Читать книгу: «The Arena. Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891», страница 10

OLD HICKORY’S BALL

BY WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE

It was in the year of our Lord 1806; the season, September; in the State of Tennessee, and the tenth year of its age, as a State.

The summer was over, the harvests ripe, the year growing ruddy. Down in the cotton fields the balls had begun to burst, and the “hands,” with their great baskets, to trudge all day down the long rows, singing in that dreamy, dolefully musical way which belongs alone to the tongue of the Southern slaves and to the Southern cotton fields. Across the fields, and the rich, old clover bottoms that formed a part of the Hermitage farm, the buzz of a cotton gin could be distinctly heard, adding its own peculiar note to the music of Southern nature.

A cotton gin! it was a rare possession in those days, and General Jackson’s was known from Nashville to New Orleans. Indeed, the whole of the previous year’s crop had not yet been disposed of. The great bales were heaped about, waiting for the flat-boats that would carry them up the Cumberland, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and land them at the great New Orleans market. A slow trip for the bulky bales. Could they have foreseen the time when the tedious river’s journey would be shortened to one day’s run over a steel track, what must the big bales have thought! And those gigantic heaps of cotton seed which all the cows in the county could not have consumed, could they have “peered into the future” and found themselves in the lard cans! The old gin would have groaned aloud could it have known that it was buzzing itself into history as surely as was the tall, spare, erect man coming across the field in the late afternoon to see that the day’s work was well done.

What a heroic figure! and a face that even in youth bore the impress of a man marked by destiny for daring deeds. Imperious in temper, majestic in courage, and unyielding in will, he was one born to lay hold of fate and bend it to his desires. Yet, there was a timidity in the eye which no danger could make quail. And when down the lane there came the clatter of horses’ hoofs striking the hard, dry earth, and with the horses a vision of long, dark skirts waving like black banners in the breeze made by the hurrying steeds, the owner of the cotton gin stepped within and beyond the vision of the lady visitors.

But they were not to be out-generaled even by a general; and straight up to the gin the horses were headed.

“General Jackson,” one of the ladies—there were but two—called to the timid hero who had run away at her approach. Instantly he appeared. He wore a large, white beaver hat, the broad brim half-shading the clear-cut, strongly outlined features. When he lifted it, even Beauty could not fail to notice the high and noble forehead, the quick, eager eye, and the delicate flush that swept across the patrician features. “General Jackson, I have come in the name of charity. No, no, you need not take out your wallet. We are not asking money.”

A smile played across the strong, thin lips. “How?” said he, “doesn’t charity always mean ‘money’? I was of the impression the terms were synonymous.”

“Then for once own yourself in the wrong,” laughed Beauty. “We have come to ask the privilege of a charity ball at the Hermitage.”

“A what?”

“A charity ball; and at the Hermitage.”

A most comically pleased expression came into the earnest eyes of the master for an instant. Only an instant, and then a heavy frown contracted his forehead. A flash of scorn in the clear eye, and a curl of the proud, sensitive lip, told of the suppressed anger that had suddenly smitten him.

“The Hermitage,” said he, “is the home of my wife. She is its mistress, and to her is confided its honor and the honor of its master. To her belongs, and to her alone, the right to choose its guests, and to open its doors to her friends. I am surprised you should come to me with your request.”

Ah! she was forearmed; how fortunate. Beauty smiled triumphantly. “But your servant who opened the gate, told us that Mrs. Jackson was not at home.”

“Ah!” the frown instantly vanished, and the hand ever ready to strike for her he loved with such deathless devotion was again lifted to the broad old beaver.

“I think,” said he, “in that case I may answer for Mrs. Jackson, and pledge for her the hospitality of the Hermitage for—charity.”

Again he lifted his hat; across the fields the sound of a whistle had come to him, and a servant waited, with polite patience, near by with the horse that was to carry his master down to the river where the boats were waiting to be inspected—the new boats which, like everything pertaining to the master of the Hermitage, were to have a place in history.

“Ladies,” said he, “charity is not the only voice calling upon the Hermitage farmer. Our country,”—he waved his hand toward the river where the boats were being builded,—“or one who nobly represents her, is calling for those vessels now in the course of construction yonder.”

“Will there be war?”

How the clear eyes danced and shone beneath that question which over and over again he had put to his own heart,—“Will there be war?”

