Carolina Lee

"Well, harmony is heaven!" said Mrs. Winchester, emphatically.

"Oh, what bliss to be coming home!" breathed Carolina, fervently. "I wonder if any shipwrecked sailor or prodigal son or homesick child ever yearned as cruelly for his father's house as I yearn for my first sight of Guildford!"

Mrs. Winchester turned, a little frightened at the passion in the girl's tone. She felt that Carolina was unconsciously preparing herself for a bitter disappointment.

"How dear those little darkies are!" she cried. "But, oh, did you see what that woman did? She knocked that little boy sprawling! She knocked that child down! Did you ever hear of such cruelty? Do you suppose she could possibly have been his own mother, Cousin Lois?"

"Sit down, Carolina, and don't get so excited. Of course she was his mother. That's the way coloured women do. It saves talking, – which seems to do no good. I've seen old Aunt 'Polyte, in your father's time at Guildford, come creeping around the corner of her cabin to see if her children were obeying her, and, if she found that they were not, I've seen her knock all ten of them down, – some fully six feet away. And such yells!"

"Did grandfather allow it?" demanded Carolina, with blazing eyes.

"I can fairly see him now, sitting his horse Splendour, draw rein and shake with silent laughter, till he had to take his pipe out of his mouth. It was too common a sight to make a fuss about. Besides, they needed it. Of all the mischievous, obstinate, thick-headed little donkeys you ever saw, commend me to a raft of black children, – Aunt 'Polyte's in particular. Coloured women are nearly always inhuman on the surface to their own children."

"Wasn't Aunt 'Polyte my father's black mammy? Wasn't she kind to the white children in her charge?"

"Ah, that was a different matter. Kind? 'Polyte would have let all her own children die to save your father one ache. I remember when her children got the measles, she locked them all in the cabin, and sent her sister to feed them at night, while she stayed in the big house and kept her white children from contagion. Fortunately, none of her own died, but, if they had, it wouldn't have changed her idea of her duty."

"What was there queer about Aunt 'Polyte? I remember that daddy told me once, but I have forgotten."

"She had one blue eye and one biack one, and not one of her children inherited her peculiarity except her youngest child, – a boy, – born when she was what would be called an old woman. I know she thought it was a bad omen to have a child after she was fifty, and, when she saw his blue eye, she said he was marked for bad luck."

"Oh, how dreadful!" cried Carolina. "Cousin Lois, you know enough about Christian Science to know that she made a law for that child which may have ruined him for life."

"Yes, I suppose she did. But, Carolina, dear, don't get your hopes of the South up too high. I am afraid it won't come up to your expectations."

Carolina smiled, sighed, and shook her head.

"I can't modify my anticipations, Cousin Lois. Don't try to help me. If I am to be disillusioned, let it come with an awful bump. Nothing short of being knocked down with a broadside like that little negro boy can do my case any good. I'm hopeless."

"I believe you are. Well, we shall see. We must be nearly there. The last time the train stopped, – was it to shoo a cow off the track or to repair the telegraph wires? – the conductor said we were only five hours late. But that was six hours ago. I wonder what we are stopping at this little shed for? Oh, hurry, Carolina! He is calling Enterprise and beckoning to us."

"No hurry, ma'am," said the conductor. "The train will wait until you all get off in comfort, or I'll shoot the engineer with my own hand!"

Carolina stepped from the train to the platform and looked around. Then she bit her lip until it bled. Cousin Lois was counting the hand-luggage and purposely refrained from looking at her.

There was a platform baking in the torrid heat of a September afternoon. From a shed at one end came the clicking of a telegraph instrument. That, then, must be the station. Six or eight negro boys and men, who had been asleep in the shade of a dusty palmetto, roused up at the arrival of the train and came lazily forward to see what was going on. There were some dogs who did not take even that amount of trouble. A wide street with six inches of dust led straight away from the station platform. There was a blacksmith shop on one side and a row of huts on the other. Farther along, Carolina could see the word "Hotel" in front of a one-story cottage. The town fairly quivered with the heat.

"Was you-all expectin' any one to meet you?" inquired the conductor.

"Why, yes," answered Mrs. Winchester. "Miss Yancey said she would send for us."

"Miss Yancey? Miss Sue or Miss Sallie Yancey? Fat lady with snappin' brown eyes?"

"Yes, that describes her."

"The one that's just been to New York with the colonel's children?"

"Yes."

"Oh, well, that's Miss Sue. She'll send all right, but likely's not you've got to wait awn her. She's so fat she can't move fast. Have you ever heard how the colonel's little girl was kyored? She went to one of these here spiritualists and was kyored in a trance, they tell me."

"Ah, is that what they say?" said Mrs. Winchester, in a tone of deep vexation. She felt insulted to think of so dignified a belief as Christian Science being confounded with such a thing as spiritualism. But she realized the absurdity of entering into a defence of a new religion with the conductor of a waiting train. She had, however, forgotten what Southern railroads are like.

"Yes'm. They say a lady done it. Jest waved her hands over the child, and Gladys hopped up and began to shout and sing and pray!"

"My good man," said Mrs. Winchester, "do start your train up. You are seven hours late as it is!"

