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_ If the Brices had created an excitement upon their arrival, it was as
nothing to the mad delirium which raged at Miss Crane's boarding-house.
during the second afternoon of their stay. Twenty times was Miss Crane
on the point of requesting Mrs. Brice to leave, and twenty times, by the
advice of Mrs. Abner Deed, she desisted. The culmination came when the
news leaked out that Mr. Stephen Brice had bought the young woman in
order to give her freedom. Like those who have done noble acts since the
world began, Stephen that night was both a hero and a fool. The cream
from which heroes is made is very apt to turn.
"Phew!" cried Stephen, when they had reached their room after tea,
"wasn't that meal a fearful experience? Let's find a hovel, mother, and
go and live in it. We can't stand it here any longer."
"Not if you persist in your career of reforming an Institution, my son,"
answered the widow, smiling.
"It was beastly hard luck," said he, "that I should have been shouldered
with that experience the first day. But I have tried to think it over
calmly since, and I can see nothing else to have done." He paused in his
pacing up and down, a smile struggling with his serious look. "It was
quite a hot-headed business for one of the staid Brices, wasn't it?"
"The family has never been called impetuous," replied his mother.
"It must be the Western air."
He began his pacing again. His mother had not said one word about the
money. Neither had he. Once more he stopped before her.
"We are at least a year nearer the poor-house," he said; "you haven't
scolded me for that. I should feel so much better if you would."
"Oh, Stephen, don't say that!" she exclaimed. "God has given me no
greater happiness in this life than the sight of the gratitude of that
poor creature, Nancy. I shall never forget the old woman's joy at the
sight of her daughter. It made a palace out of that dingy furniture
shop. Hand me my handkerchief, dear."
Stephen noticed with a pang that the lace of it was frayed and torn at
the corner.
There was a knock at the door.
"Come in," said Mrs. Brice, hastily putting the handkerchief down.
Hester stood on the threshold, and old Nancy beside her.
"Evenin', Mis' Brice. De good Lawd bless you, lady, an' Miste' Brice,"
said the old negress.
"Well, Nancy?"
Nancy pressed into the room. "Mis' Brice!"
"Yes?"
"Ain' you gwineter' low Hester an' me to wuk fo' you?"
"Indeed I should be glad to, Nancy. But we are boarding."
"Yassm, yassm," said Nancy, and relapsed into awkward silence. Then
again, "Mis' Brice!"
"Yes, Nancy?"
"Ef you 'lows us t' come heah an' straighten out you' close, an' mend 'em
--you dunno how happy you mek me an' Hester--des to do dat much, Mis'
Brice."
The note of appeal was irresistible. Mrs. Brice rose and unlocked the
trunks.
"You may unpack them, Nancy," she said.
With what alacrity did the old woman take off her black bonnet and shawl!
"Whaffor you stannin' dere, Hester?" she cried.
"Hester is tired," said Mrs. Brice, compassionately, and tears came to
her eyes again at the thought of what they had both been through that
day.
"Tired!" said Nancy, holding up her hands. "No'm, she ain' tired. She
des kinder stupefied by you' goodness, Mis' Brice."
A scene was saved by the appearance of Miss Crane's hired girl.
"Mr. and Mrs. Cluyme, in the parlor, mum," she said.
If Mr. Jacob Cluyme sniffed a little as he was ushered into Miss Crane's
best parlor, it was perhaps because of she stuffy dampness of that room.
Mr. Cluyme was one of those persons the effusiveness of whose greeting
does not tally with the limpness of their grasp. He was attempting, when
Stephen appeared, to get a little heat into his hands by rubbing them, as
a man who kindles a stick of wood for a visitor. The gentleman had red
chop-whiskers,--to continue to put his worst side foremost, which
demanded a ruddy face. He welcomed Stephen to St. Louis with neighborly
effusion; while his wife, a round little woman, bubbled over to Mrs.
Brice.
"My dear sir," said Mr. Cluyme, "I used often to go to Boston in the
forties. In fact--ahem--I may claim to be a New Englander. Alas, no, I
never met your father. But when I heard of the sad circumstances of his
death, I felt as if I had lost a personal friend. His probity, sir, and
his religious principles were an honor to the Athens of America. I have
listened to my friend, Mr. Atterbury,--Mr. Samuel Atterbury,--eulogize
him by the hour."