“We hope so,” he replied. “All the West wishes it, the people demand it, and the time is ripe for it. Already a leader has been chosen for it; those boats were ordered by him.”

“Colonel Burr?”

“Aye, Aaron Burr.”

The night was balmy and deliciously fragrant with the odors of cedar and sweet old pine. Balmy and silent, save for a rebellious mocking-bird that trilled and trolled, and seemed trying to split its musical little throat in a honeysuckle bush before the open window of a little “two-story” log house set back from the road in a tangle of plum trees, wild rose-bushes, and sweet old cedars.

Every window was wide open, and from both windows and doors streamed a flood of light, to guide and welcome the guests who came by twos, and threes, and half dozens to the Hermitage ball. They were not in full-dress array, for most of the guests were equestrians, or equestriennes, and brought their finery in the little leathern band-boxes securely buckled to the saddle-horse. Stealthily the fair ones dismounted, and stealthily crept along the low piazza, through the side room, carefully past the pretentious “big room,” and up the stairs, a narrow little wooden concern, each tenderly hugging her precious band-box.

There were but three rooms below, barring the dining-room which was cut off by the low piazza. The stairway went up from Mrs. Jackson’s little bedroom into a duplicate guest-chamber above. Two others, as diminutive, one above and below, were tucked onto these. And this, with the big room, was the Hermitage. A very unpretentious cabin was the first Hermitage; the humble and honored roof of Rachel and Andrew Jackson, the couple standing under the waxen candles in the big room waiting to receive their guests. The master was resplendent, if uncomfortable, in his silken stockings, buckles, and powder, and rich velvet. For, whatever his faults, he was no coxcomb, and the knee breeches and finery had only been assumed for that one occasion, at the “special request” of charity’s fair committee.

The vest of richly embroidered silk was held at the waist with a glittering brilliant, and left open to the throat, as if in deference to the flutes, and frills, and delicate laces of the white shirt bosom. There was a glitter at the knees where the silver buckles caught now and then a gleam from the waxen candles dangling from the low ceiling in a silver and iridescent chandelier, to the imminent peril of the white roll of powdered hair surmounting the tall general’s forehead. At his side, proud, calm, and queenly in her womanly dignity and virtue, stood Rachel, the beloved mistress of the Hermitage. Her dress of stiff and creamy silk could add nothing to the calm serenity of the soul beaming from the gentle eyes, whose glance, tender and fond, strayed now and then to the figure of her husband, and rested for a brief moment upon the strong, gentle face with something akin to reverence in their shadowy depths. Her face, beautiful and beneficent, was not without a shadow: a shadow which grief had set there to mellow, but could not mar, the gentle sweetness of the patient features.

There was the sound of banjo and fiddle, as one by one the dusky musicians from the cabins ranged themselves along the wall of the big room, which had been cleared of its furnishings, and young feet came hurrying in when the old Virginia reel sounded through, the low rooms, calling to the dance.

More than one set of ivories shone at door and windows where the slaves gathered to “see the whi’ folks dance.” But prominent and conspicuous, in a suit as nearly resembling his master’s as might be, and in a position at the immediate right hand of the slave who played the bass viol, stood Cæsar, the general’s favorite man-servant. He bore himself with the same courtly dignity, the same dignified courtesy, and had stationed himself beside the viol in order to have a more thorough view of the dancers, and above all of his beloved master. He had faithfully ushered in the last guest, and had hurried to his place in order to see General Jackson step down the long line of dancers and bow to his partner. Not for worlds would he have missed that bow, to him the perfection of grace and dignity.

Two by two the couples entered, crossed to the centre of the room and bowed each other to their places opposite in the long, wall-like line which characterizes the stately reel.

The ladies dropped like drooping lilies for one brief moment in the midst of their silken stiffness, skirts that “stood alone,” and made their courtesies to their swains with proper maiden modesty.

Cæsar saw it all from his post of vantage near the big viol, but he was not interested in the visitors, he knew what they could do. He was waiting to see his master “lay ‘em all in the shade bimeby.” Of course he would open the ball. He wasn’t fond of dancing but it was the custom of the day, and he and Miss Rachel “knew their manners.”

