The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors

  CHAPTER XV

  BLACK SOCIALISM

  Sergeant Somerville and Private Tinsley accepted the invitation to thecount's ball with alacrity. Their company had been mustered out just inthe nick of time for them to obtain indefinite leave. It was rumoredthat they were to be taken in again, this time as regulars, but thecertainty of having no military duties to perform for the time being wasvery pleasant to our two young men.

  The Carter girls had taken the count at his word and invited severalfriends from Richmond to stay at Valhalla and attend the ball. Dr.Wright was eager to come and with the recklessness of physicians who usetheir cars for business and not for pleasure, he made the trip in hisautomobile. He had a new five-seated car, taking the place of his formerrunabout.

  "M. D.'s and R. F. D.'s have to travel whether roads are good or bad,"he had declared.

  The two young soldiers and Tillie Wingo had the hardihood to risk theirnecks with him, and at the last minute he picked up Skeeter Halsey andFrank Maury, who had been invited by Lucy so that she and Mag would nothave to be wall flowers. Six persons in a five-passenger car insuresthem from much jolting, as there is no room to bounce.

  Tillie was in her element with five pairs of masculine ears to chatterin. She and Bill were still engaged "in a way," as she expressed it,although neither one of them seemed to regard it very seriously. Tillieinsisted upon making a secret of it as much as she was capable, so thatin Bill's absence she might not be laid on the shelf.

  "The fellows don't think much of an engaged girl," she said frankly,"and I have no idea of taking a back seat yet awhile."

  The recklessness of the guests in coming over Virginia roads in anautomobile in the month of February was nothing to the recklessness ofthe Carters in inviting six persons to spend the night with them whenthey possessed but one small guest chamber.

  "We can manage somehow," Helen declared, "and, besides, we will be outso late dancing there won't be much use in having a place to sleep,because we won't have any time to sleep."

  "Only think of all of those bedrooms at Grantly with nobody in them!"exclaimed Lucy. "Those old ladies might just as well ask some of us upthere, but they will never think of it, I know."

  "If they do, they will disagree about which ones to ask and which roomsto put them in, and we will never get the invitation," laughed Helen."Anyhow, they are dear old ladies and I am mighty fond of them." Helenoften ran up to the great house to ask advice from the Misses Grantabout household affairs and was ever welcome to the lonely old women.

  "They are certainly going to the ball, aren't they?" asked Douglas.

  "They wouldn't miss it for worlds. They are having a time just now,though, because Tempy has left them. They can't find out what her reasonis and feel sure she didn't really want to go; now her sister Chloe isso near she seemed quite content, but for weeks she has been in apeculiar frame of mind and the last few days they have caught her intears again and again. They sent for Dr. Allison, who lives miles andmiles from here, but Miss Ella and Miss Louise will trust no otherdoctor. He says as far as he can tell she is not ill. Anyhow, she hasgone home, and today their man-servant departed, also. Of course theymight draw on the field hands for servants, but they hate to do itbecause they are so very rough. They have had this man-servant for yearsand years, ever since he was a little boy, and they can't account forhis going, either. He had a face as long as a ham when he left them andgave absolutely no excuse except that his maw was sick, and as Miss Ellasays, 'His mother has been dead for ten years, and she ought to know,since she furnished the clothes in which she was buried.' Miss Louisesaid she had only been dead eight, and they were her clothes, but theyagree that she is dead at least, and can't account for Sam's excuse."

  "Poor old ladies, I am sorry for them," said Douglas.

  On the day of the ball, there was much furbishing up of finery atValhalla. Mr. Carter's dress suit had to be pressed and his seldom useddress studs unearthed. Mrs. Carter forgot all about being an invalid andwas as busy and happy as possible, trying dresses on her daughters tosee that their underskirts were exactly the right length and evenrunning tucks in with her own helpless little hands.

  "It is a good thing I don't have to think about my own outsides," saidHelen, "as all of my time must be spent in planning for our guests'insides. I tell you, six more mouths to fill is going to keep Chloe andme hustling."

  "It sho' is an' all them dishes ter wash is goin' ter keep me hustlin'some mo'," grumbled Chloe. "An' then I gotter go ter the count's an'stir my stumps."

