The Wit and Humor of America Volume VIII Part 2

"Dandah--dandah! You know him? Th' ain't no better boss, but ef he goes out huntin' b'ah and don't get no _b'ah_--why, den dey ain't no reason gwine _do_ foh him.

"Now, when you see Cunnel Blount come home, he'll come up along dat lane, him an' de dogs, an' dem no 'count n.i.g.g.e.rs he done took 'long with him; an' when he gits up to whah de lane crosses de railroad track, ef he come' ridin' 'long easy like, now an' den tootin' his hawn to sort o'

let us know he's a-comin'--ef he do dat-a-way, dat's all right,--dat's all right." Here the garrulous old servant shook his head. "But ef he don't--well den--"

"That's bad, if he doesn't, eh?"

"Yessah. Ef he don' come a-blowin' an' ef he _do_ come _a-singin_', den look out! I allus did notice dat ef Cunnel Blount 'gins to sing 'ligious hymns, somethin's wrong, and somethin' gwine ter drap. He hain't right easy ter git 'long wif when he's a-singin'. But if you'll 'scuse me, suh, I got ter take care o' Hec. Jest make yourself to home, suh,--anyways you like."

The visitor contented himself with wandering about the yard, until at length he seated himself on the board-pile beneath the evergreen trees, and so sank into an idle reverie, his chin in his hand, and his eyes staring out across the wide field. He sat thus for some time, and the sun was beginning to encroach upon his refuge, when suddenly he was aroused by the faint and far-off sound of a hunting-horn. That the listener distinguished it at such a distance might have argued that he himself had known hound and saddle in his day; yet he readily caught the note of the short hunting-horn universally used by the Southern hunters, and recognized the a.s.sembly call for the hunting-pack. As it came near, all the dogs in the kennel yards heard it and raged to escape from their confinement. Old Bill came hobbling around the corner. Steps were heard on the gallery. The visitor's face showed a slight uneasiness as he caught a glance of a certain spot now suddenly made alive by the flutter of a soft gown and the flash of a bunch of scarlet ribbons. Thither he gazed as directly as he might under these circ.u.mstances, but the girl was gone before he had opportunity even to rise and remove his hat.

"That's her. That's Miss Lady," said Bill to his new friend, in a low voice. "Han'somest gal in the hull Delta. They'll all be right glad ter see the Cunnel back. He's got a b'ah sh.o.r.e, fer he's comin' a-blowin'."

Bill's joy was not long-lived, for even as the little cavalcade came in view, a tall figure on a chestnut hunting horse riding well in advance, certain colored stragglers coming behind, and the party-colored pack trotting or limping along on all sides, the music of the summoning horn suddenly ceased. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, the leader of the hunt rode on up the lane, sitting loose and careless in the saddle, his right hand steadying a short rifle across the saddle front. He rode thus until presently those at the Big House heard, softly rising on the morning air, the chant of an old church hymn: "On Jordan's strand I'll take my stand, An-n-n--"

"Oh, Lawd," exclaimed Bill. "Dat's his very wustest chune!"--saying which he dodged around the corner of the house.

Turning in from the lane at the yard gate, Colonel Calvin Blount and his retinue rode close up to the side door of the plantation house; but even here the master vouchsafed no salutation to those who awaited his coming. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered, lean and muscular; yet so far from being thin and dark, he was spare rather from physical exercise than through gaunt habit of body; his complexion was ruddy and sun-colored, and the long mustache hanging across his jaws showed a deep mahogany-red. Western ranchman one might have called him, rather than Southern planter. Scotch-Irish, generations back, perhaps, yet Southern always, and by birthright American, he might have been a war-lord of another land and day. No feudal baron ever dismounted with more a.s.suredness at his own hall, to toss careless rein to a retainer. He stood now, tall and straight, a trifle rough-looking in his careless planter's dress, but every inch the master. A slight frown puckered up his forehead, giving to his face an added hint of sternness.

Colonel Blount busied himself with directions as to the horses and dogs.

The latter came straggling along in groups or pairs or singly, some of them hobbling on three legs, many showing bitter wounds. The chase of the great bear had proved stern pastime for them. Of half a hundred hounds which had started, not two-thirds were back again, and many of these would be unfit for days for the resumption of their savage trade.

None the less, as the master sounded again, loud and clear, the call for the a.s.sembly, all the dogs about the place, young and old, homekeepers and warriors, came pouring in with heads uplifted, each pealing out his sweet and mournful music. Blount spoke to dozens of them, calling each by its proper name.

In the confusion of the disbandment of the hunt, the master of the Big House had as yet hardly had time to look about him, but now, as the conclave scattered he found himself alone, and turning discovered the occupant of the board-pile, who arose and advanced, offering his hand.

"This is Colonel Blount, I presume," said he.

"Yes, sir, that's my name. I beg your pardon, I'm sure, but I didn't know you were there. Come right on into the house and sit down, sir.

Now, your name was--?"

"Eddring," said the new-comer. "John Eddring. I am just down on the morning's train from the city."

"I'm right glad to see you, Mr. Eddring," said Colonel Blount, extending his hand. The two, without plan, wandered over toward the shade of the evergreen, and presently seated themselves at the board-pile.

"Well, Colonel Blount," said the visitor, "I reckon you must have had a good hunt."

"Yes, sir, there ain't a ba'h in the Delta can get away from those dogs.