But for once the custom of the day was changed. Cæsar was destined to disappointment. Mrs. Jackson’s rustling silk announced her approach before she appeared, leaning, not upon the arm of the general, but in company with a florid, rather fleshy gentleman, no stranger, however, to the Hermitage hospitality. Much to the negro’s chagrin he led her to the very head of the long lines of bright dresses and gay gallants, and stepped himself, as Cæsar declared, “like a young cock,” into the general’s own place opposite. The master stood at the very foot, the escort of a lady Cæsar had never set eyes upon before, and who for the life of him he could not forgive for being the general’s partner.

He was grievously disappointed, so that when the florid fat gentleman at the head danced down between the gay columns, and made his manners to the lady at the foot, as gallantly as anyone could have done, Cæsar expressed his opinion loud enough to be heard by the very gentleman himself.

“Mr. Grundy tryin’ step mighty high to-night,” he said.

But it was when “Miss Rachel” danced down in her silken skirts and met the master midway the line, and dropped a low courtesy, her full skirts settling about her like a great white umbrella, and the stately general bowed over his silver buckles like some royal knight of old, that Cæsar’s enthusiasm got the better of his indignation.

“Beat dat, Mr. Grundy!” he said, in a low, if enthusiastic, whisper, “beat dat, sar.” And Mr. Grundy pranced down again to “beat” the master in the “swing with the right” movement of the old-fashioned dance.

Promptly the general followed, meeting “Miss Rachel” half way with a second courtesy over the tips of her fingers, just visible under the lace ruffles at her wrists.

“Try dat, now, Mr. Grundy!” And this time Cæsar forgot his whisper so that a burst of applause followed the challenge, to Mr. Grundy’s extreme chagrin; for he, alas! had forgotten his bow before swinging the lady.

It was then the dancing assumed something of the appearance of real rivalry.

Down the line galloped Mr. Grundy again, stopped, bowed, “swung with the left,” and bowed again.

The general had been outdone, even Cæsar had to admit it, and the dancers laughed aloud and clapped their hands at the pretty little gallantry.

But the master was equal to the emergency. Again the stately figure met “Miss Rachel,” the couple bowed, swung with the left, bowed again, hands still clasped, and then the powdered head of the master dropped for an instant over the lady’s hand, that was lifted to his lips, and the dancers parted.

Amid the spirited confusion of “chasing the fox,” passing under the gates held “high as the sky,” and passing back again into line, Cæsar’s voice could be heard still sounding the challenge:—

“Beat it, if you kin, Mr. Grundy. Chassay to yer best, Mr. Grundy! Back yerse’f to de lead, Mr. Grundy!”

Clearly, Mr. Grundy was not the favorite. Cæsar’s “backing” had inspired confidence in the general.

However, if Mr. Grundy was, as he said, “a cock,” he was nevertheless a game one. Down the centre he tripped again, flushed and determined, courtesied exceeding low, swung “with both” hands, then dropped for an instant upon one knee while the lady tripped back into line. There was a murmur of quick appreciation and all eyes were turned on Jackson. Would he, could he, think of anything so delightfully graceful?

Cæsar’s mouth stood wide open. His confidence in his beloved and stately master never once faltered. He knew he would never suffer Felix Grundy to outdo him in the simple matter of a bow; but how? What?

Straight on came the general; bowed, extended his arms, when, as ill luck would have it, he set the toe of his shoe upon the front hem of “Miss Rachel’s” silken gown, and, rising from her courtesy, there was nothing to do but drop forward into the arms extended, amid the shouts of the assembled guests, emphasized by Cæsar’s emphatic—

“Dar!”

He had done a very awkward thing. One of those happily awkward things which crown a man conqueror more surely than all the tricks of art can do.

Nobody attempted to surpass that feat, and when the couples had each in turn passed their parade, for such is the old Virginia reel, and the dancers filed into the supper room, General Jackson was still, in the judgment of his servant at all events, the master of grace and chivalry.

A sumptuous supper and worthy the mistress who planned it. At the head of the table sat Jackson; at the foot, the young statesman and guest, Mr. Grundy.

When the company had all been seated, the master rose, his right hand resting upon a tiny tumbler of red wine, such as stood at every plate. He motioned Mr. Grundy, and lifted the tumbler. “The man honored by fate, and fostered by fortune. The man chosen and set apart for the service of the nation. A man whose name shall go down the years as the synonym of courage and of honor. The foremost man of the age,”—and the voice ever strong for the friend, absent or near, pronounced the name of one at that moment tottering upon the brink of ignominious destruction and disgrace—“Aaron Burr.”

