interrupted him.

“No, you don’t. That place has been redeemed.” Andy spoke quietly, but with a sudden blaze in his eyes. He held up the certificate of payment, gripped in his hand, and looked across at Hiram Still.

There was a moment’s pause, and then cheer after cheer broke out from the crowd of whites; and the long, pent-up feeling against Still burst forth so vehemently that he turned and pushed deep into the middle of the throng of blacks about him, and soon left the ground.

The excitement and anxiety, however, proved too much for old Mrs. Bellows, and she died suddenly a few nights later.

“One more notch on the score against Hiram and Major Leech,” said Andy Stamper, grimly, as he turned the key in the door of the empty house, and, taking it out, put it in his pocket.

Andy’s wife, as the old woman’s heir, was the owner of the place; but a few days after Mrs. Bellows’s death Andy rode up to Dr. Cary’s door.

Delia had sent him over, he said (he always laid the credit of such things on Delia, he was simply clay in the potter’s hands).—Delia had sent him to say that the place belonged to Miss Blair. “She had found out where the money came from which bought it back, and she wan’t goin’ to take it. She couldn’t take care of the place anyhow—’twas all she could do to keep the place they had now; and she would not have this one if she was to pay taxes on it. All she wanted, was to beat Hiram. So if Miss Blair wouldn’t take it, she s’posed Nicholas Ash would git it next year, after all.”

Andy pulled out a deed, made in due form to Miss Blair Cary, and delivered it to the Doctor, meeting every objection which the Doctor raised, with a reason so cogent that it really looked as if he were simply trying to shield Delia Dove from some overwhelming calamity. So the Doctor finally agreed to hold the place for his daughter, though only as security for the sum advanced, and with the stipulation that Andy should at any time have the privilege of redeeming it. It was well for Dr. Cary that he had placed his money as he did.

A few days after this sale at the county seat, Dr. Cary received a letter from Mr. Ledger, telling him that the condition of affairs had become so gloomy that his correspondents in the North were notifying him that they could not continue their advances to him at present, and as the notes given him by Dr. Cary and General Legaie, which had already been renewed several times, were about to fall due again, he found himself under the disagreeable necessity of asking that they would arrange to pay them at their next maturity. General Legaie, who had received a similar letter, rode up to see Dr. Cary next morning, and the following day they went to the city together. They rode on horseback, as they had no money to pay even the small sum necessary for the railway fares.