"What's your hurry, ma'am? Everybody expects this train to be late. I can't go till my wife's niece comes along. She wants to go on this train, and I reckon I know better than to leave her. She's got a tongue sharper'n Miss Sue Yancey's."

Mrs. Winchester turned her majestic bulk on the conductor, intending to annihilate him with a glance, but he shifted his quid of tobacco to the other cheek, spat neatly at a passing dog, lifted one foot to a resting-place on Carolina's steamer-trunk, and continued, pleasantly:

"Now, that there dust comin' up the road means business for these parts. I'd be willin' to bet a pretty that that is either Moultrie La Grange or Miss Sue Yancey. But whoever it is, they are sho in a hurry."

Carolina stood looking at the cloud of dust also. Most of the passengers on the waiting train, with their heads out of the car-windows, were doing the same. It seemed to be the only energetic and disturbing element in an otherwise peaceful landscape, and only one or two passengers, who were obviously from the North and therefore impatient by inheritance, objected in the least to this enforced period of rest.

"And from here, I'd as soon say it was Moultrie as Miss Sue. They both kick up a heap of dust in one way or another, on'y Moultrie, he don't raise no dust talking. If it is Moultrie, he'll be mighty sore at bein' away when the train come in, on'y I reckon he didn't look for her so soon. We was thirteen hours late yestiddy."

How much longer the train would have waited, no one with safety can say, had not the cloud of dust resolved itself into a two-seated vehicle, in which sat two ladies, both clad in gray linen dusters, which completely concealed their identity. One of the dusters proved to be the conductor's niece, who took the time to be introduced to Mrs. Winchester and Carolina by the other duster, which turned out to be Miss Sue Yancey. When the conductor's niece had fully examined every item of Carolina's costume with a frank gaze of inventory, she stepped into the station to claim her luggage, and then, after bidding everybody good-bye all over again, she got into the train, put her head out of the window, called out messages to be given to each of her family, and, after a few moments more of monotonous bell-ringing by the engineer, in order to give everybody plenty of notice that the train was going to start, it creaked forward and bumped along on its deliberate journey farther south.

Carolina took an agonized notice of all this. If it had been anywhere else in the world, she could have been amused; she would have listened in delight to the garrulous conductor, and would have laughed at the crawling train. But here at Enterprise, – that dear town which was nearest to the old estate of Guildford, – why, it was like being asked to laugh at the drunken antics of a man whom you recognized as your own brother!

She listened to Miss Yancey's apologies for being late with a stiff smile on her lips. She must have answered direct questions, if any were asked, because no breaks in the conversation occurred and no one looked questioningly at her, but she had no recollection of anything except the jolting of the springless carriage and the clouds of dust which rolled in suffocating clouds from beneath the horses' shuffling feet.

They drove about four miles, and then turned in at what was once a gate. It was now two rotting pillars. The road was rough and overgrown on each side with underbrush. The house before which they stopped had been a fine old colonial mansion. Now the stone steps were so broken that Miss Yancey politely warned her guests with a gay:

"And do don't break your neck on those old stones, Mrs. Winchester. You see, we of the old South live in a continuous state of decay. But we don't mind it now. We have gotten used to it. If you will believe me, it didn't even make me jealous to see the prosperity of those Yankees up North. I kept saying to myself all the time, 'But we have got the blood!'"

As they entered the massive hall, cool and dim, the first thing which struck the eye was a large family tree, framed in black walnut, hanging on one side of the wall, while on the other was a highly coloured coat of arms of the Yanceys, also framed and under glass.

Miss Yancey took off her duster and hung it on the hat-rack.

"Now, welcome to Whitehall! Will you come into the parlour and rest awhile, or would you like to go to your rooms and lie down before supper? I want you to feel perfectly at home, and do just as you please."

"I think we will go to our rooms, please," said Mrs. Winchester, with one glance into Carolina's pale, tired face.

"Here, you Jake! Carry those satchels to Mrs. Winchester's room, and, Lily, take these things and go help the ladies. And mind you let me know if they want anything."

A few moments afterward, Lily, the negro maid, came hurrying down-stairs, her eyes rolling.

"Laws, Miss Sue! Dey wants a bath! Dey axed me where wuz de bathroom, en I sez, 'Ev'ry room is a bathroom while y'all is takin' a bath in it.' En Miss Sue, Miss Calline, she busted right out laffin'."

"They want a bath?" cried Miss Sue. "Well, go tell Angeline to heat some water quick, and you fill this pitcher and take it up to them. But mind that you wash it out first, – if you don't, you'll hear from me, – and don't be all day about it. Now, see if you can hurry, Lily."

When the sun went down, the oppressive quality in the heat seemed to disappear, and when Cousin Lois and Carolina came down in their cool, thin dresses, they found themselves in the midst of the most delightful part of a Southern summer day.

Miss Sue was nowhere to be seen, but another lady, as thin as she was fat, came out of the dimness and introduced herself.

"I am Mrs. Elliott Pringle, ladies, though you will nearly always hear me called Miss Sallie Yancey. Sister Sue is out in the garden. Shall we join her? I know she wants you to see her roses."