There was an instant of intense silence, but not a tumbler was lifted. Insult to the host, or insult to conviction? was the thought which held each guest; when quick into the breach stepped Mr. Grundy. With one palm pressed upon the rim of his tumbler, and with head proudly lifted in a half defiant sternness, wholly belying the careless voice in which he offered the compromise, “No absent heroes,” said he. “In lieu of that I offer Andrew Jackson! the future President of the United States of America.” It was said in jest, yet not one but understood that Mr. Grundy refused to drink to the man with whose name one stinging, startling word was already cautiously whispered,—traitor.

General Jackson’s fine eye flashed; but courtesy could unsheath no sword against a guest. And after all, it was nothing. A mere flash of words. Aye! yet something whispered that the flash carried a meaning, was, indeed, a spark from that mightier flash of arms that would, ere long, blaze out at the very mention of that name.

The ball was over; still wearing their evening finery the master of the Hermitage and his wife sat over the fading embers, smoking their “last pipe” before retiring.

Cæsar had bowed the last guest from the door, and was about to close it for the night, when the sound of galloping hoofs attracted his attention. It was a single horseman, and he was making straight for the Hermitage. The servant waited under the low piazza, curious but not uneasy. The horse stopped at the block, and into the long line of light streaming from the open doorway, came the figure of a man, hurrying as if to reach the door before it should close. He had ridden hard, and had barely arrived in time.

“Is General Jackson at home?” he asked. “I must see him to-night, at once. Tell him so.”

The servant bowed, and silently ushered the late arrival into the deserted banquet room.

His keen eye took in the surroundings with a half-amused, half-bewildered expression. The banquet table, despoiled of its beauty, the half-emptied wine glasses, the broken bits of cake, crumbled by beauty’s fair fingers; the odor of dying roses, smothered in their bloom, mingled with the scent of the undrunk wine; all told the story of revelry and its inevitable destiny.

The stranger crossed the room to the pillaged sideboard, and with the air of a man thoroughly at home, lifted a decanter and poured a tumbler full of wine, lifted it carelessly to his lips, drained it, and with the emptied vessel still in his hand turned to meet the master of the house.

He still wore the finery in which he had decked himself for the ball. In one hand he carried his pipe, over which he had been dozing with Rachel. But the eye was alive now; the quick, eagle eye. The ball had become a thing of the past. And as he stood for one brief moment in the doorway, himself, in his gala dress, seemed but another illustration of that indomitable grimness which hangs about a forsaken banquet room. At that moment the stranger lifted his face. It was a face stamped with the cunning of a fox, the courage of a lion, the simplicity of a child, the ambition of a god.

The master met the cool, fixed eye, and into his own leaped the smothered fire of outraged dignity. He lifted his hand, as if to curse.

“Do you know, sir, that the world is branding you a traitor? And that Felix Grundy refused to drink your health in my house to-night?”

A sneer flitted across the handsome features, but the low, rich voice only said, “Let him.”

It was the voice of Aaron Burr.

EDITORIAL NOTES

THE ERA OF WOMAN

The constantly broadening sphere of woman’s influence is to me the most hopeful and important sign of our times. The era of woman has dawned, bearing the unmistakable prophecy of a far higher civilization than humanity has ever known. It is an incontestable fact that woman is ethically, infinitely superior to man; her moral perceptions are firmer and stronger, her unselfishness far greater, her spiritual nature deeper and richer than that of her brothers. She is to-day foremost in the great social, philanthropic, humanitarian, and ethical reforms, in which selfishness has no place. In her widening influence, growing liberty, and freedom, I see impearled a prophecy of an altruistic era—a civilization triumphant—rising against to-morrow’s purpling dawn.