Stephen was surprised.
"Why, yes," said he, "Mr. Atterbury was a friend."
"Of course," said Mr. Cluyme, "I knew it. Four years ago, the last
business trip I made to Boston, I met Atterbury on the street. Absence
makes no difference to some men, sir, nor the West, for that matter.
They never change. Atterbury nearly took me in his arms. 'My dear
fellow,' he cried, 'how long are you to be in town?' I was going the
next day. 'Sorry I can't ask you to dinner,' says he, but step into the
Tremont House and have a bite.'--Wasn't that like Atterbury?"
Stephen thought it was. But Mr. Cluyme was evidently expecting no
answer.
"Well," said he, "what I was going to say was that we heard you were in
town; 'Friends of Samuel Atterbury, my dear,' I said to my wife. We are
neighbors, Mr. Brace. You must know the girls. You must come to supper.
We live very plainly, sir, very simply. I am afraid that you will miss
the luxury of the East, and some of the refinement, Stephen. I hope I
may call you so, my boy. We have a few cultured citizens, Stephen, but
all are not so. I miss the atmosphere. I seemed to live again when I
got to Boston. But business, sir,--the making of money is a sordid
occupation. You will come to supper?"
"I scarcely think that my mother will go out," said Stephen,
"Oh, be friends! It will cheer her. Not a dinner-party, my boy, only a
plain, comfortable meal, with plenty to eat. Of course she will. Of
course she will. Not a Boston social function, you understand. Boston,
Stephen, I have always looked upon as the centre of the universe. Our
universe, I mean. America for Americans is a motto of mine. Oh, no," he
added quickly, "I don't mean a Know Nothing. Religious freedom, my boy,
is part of our great Constitution. By the way, Stephen--Atterbury always
had such a respect for your father's opinions--"
"My father was not an Abolitionist, sir," said Stephen, smiling.
"Quite right, quite right," said Mr. Cluyme.
"But I am not sure, since I have come here, that I have not some sympathy
and respect for the Abolitionists."
Mr. Cluyme gave a perceptible start. He glanced at the heavy hangings on
the windows and then out of the open door into the hall. For a space his
wife's chatter to Mrs. Brace, on Boston fashions, filled the room.
"My dear Stephen," said the gentleman, dropping his voice, "that is all
very well in Boston. But take a little advice from one who is old enough
to counsel you. You are young, and you must learn to temper yourself to
the tone of the place which you have made your home. St. Louis is full
of excellent people, but they are not precisely Abolitionists. We are
gathering, it is true, a small party who are for gradual emancipation.
But our New England population here is small yet compared to the
Southerners. And they are very violent, sir."
Stephen could not resist saying, "Judge Whipple does not seem to have
tempered himself, sir."
"Silas Whipple is a fanatic, sir," cried Mr. Cluyme.
"His hand is against every man's. He denounces Douglas on the slightest
excuse, and would go to Washington when Congress opens to fight with
Stephens and Toombs and Davis. But what good does it do him? He might
have been in the Senate, or on the Supreme Bench, had he not stirred up
so much hatred. And yet I can't help liking Whipple. Do you know him?"
A resounding ring of the door-bell cut off Stephen's reply, and Mrs.
Cluyme's small talk to Mrs. Brice. In the hall rumbled a familiar voice,
and in stalked none other than Judge Whipple himself. Without noticing
the other occupants of the parlor he strode up to Mrs. Brice, looked at
her for an instant from under the grizzled brows, and held out his large
hand.
"Pray, ma'am," he said, "what have you done with your slave?"
Mrs. Cluyme emitted a muffled shriek, like that of a person frightened in
a dream. Her husband grasped the curved back of his chair. But Stephen
smiled. And his mother smiled a little, too.
"Are you Mr. Whipple?" she asked.
"I am, madam," was the reply.
"My slave is upstairs, I believe, unpacking my trunks," said Mrs. Brice.
Mr. and Mrs. Cluyme exchanged a glance of consternation. Then Mrs.
Cluyme sat down again, rather heavily, as though her legs had refused to
hold her.