  "I am sorry, but I am going to give you a nice holiday after it is allover," said her young mistress kindly. The count had asked Helen tobring Chloe to look after the ladies in the dressing-room.

  "I ain't a-mindin' 'bout dishes. I's jes' a-foolin'---- Say, Miss Helen,what does potatriotic mean?"

  "Patriotic? That means loving your country and being willing to give upthings for it and help save it. Everybody should be patriotic."

  "But s'posin' yer ain't got no country?"

  "Why, Chloe, everybody has a country, either the place where you wereborn or the place where you have been living long enough to love andfeel that it is yours."

  "But niggers is been livin' here foreveraneveramen, an' still they ain'tter say got no country."

  "Why, you have! Don't you think Uncle Sam would look after you and fightfor you if you needed his help?"

  "I ain't got no Uncle Sam, but I hear tell that he wouldn't raise hishan' ter save a nigger, but yit if'n they's a war that he'll 'spec' theniggers ter go git shot up fer him."

  "Why, Chloe! How can you say such a thing?"

  "I ain't er sayin' it--I's jes' a-sayin' I hears tell."

  "Who told it to you?"

  "Nobody ain't tol' it ter me. I jes' hearn it."

  "Well, it's not true."

  "I hearn, too, that they's plenty er money ter go 'roun' in thiscountry, but some folks what thinks they's better'n other folks hashoarded an' hoarded 'til po' folks can't git they han's on a nickel. An'I hearn that they's gonter be distress an' misery, an' wailin' an'snatchin' er teeth 'til some strong man arouses an' makes these hererich folks gib up they tin. Nobody ain't a-gonter know who dat leaderwill be, he mought be white an' thin agin he mought be black, but he'sa-gonter be a kinder sabior."

  "How is he going to manage?" asked Helen, amused at what sounded like asermon the girl might have heard from the rickety pulpit of the brickchurch.

  "I ain't hearn, but I done gib out ter all these niggers that my whitefolks ain't got no tin put away here in this Hogwallow or whatever MissNan done named it. They keeps their money hot a-spendin' it, I tells 'emall."

  Helen laughed, and with a final touch at the supper table and a lastpeep at the sally lunn muffins, which were rising as they should, shestarted to go help her mother with the dancing frocks and theirpetticoats that would show discrepancies.

  "Say, Miss Helen, is you sho' Miss Ellanlouise is goin' ternight?" askedChloe, following her up the steps.

  "Yes, Chloe, I'm sure."

  "An', Miss Helen, if'n folks ain't got no country ter love what oughtthey do?"

  "Why, love one another, I reckon. Love the people of their own race, andtry to help them."

  "Oughtn't folks ter love they own color better'n any other?"

  "Why, certainly!"

  "If'n some of yo' folks got into trouble, what would you do?"

  "Why, I'd help them out if I could."

  "Even if'n they done wrong?"

  "Of course! They would still be my own people."

  "If they ain't ter say done it but is a-gonter do it, thin what wouldyou do?"

  "I'd try to stop them."

  "Would you tell on 'em?"

  "I'd try to stop them first. Who has done wrong or is going to do it,Chloe?"

  "Nobody ain't done wrong an' I ain't a-never said they is. I ain't saida word. This talk was jes' some foolishness I done made up out'n myhaid. But say, Miss Helen,--I'd kinder like ter stop at Mammy's cabinover to Paradi
se befo' I gits ter de count's. I kin take my foot in myhan' an' strike through the woods an' beat the hay wagin thar, it goin'roun' by the road."

  "All right, Chloe!"

  Helen rather fancied that Chloe wanted to see her sister, who wasevidently contemplating some imprudence. She had been threatening tomarry James Hanks, but her people had shown themselves very much opposedto it. Perhaps the girl was on the eve of an elopement which had calledforth all of the above conversation from her sister. Where did she getall of those strange socialistic ideas? Was Lewis Somerville right andwas the little learning a dangerous thing for these poor colored people?Surely she had helped Chloe by the little teaching she had given her.The girl was like another creature. She seemed now to have self-respect,and Helen felt instinctively that her loyalty to her and her family wasalmost a religion with her.