In the fields of intellectual and scientific research she has grandly won her way, and that despite the marshalled forces of conservatism, which have stubbornly contested every step that has looked towards a broader, more independent and purposeful life. For centuries relegated to the rear, compelled to take thought second-hand, denied a healthful freedom and the right of a liberal education, so highly prized by man, her marvellous attainments since she has in a measure broken the bonds of conservatism and trampled under foot the baleful heritage of ancient thought, have been so splendid in their reality and so pregnant with prophecies of future triumph, that I confidently expect to find in her the one invincible ally of the forces warring for a higher, purer, more just and humane condition of life. In her epoch-marking victories she has lost none of her old-time charms, the wonderful refinement of sentiment, the delicacy of thought, the rich soul life, the deep emotional nature, the strong moral character, pure as the glistening snow-clad peaks in the midst of the moral degradation which taints manhood. These have remained in their pristine beauty since she has emerged from her age-long retirement into a more influential sphere; in truth they have been strengthened and made more impressive by the fuller development of her nature.

It must not be supposed, however, that her struggles are over. Before she can or will attain an influence commensurate with her work, she must emancipate herself from the bondage of fashion, which as seriously reflects on her good judgment as it wrecks her health and menaces the life and happiness of her offsprings. She must also repudiate the age-hallowed insult dwelt upon in the old Edenic legend of the fall of man, which for centuries has been brandished in her face to teach her humility, and make her feel degraded in the presence of her “lords and masters.” An essentially barbarous conception, born of a cowardly and brutal childhood age, and as unworthy of our day and generation as is the hideous, old-time conception of God, in which He was pictured as an angry and jealous Being, counselling the wholesale slaughter of men and little children, and the prostitution of daughters, wives, and mothers, by hordes of brutal invaders, whom He chose to designate his peculiar people.

Again, womanhood must refuse to heed the admonitions of Paul, which have for almost two thousand years been thundered from the pulpit, and persistently preached from the fireside as though they were oracles from heaven, rather than the natural expressions of a mind imbued with Grecian thought and ideals concerning womanhood. There is nothing surprising in Paul’s observations on the sphere of woman; they were the reflex of the conservative and prevailing thought among the civilizations with which he was familiar. But the world has outgrown this ancient conception, and it is worse than folly to attempt to fasten the corpse of the past to the living body of the present. The evolution of society, a growing sense of justice in man, and the exigencies of life are rapidly diminishing the old-time reverence for the Pauline theory of woman’s sphere. This is nowhere more significantly illustrated than in the expressed declaration of tens of thousands of pious, Christian women, and the active participation of a smaller number in public affairs, who would indignantly resent any intimation that they did not accept the plenary inspiration of the Bible.¹⁶ The declarations of Paul, while in harmony with accepted ideas in his day, are absurd, and inapplicable to our age and generation, and as such are being discarded by enlightened public sentiment, as was the old theory of a flat earth finally given up after science fully exposed its falsity. Another duty of woman is to unitedly contend for the right of suffrage for those who wish to exercise it. There may have been a time when there was no pressing duty involved in this question, but that day has passed. Recent statistics show that there are in the United States to-day millions of women who earn a livelihood by their own individual exertions;¹⁷ tens of thousands of these women are working for starvation wages, with the awful alternative ever before them “starve or sin.” This condition will remain until women have a voice in the government equal to man’s, and their numbers are so organized as to challenge the consideration of law-makers. The infamous “age of consent laws” which place the age of consent to her own ruin from seven to twelve years for girls could only be enacted in man-governed States. A noteworthy illustration of this is found in the fact that Wyoming, the only State where woman enjoys full franchise, has placed the age of consent at the legal age of majority, eighteen years, while Kansas, the State which more than any other approaches Wyoming in bestowing on women the rights of franchise, and where she exercises a greater influence in politics than any other American commonwealth save her younger sister, has also placed the age of consent at eighteen years. All the other States trail the banner of morality in the dust before the dictates of man’s bestiality.

In the various spheres of activity in which woman has engaged, her influence has been that of a purifying, refining, and ennobling power, and barring rare instances where the spirit of intolerance has flashed forth,¹⁸ her presence in public affairs has been uniformly beneficent.

For womanhood I cherish the deepest love and reverence. Her exaltation means the elevation of the race. A broader liberty and more liberal meed of justice for her mean a higher civilization, and the solution of weighty and fundamental problems which will never be equitably adjusted until we have brought into political and social life more of the splendid spirit of altruism, which is one of her most conspicuous characteristics. I believe that morality, education, practical reform, and enduring progress wait upon her complete emancipation from the bondage of fashion, prejudice, superstition, and conservatism.