Читать книгу Proud Lady - Neith Boyce - Страница 9

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It was late afternoon when they drove back behind the Judge's spanking pair of bays, hitched to a light buggy. The roads were very rough, with frequent mud-holes where the wheels sank nearly to the axle, but when they got a fairly level stretch the trotters stepped out finely.

Laurence had enjoyed this day. On the way over they had talked politics. Judge Baxter was a fiery Republican. His face flushed red with wrath as he spoke of Lincoln's murder and hoped they would hang Jeff Davis for it. He was in favour of a heavy hand on the South—Lincoln would have been gentle with them, they had killed him, the blank rebels, now let them have it. Vae victis!

Laurence was cooler. He had no anger against the men he had helped to fight and beat. They were good fighters, good men, most of them. He did not think the southern leaders had plotted the attack on Lincoln and Seward. They had fought for a wrong idea, a wrong political system, and they had been beaten. Now they wanted peace, not revenge, he thought. They had suffered enough. If they were still to be punished, it would take longer to establish the Union in reality. The men who had fought for the Union wanted to see it a reality, not one section against another any more, but one country, united in spirit, great and powerful.

The Judge had listened, and then said meditatively:

"You fellows that did the fighting seem to have less bitterness than some of us that had to stay at home—I've noticed that. I suppose you worked it off in fighting."

"Why, yes," Laurence agreed. "And then, when you come right up against the other fellow, you find he's folks, just like yourself. Of course he's wrong and you have to show him, but he fights the best he can for what he believes in, he risks his life, the same as you do—and when it's over you feel like shaking hands, in spite of—"

"You think we ought to let them come back in the Union, as if nothing had happened?"

"Why," said Laurence slowly. "Aren't they in it? If we fought to prove they couldn't go out when they felt like it—"

"Well, authorities differ on that point. I've heard some right smart arguments on both sides," said the Judge sharply.

After a short silence, he went on:

"I see you've been thinking and keeping track of things.... This is a great time we live in, Laurence, I wish I was young like you and could see all that's going to happen. Still, I've had my day, I've seen a good deal—and maybe done a little. We had some kind of fighting to do here at home, you know, we had plenty of black-hearted copperheads here.... You ought to go into public life, my boy, and there's no entering wedge like the law."

But it was on the way home, after they had spent the afternoon inspecting the creamery, a large brick building in the midst of a small town, going over accounts and talking with various people, it was then that Judge Baxter urged on Laurence the wisdom of following the path before him here.

"I don't see any use in rambling over the country looking for something better, ten to one you won't find it," he argued. "And you haven't time to lose, Laurence, you ought to be buckling right down to your job. Our town may look small to you, but she's linked up to a lot of things. To be the big man of this place is better than being a small fish in Chicago—to be the best lawyer at the bar of your state is no small thing. It might lead anywhere, and I believe you've got it in you.... This is your state, Laurence—this country round here is a rich country and it's going to be richer—you ought to stay with it."

The Judge swept his whip in a wide circle over the prairie. They were driving westward, the low sun was dazzling in their eyes. Laurence looked to the left and the right, over the low rolling swells to the horizon. Where the plough had cut, endless furrows stretched away, black and heavy, with young green blades showing. Herds of cattle spotted the pastures. Yes, it was rich land.... With the flood of sunlight poured along it, the fresh green starting through, the piping song of the birds that have their nests in the grass, the wind that blew strongly over the great plain, smelling of the spring, it had a strange sweetness to Laurence, even beauty.... No, it was not beauty, but some sort of appeal, vague but strong....

"You'd have your own people behind you," said the Judge.

That broke the spell, for the moment. Laurence smiled bitterly.

"You know what my people were—and what your people thought of them," he said in a cutting tone. "To tell the truth, that's one reason I want to go. I want to forget that I lived in Shanty-town and my mother was Mrs. Carlin the washerwoman, not good enough to associate with your women—that weren't good enough, most of them, to tie the shoes on her little feet!"

The Judge turned, pulling the broad brim of his hat over his eyes, and looked at the young man's face, pale and set with ugly lines.

"Laurence," he said after a moment, "if you're the man I think you are, you won't want to forget that. We can none of us forget what we have been, what we came from. You can't do anything for your mother now, and I know it's bitter to you. But you can make her name, her son, respected and honoured here—not somewhere else, where she was never known, but here, where she lived. That would mean a lot to her. Doesn't it mean something to you?"

The Judge continued to look earnestly at Laurence's face, and presently saw it relax, soften, saw the stormy dark-blue eyes clear, become fixed as though upon a light ahead.

"Judge," said Laurence huskily, "you understand a lot of things. Perhaps you're right—"

The Judge, holding whip and reins in one hand, put out the other and they shook hands warmly. They were silent for a while, then the Judge began to talk about the local situation, finance and politics, with a good many shrewd personal sketches mixed in.

"You want to know every string to this town," he remarked.

Judge Baxter knew all these strings, evidently, and could, he insinuated, pull a good many of them. Though too modest to point the fact, he himself illustrated his contention that, to live in a small town, a man need not be small. If he knew Cook county thoroughly, the county knew him too. He had rather the air of a magnate, in spite of his seedy dress, his beard stained with tobacco. He had more money than he cared for. His only adornment was a big diamond in an old-fashioned ring on his little finger, but he drove as good horses as money could buy.

Near the end of their journey he asked:

"Well, what do you say—about made up your mind?"

"Pretty much. I'll talk to Mary tonight. I don't think she'll have anything against it. But the women have to be consulted, you know," said Laurence lightly.

"Oh, of course, of course."

The Judge didn't think the women had to be consulted—but then he was a bachelor.

"I really don't see why you should be so good to me—take all this trouble about me," pondered Laurence.

"Well," said the Judge judicially, "it isn't altogether for you, though I may say that I like you, Laurence. But I'm looking out for myself too. I calculate that you're going to be useful to me, you might say a credit to me, if I have anything to do with giving you a start. I see more in you than—well, I think you're one in a thousand. Remember I've seen you grow up, I know pretty much all about you.... I tell you, I felt mighty bad when you marched away. I knew it was right, you had to go, I wouldn't have held you back if I could—and yet I said to myself, ten to one a bullet will pick off that boy instead of some of those lubbers along with him, and I felt bad. Why," the Judge ended pensively, "I thought I knew then about how it feels to have a son go to war—"

Rather startled himself at this touch of sentiment, he flicked the off-horse with his whip, and they dashed into the town at top speed.