Sally Dows | Page 8

bosom, and her revolving hand with the
scrubbing cloth in it apparently stopped on a dead centre.
Drummond, whose gorge had risen at these evidences of hopeless
incapacity and utter shiftlessness, was not relieved by the presence of
Mrs. Reed--a soured, disappointed woman of forty, who still carried in
her small dark eyes and thin handsome lips something of the bitterness
and antagonism of the typical "Southern rights" woman; nor of her two
daughters, Octavia and Augusta, whose languid atrabiliousness seemed

a part of the mourning they still wore. The optimistic gallantry and
good fellowship of the major appeared the more remarkable by contrast
with his cypress-shadowed family and their venomous possibilities.
Perhaps there might have been a light vein of Southern insincerity in
his good humor. "Paw," said Miss Octavia, with gloomy confidence to
Courtland, but with a pretty curl of the hereditary lip, "is about the only
'reconstructed' one of the entire family. We don't make 'em much about
yer. But I'd advise yo' friend, Mr. Drummond, if he's coming here
carpet-bagging, not to trust too much to paw's 'reconstruction.' It won't
wash." But when Courtland hastened to assure her that Drummond was
not a "carpet-bagger," was not only free from any of the political
intrigue implied under that baleful title, but was a wealthy Northern
capitalist simply seeking investment, the young lady was scarcely more
hopeful. "I suppose he reckons to pay paw for those niggers yo' stole?"
she suggested with gloomy sarcasm.
"No," said Courtland, smiling; "but what if he reckoned to pay those
niggers for working for your father and him?"
"If paw is going into trading business with him; if Major Reed--a
So'th'n gentleman--is going to keep shop, he ain't such a fool as to
believe niggers will work when they ain't obliged to. THAT'S been
tried over at Mirandy Dows's, not five miles from here, and the niggers
are half the time hangin' round here takin' holiday. She put up new
quarters for 'em, and tried to make 'em eat together at a long table like
those low-down folks up North, and did away with their cabins and
their melon patches, and allowed it would get 'em out of lying round
too much, and wanted 'em to work over-time and get mo' pay. And the
result was that she and her niece, and a lot of poor whites, Irish and
Scotch, that she had to pick up ''long the river,' do all the work. And her
niece Sally was mo' than half Union woman during the wah, and up to
all No'th'n tricks and dodges, and swearin' by them; and yet, for all
that--the thing won't work."
"But isn't that partly the reason? Isn't her failure a great deal due to this
lack of sympathy from her neighbors? Discontent is easily sown, and
the negro is still weighted down by superstition; the Fifteenth

Amendment did not quite knock off ALL his chains."
"Yes, but that is nothing to HER. For if there ever was a person in this
world who reckoned she was just born to manage everything and
everybody, it is Sally Dows!"
"Sally Dows!" repeated Courtland, with a slight start.
"Yes, Sally Dows, of Pineville."
"You say she was half Union, but did she have any relations or--
or--friends--in the war--on your side? Any--who--were killed in
battle?"
"They were all killed, I reckon," returned Miss Reed darkly. "There
was her cousin, Jule Jeffcourt, shot in the cemetery with her beau, who,
they say, was Sally's too; there were Chet Brooks and Joyce Masterton,
who were both gone on her and both killed too; and there was old
Captain Dows himself, who never lifted his head again after Richmond
was taken, and drank himself to death. It wasn't considered healthy to
be Miss Sally's relations in those times, or to be even wantin' to be
one."
Colonel Courtland did not reply. The face of the dead young officer
coming towards him out of the blue smoke rose as vividly as on that
memorable day. The picture and letter he had taken from the dead
man's breast, which he had retained ever since; the romantic and
fruitless quest he had made for the fair original in after days; and the
strange and fateful interest in her which had grown up in his heart since
then, he now knew had only been lulled to sleep in the busy
preoccupation of the last six months, for it all came back to him with
redoubled force. His present mission and its practical object, his honest
zeal in its pursuit, and the cautious skill and experience he had brought
to it, all seemed to be suddenly displaced by this romantic and unreal
fantasy. Oddly enough it appeared now to be the only reality in his life,
the rest was