This reason, to judge from Major Welch’s expression, did not make much impression on him. He did not wish to incur anyone’s enmity, he said. But if he bought honestly, and became the lawful owner of a place, he should not mind what others thought.
Still shook his head. Major Welch did not know these people, he said. “And to be honest with you, Major, I feel as if having you right here by me was a sort of protection. They daresn’t touch a gentleman who’s been in the Union army, and who’s got big friends. And that’s one reason I’d like to have you right close to me.”
His manner had something so sincere in it that it was almost pathetic. So, as he made Major Welch what appeared to be really a very reasonable proposal, not only as to the Stamper place, but also as to several hundred acres of the Red Rock land adjoining, the Major agreed to take it under advisement, and intimated that if the title should prove all right, and Mrs. Welch should like the idea when she arrived he would probably purchase.
Within a week or two following Major Welch’s trip to the county seat, and Still’s offer to sell him the Stamper place and a part of Red Rock, Mrs. Welch arrived. Mrs. Welch, in her impatience, could not wait for the day she had set and arrived before she was expected. The telegram she had sent had miscarried, and when she reached the station there was no one present to meet her.
A country station is a sad place at best to one who has just left the bustle and life of a city; but to be deposited, bag and baggage, in a strange land and left alone without anyone to meet you, and without knowing a soul, is forlorn to the last degree.
Strong as she was, Mrs. Welch, when the train whirled away and no one came to her, felt a sense of her isolation strike her to the heart. A two-horse carriage, the only one in sight, stood near a fence at some little distance, and for a short while she thought it might have come for her, and she waited for some moments; but presently a tall colored man and a colored woman got into it. The man was glittering with a shining silk-hat and a long broad-cloth coat; and the woman was in a brand-new silk, and wore a vivid bonnet. Even then, it occurred to Mrs. Welch that, perhaps, the man was the coachman, and, for a moment, she was buoyed by hope, but she was doomed to disappointment. The man was talking loudly, and apparently talked to be heard by all around him. Mrs. Welch could hear something of what he said.
“We’re all right. We’ve got ’em down, and we mean to keep ’em down, too, by ——!” A shout followed this.
“Yes, the bottom rail is on top, and we mean to keep it so till the fence rots down, by ——!” Another burst of laughter. “You jest stick to me and Leech, and we’ll bring you to the promised land. Yas, we’re in the saddle, and we mean to stay there. We’ve got the Gov’ment behind us, and we’ll put a gun in every colored man’s hand and give him, not a mule, but a horse to ride, and we’ll dress his wife in silk and give her a carriage to ride in, same’s my wife’s got.”
“Ummh! heah dat! Yes, Lord! Dat’s what I want,” cried an old woman, jumping up and down in her ecstasy, to the amusement of the others.
“A mule’s good ’nough for me—I b’lieve I ruther have mule ’n hoss, I’se fotched up wid mules,” called out someone, which raised a great laugh, and some discussion.