We run this fellow straight on end for ten miles; put him across the river twice, and all around the Black Bayou, but the dogs kept him hot all the time, I'm telling you, for more than five miles through the cane beyond the bayou."

"Who got the shot, Colonel?" asked Eddring--a question apparently most unwelcome.

"Well, I ought to have had it," said Blount, with a frown of displeasure. "The fact is, I did take a flying chance from horseback, when the ba'h ran by in the cane half a mile back of where they killed him. Somehow I must have missed. But man! you ought to have heard that pack for two hours through the woods. It certainly would have raised your hair straight up. You ever hunt ba'h, sir?"

"A little, once in a while, when I have had the time. You see, a railroad man can't always choose."

"Railroad man?" said Colonel Blount. A sudden gloom fell upon his ruddy face. "Railroad man, eh? Well, I wish you was something else. Now, I helped get that railroad through this country--if it hadn't been for me, they never could have laid a mile of track through here. But now, do you know what they done did to me the other day, with their d.a.m.ned old railroad?"

"No, sir, I haven't heard."

"Well, I'll tell you--Bill! Oh, _Bill_! Go into the house and get me some ice; and go pick some mint and bring it here to this gentleman and me--Say, do you know what that railroad did? Why, it just killed the best filly on my plantation, my best running stock, too. Now, I was the man to help get that railroad through the Delta, and I--"

"Well, now, Colonel Blount," said the other, "the road isn't a bad sort of thing for you all down here, after all. It relieves you of the river market, and it gives you a double chance to get out your cotton. You don't have to haul your cotton twelve miles back to the boat any more.

Here is your station right at your door, and you can load on the cars any day you want to."

"Oh, that's all right, that's all right. But how about this killing of my stock?"

"Well, that's so," said the other, facing the point and ruminatingly biting a splinter between his teeth. "It does look as if we had killed about everything loose in the whole Delta during the last month or so."

"Are you on this railroad?" asked Blount suddenly.

"I reckon I'll have to admit that I am," said the other, smiling.

"Pa.s.senger agent, or something of that sort, I reckon? Well, let me tell you, you change your road. Say, there was a man down below here last week settling up claims--Bill! Ah-h, _Bill_! Where've you gone?"

"Yes," said Eddring, "it certainly did seem that when we built this road every cow and every n.i.g.g.e.r, not to mention a lot of white folks, made a bee-line straight for our right of way. Why, sir, it was a solid line of cows and n.i.g.g.e.rs from Memphis to New Orleans. How could you blame an engineer if he run into something once in a while? He couldn't _help_ it."

"Yes. Now, do you know what this claim-settler, or this claim-agent man did? Why, he paid a man down below here two stations--what do you think he paid him for as fine a heifer as ever eat cane? Why, fifteen dollars!"

"Fifteen dollars!"

"Yes, fifteen dollars."

"That looks like a heap of money for a heifer, doesn't it, Colonel Blount?"

"A heap of money? Why, no. Heap of _money_? Why, what do you mean?"

"Heifers didn't bring that before the road came through. Why, you would have had to drive that heifer twenty-five miles before you could get a market, and then she wouldn't have brought over twelve dollars. Now, fifteen dollars, seems to me, is about right."

"Well, let the heifer go. But there was a cow killed three miles below here the other day. Neighbors of mine. I reckon that claim agent wouldn't want to allow any more than fifteen dollars for Jim Bowles'

cow, neither."

"Maybe not."

"Well, never mind about the cow, either; but look here. A n.i.g.g.e.r lost his wife down there, killed by these steam kyars--looks like the n.i.g.g.e.rs get _fascinated_ by them kyars. But here's Bill coming at last. Now, Mr.

Eddring, we'll just make a little julep. Tell me, how do you make a julep, sir?"

Eddring hitched a little nearer on the board-pile. "Well, Colonel Blount," said he, "in our family we used to have an old silver mug--sort of plain mug, you know, few flowers around the edge of it--been in the family for years. Now, you take a mug like that and let it lie in the ice box all the time, and when you take it out, it's sort of got a white frost all over it. Now, my old daddy, he would take this mug and put some fine ice into it,--not too fine. Then he'd take a little cut loaf sugar, in another gla.s.s, and he'd mash it up in a little water--not too much water--then he'd pour that in over the ice. Then he would pour in some good corn whisky, till all the interstices of that ice were filled plumb up; then he'd put some mint--"

"Didn't smash the mint? Say, he didn't smash the mint, did he?" said Colonel Blount, eagerly, hitching over toward the speaker.

"Smash it? I should say not, sir! Sometimes, at certain seasons of the mint, he might just sort of take a twist at the leaf, to sort of release a little of the flavor, you know. You don't want to be rough with mint.

Just twist it gently between the thumb and finger. Then you set it in nicely around the edge of the gla.s.s. Sometimes just a little powder of fine sugar around on top of the mint leaves, and then a straw--"

"Sir," said Colonel Blount, gravely rising and taking off his hat, "you are welcome to my home!"

Eddring, with equal courtesy, arose and removed his own hat.

"For my part," resumed Blount, judicially, "I rather lean to a piece of cut gla.s.s, for the green and the crystal look mighty fine together. I don't always make them with any sugar on top of the mint. But, you know, just a circle of mint--not crushed--not crushed, mind you--just a green ring of fragrance, so that you can bury your nose in it and forget your troubles. Sir, allow me once more to shake your hand. I think I know a gentleman when I see one."