The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 6

It was sweet, this home-coming to those who loved deepest. Somehow the monastery, its bells, its organ, its jeweled windows, and its kindly black-robed priests seemed far away and unreal now--only a dream that had pa.s.sed.

VI

REBELLION

The mother's breakdown was not allowed to stop the Boy's education. Both father and older brother were determined on this. They would use the schools at home now.

He was sent to the County Academy in the fall. The Boy didn't like it.

After the easy life with the kindly old monks at St. Thomas, this academy was not only cheap and coa.r.s.e and uninteresting, but the teacher had no sense. He gave lessons so long and hard it was impossible to memorize them.

The Boy complained to the teacher. A lesson of the same length was promptly given again. The rebel showed the teacher he was wrong by failing to know it.

"I'll thrash you, sir!" was the stern answer.

The Boy would not take that from such a fool. He rose in his wrath, went home and poured out the indignant story of his wrongs.

The father was a man of few words, but the long silence which followed gave a feeling of vague uneasiness. He was never dictatorial to his children, but meant what he said. His voice was quiet and persuasive when he finally spoke.

"Of course, my son, you will have to choose for yourself whether you will work with your hands only, or with your head and hands. You can't be an idler, I need more cotton pickers. You don't like school, try the cotton, I'll give you work."

The Boy flushed and looked at his father keenly. It was no joke. He meant exactly what he had said, and a boy with any sand in his gizzard couldn't back down.

"All right, sir," was the firm answer. "I'll begin in the morning."

He went forth to his task with grim determination. The sun of early September had just risen and it was already hot as he bent to work.

Cotton picking looked easy from a distance. When you got at it, things somehow were different. A task of everlasting monotony, this bending from boll to boll along the endless rows! He never realized before how long the cotton rows were. There was a little stop at the end before turning and selecting the next, but these rows seemed to stretch away into eternity.

Three hours at it, and he was mortally tired. His back ached in a dull hopeless pain. He lifted his head and gazed longingly toward the school he had scorned.

"What a fool!" he sighed. "But I'll stick to it. I can do what any n.i.g.g.e.r can."

He looked curiously at the slaves who worked without apparent effort.

Not one of them seemed the least bit tired. He could get used to it, too. After all, this breath of the open world was better than being cooped up in a stuffy old schoolhouse with a fool to set impossible tasks.

"Pooh! I'll show my father!" he exclaimed.

The negroes broke into a plantation song. Jim Pemberton, the leader, sang each stanza in a clear fine tenor that rang over the field and echoed through the deep woods. The others joined in the chorus and after the last verse repeated in low sweet notes that died away so softly it was impossible to tell the moment the song had ceased.

The music was beautiful, but it was impossible for him to join in their singing. He couldn't lower himself to an equality with black slaves.

This cotton picking seemed part of their scheme of life. Their strong black bodies swayed in a sort of rhythmic movement even when they were not singing. Somehow his body didn't fit into the scheme. His back ached and ached. No matter. He had chosen, and he would show them he had a man's spirit inside a boy's breast.

At noon the ache had worn away and he felt a sense of joy in conquering the pain.

He ate his dinner in silence and wondered what Polly was thinking about at school. Girl-like, she had cried and begged him to go back.

With a cheerful wave of his hand to his mother, he returned to the field before the negroes, strapped the bag on his shoulder and bent again to his task. The afternoon was long. It seemed at three o'clock there could be no end to it and still those long, long rows of white fleece stretched on and on into eternity--all alike in dull, tiresome monotony.

He whistled to keep up his courage.

The negroes whispered to one another and smiled as they looked his way.

He paid no attention.

By four o'clock, the weariness had become a habit and at sundown he felt stronger than at dawn. He swung the bag over his back and started to the weighing place.

"Pooh--it's easy!" he said with scorn.

The negroes crowded around his pile of cotton.

"Dat Boy is sho one cotton-picker!" cried Jim Pemberton, regarding him with grinning admiration.

"Of course, I can pick cotton if I want to--"

"But ye raly don't wanter?" Jim grinned.

"Sure I do. I'm sick of school."

Jim laughed aloud and, coming close, whispered insinuatingly:

"I'se sho sick er pickin' cotton, an' when yer quits de job--"

"I'm not going to quit--"

"Ya.s.sah, ya.s.sah?--I understan' dat--but de pint is, _when_ yer _do_ quit, don't fergit Jim, Ma.r.s.e Jeff. I likes you. You got de s.p.u.n.k. I wants ter be yo' man."

The appeal touched the Boy's pride. He answered with quiet dignity:

"All right, James--"

Jim lifted his head and walled his eyes:

"Des listen at him call me Jeemes! I knows a real marster when I sees him!"

That night, the father asked no questions and made no comment on the fact that he had picked a hundred and ten pounds of cotton--as much as any man in the field. His deciding to work with his hands had apparently been accepted as final.

This thing of deciding life for himself was a serious business. It would be very silly to jump into a career with slaves, coa.r.s.e and degrading, just because a fool happened to be teaching at the County Academy. He must think this thing over. Tired as he was, he lay awake until eleven o'clock, thinking, thinking for himself.

It was lonesome work, too, this thinking for himself.

If his father had only done the thinking for him, it would have been so much easier to accept his decision and then rebel if he didn't like it.

He returned to the field next morning with renewed determination.

Through the long, hot, interminable day he bent and fought the battle in silence. His back ached worse than the first day. Every muscle in his finely strung little body was bruised and sore and on fire.

He began to ask if his father were right. Wasn't a man a double fool who had brains and refused to use them?