"Well, well, ma'am!" The Judge looked again at Mrs. Brice, and a gleam of
mirth lighted the severity of his face. He was plainly pleased with her
--this serene lady in black, whose voice had the sweet ring of women who
are well born and whose manner was so self-contained. To speak truth,
the Judge was prepared to dislike her. He had never laid eyes upon her,
and as he walked hither from his house he seemed to foresee a helpless
little woman who, once he had called, would fling her Boston pride to the
winds and dump her woes upon him. He looked again, and decidedly
approved of Mrs. Brice, and was unaware that his glance embarrassed her.
"Mr. Whipple," she said,--"do you know Mr. and Mrs. Cluyme?"
The Judge looked behind him abruptly, nodded ferociously at Mr. Cluyme,
and took the hand that fluttered out to him from Mrs. Cluyme.
"Know the Judge!" exclaimed that lady, "I reckon we do. And my Belle is
so fond of him. She thinks there is no one equal to Mr. Whipple. Judge,
you must come round to a family supper. Belle will surpass herself."
"Umph!" said the Judge, "I think I like Edith best of your girls, ma'am."
"Edith is a good daughter, if I do say it myself," said Mrs. Cluyme.
"I have tried to do right by my children." She was still greatly
flustered, and curiosity about the matter of the slave burned upon her
face. Neither the Judge nor Mrs. Brice were people one could catechise.
Stephen, scanning the Judge, was wondering how far he regarded the matter
as a joke.
"Well, madam," said Mr. Whipple, as he seated himself on the other end of
the horsehair sofa, "I'll warrant when you left Boston that you did not
expect to own a slave the day after you arrived in St. Louis."
"But I do not own her," said Mrs. Brice. "It is my son who owns her."
This was too much for Mr. Cluyme.
"What!" he cried to Stephen. "You own a slave? You, a mere boy, have
bought a negress?"
"And what is more, sir, I approve of it," the Judge put in, severely.
"I am going to take the young man into my office."
Mr. Cluyme gradually retired into the back of his chair, looking at Mr.
Whipple as though he expected him to touch a match to the window
curtains. But Mr. Cluyme was elastic.
"Pardon me, Judge," said he, "but I trust that I may be allowed to
congratulate you upon the abandonment of principles which I have
considered a clog to your career. They did you honor, sir, but they were
Quixotic. I, sir, am for saving our glorious Union at any cost. And we
have no right to deprive our brethren of their property of their very
means of livelihood."
The Judge grinned diabolically. Mrs. Cluyme was as yet too stunned to
speak. Only Stephen's mother sniffed gunpowder in the air.
"This, Mr. Cluyme," said the Judge, mildly, "is an age of shifting winds.
It was not long ago," he added reflectively, "when you and I met in the
Planters' House, and you declared that every drop of Northern blood
spilled in Kansas was in a holy cause. Do you remember it, sir?"
Mr. Cluyme and Mr. Cluyme's wife alone knew whether he trembled.
"And I repeat that, sir," he cried, with far too much zeal. "I repeat
it here and now. And yet I was for the Omnibus Bill, and I am with Mr.
Douglas in his local sovereignty. I am willing to bury my abhorrence
of a relic of barbarism, for the sake of union and peace."
"Well, sir, I am not," retorted the Judge, like lightning. He rubbed the
red spat on his nose, and pointed a bony finger at Mr. Cluyme. Many a
criminal had grovelled before that finger. "I, too, am for the Union.
And the Union will never be safe until the greatest crime of modern times
is wiped out in blood. Mind what I say, Mr. Cluyme, in blood, sir," he
thundered.
Poor Mrs. Cluyme gasped.
"But the slave, sir? Did I not understand you to approve of Mr. Brice's
ownership?"
"As I never approved of any other. Good night, sir. Good night, madam."
But to Mrs. Brice he crossed over and took her hand. It has been further
claimed that he bowed. This is not certain.
"Good night, madam," he said. "I shall call again to pay my respects
when you are not occupied."
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Behind that door was the future: so he opened it fearfully
Being caught was the unpardonable crime
Believe in others having a hard time
Humiliation and not conscience which makes the sting
Read a patent medicine circular and shudder with seven diseases _
Read next: BOOK I: Volume 2: Chapter VIII. Bellegarde
Read previous: BOOK I: Volume 1: Chapter VI. Silas Whipple
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