Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction

by Thomas Nelson Page

Just then the young hostess returned, and the next moment an old negro woman in a white kerchief stood in the door dropping courtesies as though she were in a play. Ruth was shown up a narrow little flight of stairs to a room so close under the sloping roof that it was only in the middle of it that she could stand upright. Everything, however, was spotlessly clean, and the white hangings, plain and simple as they were, and the little knick-knacks arranged about, made it dainty. The girl picked up one of the books idly. It was an old copy of “The Vicar of Wakefield.” As she replaced the book, she observed that where it lay it covered a patch.

At supper they were waited on by the old negro woman she had seen before, whom both their host and hostess called “Mammy,” and treated not so much as a servant, as if she were one of the family; and though the china was old and cracked, and mostly of odd pieces, the young hostess presided with an ease which filled Ruth with astonishment. “Why, she could not do it better if she had lived in a city all her life, and she is not a bit embarrassed by us,” she thought to herself. She observed that the only two pretty and sound cups were given to her and her father. The one she had was so dainty and unusual that she could not help looking at it closely, and was a little taken aback, on glancing up, to find her hostess’s eyes resting on her. The smile that came into them, however, reassured Ruth, and she ventured to say, half apologetically, that she was admiring the cup.

“Yes, it is pretty, isn’t it?” assented the other girl. “It has quite a history; you must get my father to tell it to you. There used to be a set of them.”

“It was a set which was presented to one of my ancestors by Charles the Second,” said the father thus appealed to, much as if he had said, “It is a set that was given me yesterday by a neighbor.” Ruth looked at him with wide-open eyes and a little uncomfortable feeling that he should tell her such a falsehood. His face, however, wore the same calm look. “If you inspect closely, you can still make out the C. R. on it, though it is almost obliterated. My ancestor was with his father at Carisbrooke,” he added, casually, and Ruth, glancing at her father, saw that it was true, and at the same moment took in also the fact that they had reached the place they had been looking for; and that this farmer, as she had supposed him to be, was none other than Dr. Cary, and the young girl whom she had been patronizing, was Larry Middleton’s Blair Cary, a lady like herself. How could she have made the mistake! As she looked at her host again, the thoughtful, self-contained face, the high-bred air, the slightly aquiline nose, the deep eyes, and the calm mouth and the pointed beard made a perfect Vandyke portrait. Even the unstarched, loose collar and turned-back cuffs added to the impression. Ruth seemed to have been suddenly carried back over two hundred years to find herself in presence of an old patrician. She blushed with confusion over her stupidity, and devoutly hoped within herself that no one had noticed her mistake.

After supper, Major Welch and Dr. Cary, who had renewed their old acquaintance, fell to talking of the war, and Ruth was astonished to find how differently their host looked at things from the way in which all the people she had ever known regarded them. It was strange to the girl to hear her people referred to as “the Yankees” or “the enemy”; and the other side, which she had always heard spoken of as “rebels,” mentioned with pride as “the Confederates” or “our men.” After a little, she heard her father ask about the man he had come South to see—Mr. Hiram Still. “Do you know him?” he asked their host.

“Oh, yes, sir, I know him. We all know him. He was overseer for one of my friends and connections, who was, perhaps, the wealthiest man in this section before the war, Mr. Gray, of Red Rock, the place where you spent the night you spoke of. Colonel Gray was killed at Shiloh, and his property all went to pay his debts afterward. He had some heavy endorsements, and it turned out that he owed a great deal of money to Still for negroes he had bought to stock a large plantation he had in one of the other States—at least, the overseer gave this explanation, and produced the bonds, which proved to be genuine, though at first it was thought they must be forged. I suppose it was all right, though some people thought not, and it seems hard to have that fellow living in Gray’s house.”

“But he bought it, did he not?” asked Major Welch.

“Oh, yes, sir, he bought it—bought it at a forced sale,” said Dr. Cary, slowly. “But I don’t know—to see that fellow living up there looks very strange. There are some things so opposed to the customary course of events that the mind refuses to accept them.”

“Still lives somewhat lower down, I believe?” said Major Welch.

“No, sir, he is not very far off,” said Dr. Cary. “He is just across the river a few miles. Do you know him?”