Carolina Lee

The girl smote her hands together. "His truth shall be thy shield!" "God is my all!" "He is my rock and my fortress!" "Thou shalt call upon me and I will answer!" "Fear not, for I am with thee!" Detached sentences, phrases, half-sentences fell from her lips in frozen whispers. But the man stood still. He was no longer crawling toward her. And they stood looking at each other. He had queer eyes, – one blue and one black-where had she heard of such eyes-where had she seen this very man?

"'Polyte!" she cried.

Instantly the white woman got the ascendency over the black blood of the man.

"'Polyte, do you know who you are? You are the son of my father's nurse! Your mother was my father's black mammy!"

The assurance, even the confidence, left the man's manner. His shoulders drooped perceptibly. He took a backward step. Surely she did not know what he was or she would not speak to him except to scream for help.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yas, missis."

"You don't know how you frightened me, until I saw who you were. Then I knew that you would catch Scintilla for me. Mr. Moultrie has told me what a way you have with animals."

In an instant the man was her servant, the son of her grandfather's slave. His fear of detection and punishment left him, and he was quick enough to know that her supposed ignorance of his intentions had saved him from a horrible death. He was a bad negro partly because he was so intelligent.

"I'll git her for you. Jes' watch me!"

He turned eagerly toward the horse and snapped his fingers. Scintilla raised her head and began to step gingerly toward the man. 'Polyte's power over animals may have been hypnotism, but to Carolina it was like magic to see Scintilla's bridle in 'Polyte's hand. The man proudly led the mare to her.

"Help me to mount," said Carolina, her shaking knees threatening every minute to give way beneath her. "No, hold your hand, and when I put my foot in it, you lift me. There!"

Once on her horse's back, Carolina felt her heart begin to beat with less noise. It seemed as if he could see how it pounded against her side.

"'Polyte," she said, "you are what people call a bad man. You have been bleeding my trees, and I don't know what all. Why don't you behave?"

The man kicked at a tuft of moss.

"Nobody won't hire me, Miss Calline. Ise done been in de chain-gang too often. Nobody won' trus' me!"

"Well, if I will trust you, for the sake of your dead mother, will you be good and faithful to me?"

The man's face lighted up. He took a step toward her.

"Will I? Miss Calline, on'y jes' try me! I kin do anyt'in'!"

"I believe you. Well, I'm going to try you. I want you to be my-well, my body-servant. To go everywhere I go and take care of me-so-I-won't-be-frightened-again. Will you?"

The man's eyes wavered in momentary terror. But he kept his head.

"On'y jes' try me!"

"I'm going to. But you must have a horse to ride. Look out for a good one, and one for me, too. You must get me, 'Polyte, the best saddle-horse in South Carolina!"

"Yas'm. I'll do my bes'. I kin git you a hawse."

"I'll pay you good wages, 'Polyte. But you mustn't drink. If a lady hires you, you can never get drunk, you know."

"I'll tek de pledge."

"Take any pledge that you can keep," said Carolina. She gathered up the reins and turned her horse. The man took a step nearer.

"Well, 'Polyte?"

"Miss Calline-"

"Well?"

"Nobody ain't ever trusted me befo'!"

"Well?"

"Not even my ole mammy. She voodooed me. She said I brought her bad luck, an' everybody tuk up de bad word agin me-"

"Well?"

"Even when I was a child, dey laid ever'thin' awn to me."

"I know."

"Well, you say ''Polyte, I trus' you. You tek care ob me.'"

"Yes, that is what I say."

"Well, Miss Calline, you gwine be teken cah ob!"

"I am sure of it. Good-bye, 'Polyte."

As she rode away, Carolina's shoulders drooped until she seemed fairly to shrink in her saddle.

"If he had touched me-oh, my God! – if he had touched me, I would have killed myself!"

She bowed her face in her hands, and the bitter tears streamed through her fingers.

She strove to think-to quiet herself-no one must know. Suddenly she heard the hoof-beats of a horse behind her. She dashed away her tears and straightened herself in her saddle. If any white man suspected the cause of her agitation, a human life-the life of some black man-would pay the forfeit. 'Polyte's life was in her keeping. She began to think of him as her property, – a human soul given into her power until it could be saved through her ministrations. God help him to have got away! God protect him! Black or white, he was God's child! The tear-stained face of a white woman, – a woman riding alone?

Scintilla had never felt a spur before in her life. Carolina knew it by her snort of fright and surprise. But she needed her best speed to draw away from the avenging white man on her track.

In her stall that night, Scintilla knew that there was a sharp-toothed animal which had bitten her twice in one short ride. She had tried to run away from it, but it was fastened to a woman's heel.

CHAPTER XX

MOULTRIE

It was the last of March. Spring, which comes so early in the South, was already in the fulfilment of her promise, and no lovelier spot could be found than that portion of South Carolina which contains the estates of Guildford, Sunnymede, and Whitehall.

Carolina, although working hard all of every day and often far into some nights, was happier than she had ever been in her life. She was free from the persecutions of Colonel Yancey at last. Little Gladys was now perfectly healed and as active as other children. Moultrie was proving a most eager and progressive student of Christian Science, and, while most of his narrowness and astonishing ignorance was still painfully in evidence at times when discussions of import took place, yet Carolina held faithfully to the thought that perfect harmony must result in time, and that such a fine mind as he naturally possessed must yield to the enlightenment which most men inherit. Instead of this, however, Moultrie La Grange inherited prejudices which had dwarfed and hampered his mental and spiritual advancement, and which mere friends overlooked. But to Carolina, who loved him, they were heart-breaking. It was as impossible to discuss history with most of her relatives as to expect them to speak Chinese. In the country schools they used a history which described the Civil War as a series of rebel victories, and the outcome of the war was not accounted for in any way. Carolina, in reading the book at Moultrie's request, wondered if the pupils, after a study of its facts, did not question the sanity of Gen. Robert E. Lee for surrendering a victorious and a gloriously successful army to a conquered and outnumbered foe, simply because General Grant asked him to. When she handed the history back to Moultrie, Carolina said, sadly: