THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS

BY CHARLES W. CHESNUTT

1900

CONTENTS

I A STRANGER FROM SOUTH CAROLINA

II AN EVENING VISIT

III THE OLD JUDGE

IV DOWN THE RIVER

V THE TOURNAMENT

VI THE QUEEN OF LOVE AND BEAUTY

VII 'MID NEW SURROUNDINGS

VIII THE COURTSHIP

IX DOUBTS AND FEARS

X THE DREAM

XI A LETTER AND A JOURNEY

XII TRYON GOES TO PATESVILLE

XIII AN INJUDICIOUS PAYMENT

XIV A LOYAL FRIEND

XV MINE OWN PEOPLE

XVI THE BOTTOM FALLS OUT

XVII TWO LETTERS

XVIII UNDER THE OLD REGIME

XIX GOD MADE US ALL

XX DIGGING UP ROOTS

XXI A GILDED OPPORTUNITY

XXII IMPERATIVE BUSINESS

XXIII THE GUEST OF HONOR

XXIV SWING YOUR PARTNERS

XXV BALANCE ALL

XXVI THE SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE WOODS

XXVII AN INTERESTING ACQUAINTANCE

XXVIII THE LOST KNIFE

XXIX PLATO EARNS HALF A DOLLAR

XXX AN UNUSUAL HONOR

XXXI IN DEEP WATERS

XXXII THE POWER OF LOVE

XXXIII A MULE AND A CART

THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS

I

A STRANGER FROM SOUTH CAROLINA

Time touches all things with destroying hand;

and if he seem now and then to bestow the bloom

of youth, the sap of spring, it is but a brief

mockery, to be surely and swiftly followed by the

wrinkles of old age, the dry leaves and bare branches

of winter. And yet there are places where Time

seems to linger lovingly long after youth has

departed, and to which he seems loath to bring the

evil day. Who has not known some even-tempered

old man or woman who seemed to have

drunk of the fountain of youth? Who has not

seen somewhere an old town that, having long

since ceased to grow, yet held its own without

perceptible decline?

Some such trite reflection--as apposite to the

subject as most random reflections are--passed

through the mind of a young man who came out

of the front door of the Patesville Hotel about

nine o'clock one fine morning in spring, a few years

after the Civil War, and started down Front Street

toward the market-house. Arriving at the town

late the previous evening, he had been driven up

from the steamboat in a carriage, from which he

had been able to distinguish only the shadowy

outlines of the houses along the street; so that this

morning walk was his first opportunity to see the

town by daylight. He was dressed in a suit of

linen duck--the day was warm--a panama straw

hat, and patent leather shoes. In appearance he

was tall, dark, with straight, black, lustrous hair,

and very clean-cut, high-bred features. When he

paused by the clerk's desk on his way out, to light

his cigar, the day clerk, who had just come on duty,

glanced at the register and read the last entry:--

"`JOHN WARWICK, CLARENCE, SOUTH CAROLINA.'

"One of the South Ca'lina bigbugs, I reckon

--probably in cotton, or turpentine." The gentleman

from South Carolina, walking down the street,

glanced about him with an eager look, in which

curiosity and affection were mingled with a touch

of bitterness. He saw little that was not familiar,

or that he had not seen in his dreams a hundred

times during the past ten years. There had been

some changes, it is true, some melancholy changes,

but scarcely anything by way of addition or

improvement to counterbalance them. Here and

there blackened and dismantled walls marked the

place where handsome buildings once had stood, for

Sherman's march to the sea had left its mark upon

the town. The stores were mostly of brick, two

stories high, joining one another after the manner

of cities. Some of the names on the signs were

familiar; others, including a number of Jewish

names, were quite unknown to him.

A two minutes' walk brought Warwick--the

name he had registered under, and as we shall call

him--to the market-house, the central feature of

Patesville, from both the commercial and the

picturesque points of view. Standing foursquare in

the heart of the town, at the intersection of the

two main streets, a "jog" at each street corner

left around the market-house a little public square,

which at this hour was well occupied by carts and

wagons from the country and empty drays awaiting

hire. Warwick was unable to perceive much

change in the market-house. Perhaps the surface

of the red brick, long unpainted, had scaled off a

little more here and there. There might have been

a slight accretion of the moss and lichen on the

shingled roof. But the tall tower, with its four-

faced clock, rose as majestically and uncompromisingly

as though the land had never been subjugated.

Was it so irreconcilable, Warwick wondered, as

still to peal out the curfew bell, which at nine

o'clock at night had clamorously warned all negroes,

slave or free, that it was unlawful for them to be

abroad after that hour, under penalty of imprisonment

or whipping? Was the old constable, whose

chief business it had been to ring the bell, still

alive and exercising the functions of his office, and

had age lessened or increased the number of times

that obliging citizens performed this duty for him

during his temporary absences in the company of

convivial spirits? A few moments later, Warwick

saw a colored policeman in the old constable's

place--a stronger reminder than even the burned

buildings that war had left its mark upon the old

town, with which Time had dealt so tenderly.

The lower story of the market-house was open

on all four of its sides to the public square.

Warwick passed through one of the wide brick arches

and traversed the building with a leisurely step.

He looked in vain into the stalls for the butcher

who had sold fresh meat twice a week, on market

days, and he felt a genuine thrill of pleasure when

he recognized the red bandana turban of old

Aunt Lyddy, the ancient negro woman who had

sold him gingerbread and fried fish, and told him

weird tales of witchcraft and conjuration, in the

old days when, as an idle boy, he had loafed about

the market-house. He did not speak to her, however,

or give her any sign of recognition. He threw a

glance toward a certain corner where steps led to

the town hall above. On this stairway he had

once seen a manacled free negro shot while being

taken upstairs for examination under a criminal

charge. Warwick recalled vividly how the shot

had rung out. He could see again the livid look

of terror on the victim's face, the gathering crowd,

the resulting confusion. The murderer, he recalled,

had been tried and sentenced to imprisonment

for life, but was pardoned by a merciful

governor after serving a year of his sentence. As

Warwick was neither a prophet nor the son of a

prophet, he could not foresee that, thirty years

later, even this would seem an excessive punishment

for so slight a misdemeanor.

Leaving the market-house, Warwick turned to

the left, and kept on his course until he reached

the next corner. After another turn to the right,

a dozen paces brought him in front of a small

weather-beaten frame building, from which projected

a wooden sign-board bearing the inscription:--

ARCHIBALD STRAIGHT,

LAWYER.

He turned the knob, but the door was locked.

Retracing his steps past a vacant lot, the young

man entered a shop where a colored man was

employed in varnishing a coffin, which stood on two

trestles in the middle of the floor. Not at all

impressed by the melancholy suggestiveness of his

task, he was whistling a lively air with great gusto.

Upon Warwick's entrance this effusion came to a

sudden end, and the coffin-maker assumed an air

of professional gravity.

"Good-mawnin', suh," he said, lifting his cap

politely.

"Good-morning," answered Warwick. "Can

you tell me anything about Judge Straight's office

hours?"

"De ole jedge has be'n a little onreg'lar sence

de wah, suh; but he gin'ally gits roun' 'bout ten

o'clock er so. He's be'n kin' er feeble fer de las'

few yeahs. An' I reckon," continued the undertaker

solemnly, his glance unconsciously seeking a

row of fine caskets standing against the wall,--"I

reckon he'll soon be goin' de way er all de earth.

`Man dat is bawn er 'oman hath but a sho't time

ter lib, an' is full er mis'ry. He cometh up an' is

cut down lack as a flower.' `De days er his life

is three-sco' an' ten'--an' de ole jedge is libbed

mo' d'n dat, suh, by five yeahs, ter say de leas'."

"`Death,'" quoted Warwick, with whose mood

the undertaker's remarks were in tune, "`is the

penalty that all must pay for the crime of

living.'"

"Dat 's a fac', suh, dat 's a fac'; so dey mus'--

so dey mus'. An' den all de dead has ter be buried.

An' we does ou' sheer of it, suh, we does ou' sheer.

We conduc's de obs'quies er all de bes' w'ite folks

er de town, suh."

Warwick left the undertaker's shop and

retraced his steps until he had passed the lawyer's

office, toward which he threw an affectionate glance.

A few rods farther led him past the old black

Presbyterian church, with its square tower, embowered

in a stately grove; past the Catholic church, with

its many crosses, and a painted wooden figure of

St. James in a recess beneath the gable; and past

the old Jefferson House, once the leading hotel of

the town, in front of which political meetings had

been held, and political speeches made, and political

hard cider drunk, in the days of "Tippecanoe

and Tyler too."

The street down which Warwick had come

intersected Front Street at a sharp angle in front of

the old hotel, forming a sort of flatiron block at

the junction, known as Liberty Point,--perhaps

because slave auctions were sometimes held there in

the good old days. Just before Warwick reached

Liberty Point, a young woman came down Front

Street from the direction of the market-house.

When their paths converged, Warwick kept on

down Front Street behind her, it having been

already his intention to walk in this direction.

Warwick's first glance had revealed the fact

that the young woman was strikingly handsome,

with a stately beauty seldom encountered. As he

walked along behind her at a measured distance,

he could not help noting the details that made

up this pleasing impression, for his mind was

singularly alive to beauty, in whatever embodiment.

The girl's figure, he perceived, was admirably

proportioned; she was evidently at the period

when the angles of childhood were rounding into

the promising curves of adolescence. Her abundant

hair, of a dark and glossy brown, was neatly

plaited and coiled above an ivory column that rose

straight from a pair of gently sloping shoulders,

clearly outlined beneath the light muslin frock

that covered them. He could see that she was

tastefully, though not richly, dressed, and that she

walked with an elastic step that revealed a light

heart and the vigor of perfect health. Her face,

of course, he could not analyze, since he had

caught only the one brief but convincing glimpse

of it.

The young woman kept on down Front Street,

Warwick maintaining his distance a few rods

behind her. They passed a factory, a warehouse

or two, and then, leaving the brick pavement,

walked along on mother earth, under a leafy

arcade of spreading oaks and elms. Their way

led now through a residential portion of the

town, which, as they advanced, gradually declined

from staid respectability to poverty, open and

unabashed. Warwick observed, as they passed

through the respectable quarter, that few people

who met the girl greeted her, and that some others

whom she passed at gates or doorways gave her

no sign of recognition; from which he inferred

that she was possibly a visitor in the town and not

well acquainted.

Their walk had continued not more than ten

minutes when they crossed a creek by a wooden

bridge and came to a row of mean houses standing

flush with the street. At the door of one, an old

black woman had stooped to lift a large basket,

piled high with laundered clothes. The girl, as

she passed, seized one end of the basket and helped

the old woman to raise it to her head, where it

rested solidly on the cushion of her head-kerchief.

During this interlude, Warwick, though he had

slackened his pace measurably, had so nearly

closed the gap between himself and them as to

hear the old woman say, with the dulcet negro

intonation:--

"T'anky', honey; de Lawd gwine bless you

sho'. You wuz alluz a good gal, and de Lawd

love eve'ybody w'at he'p de po' ole nigger. You

gwine ter hab good luck all yo' bawn days."

"I hope you're a true prophet, Aunt Zilphy,"

laughed the girl in response.

The sound of her voice gave Warwick a thrill.

It was soft and sweet and clear--quite in harmony

with her appearance. That it had a faint

suggestiveness of the old woman's accent he

hardly noticed, for the current Southern speech,

including his own, was rarely without a touch of it.

The corruption of the white people's speech was

one element--only one--of the negro's unconscious

revenge for his own debasement.

The houses they passed now grew scattering,

and the quarter of the town more neglected.

Warwick felt himself wondering where the girl

might be going in a neighborhood so uninviting.

When she stopped to pull a half-naked negro

child out of a mudhole and set him upon his feet,

he thought she might be some young lady from the

upper part of the town, bound on some errand of

mercy, or going, perhaps, to visit an old servant or

look for a new one. Once she threw a backward

glance at Warwick, thus enabling him to catch a

second glimpse of a singularly pretty face. Perhaps

the young woman found his presence in the

neighborhood as unaccountable as he had deemed

hers; for, finding his glance fixed upon her, she

quickened her pace with an air of startled timidity.

"A woman with such a figure," thought Warwick,

"ought to be able to face the world with the

confidence of Phryne confronting her judges."

By this time Warwick was conscious that

something more than mere grace or beauty had

attracted him with increasing force toward this

young woman. A suggestion, at first faint and

elusive, of something familiar, had grown stronger

when he heard her voice, and became more and

more pronounced with each rod of their advance;

and when she stopped finally before a gate, and,

opening it, went into a yard shut off from the

street by a row of dwarf cedars, Warwick had

already discounted in some measure the surprise he

would have felt at seeing her enter there had he

not walked down Front Street behind her. There

was still sufficient unexpectedness about the act,

however, to give him a decided thrill of pleasure.

"It must be Rena," he murmured. "Who

could have dreamed that she would blossom out

like that? It must surely be Rena!"

He walked slowly past the gate and peered

through a narrow gap in the cedar hedge. The

girl was moving along a sanded walk, toward a

gray, unpainted house, with a steep roof, broken

by dormer windows. The trace of timidity he had

observed in her had given place to the more assured

bearing of one who is upon his own ground. The

garden walks were bordered by long rows of jonquils,

pinks, and carnations, inclosing clumps of

fragrant shrubs, lilies, and roses already in bloom.

Toward the middle of the garden stood two fine

magnolia-trees, with heavy, dark green, glistening

leaves, while nearer the house two mighty elms

shaded a wide piazza, at one end of which a

honeysuckle vine, and at the other a Virginia creeper,

running over a wooden lattice, furnished additional

shade and seclusion. On dark or wintry

days, the aspect of this garden must have been

extremely sombre and depressing, and it might

well have seemed a fit place to hide some guilty or

disgraceful secret. But on the bright morning

when Warwick stood looking through the cedars,

it seemed, with its green frame and canopy and its

bright carpet of flowers, an ideal retreat from the

fierce sunshine and the sultry heat of the approaching

summer.

The girl stooped to pluck a rose, and as she

bent over it, her profile was clearly outlined. She

held the flower to her face with a long-drawn

inhalation, then went up the steps, crossed the piazza,

opened the door without knocking, and entered

the house with the air of one thoroughly at home.

"Yes," said the young man to himself, "it's

Rena, sure enough."

The house stood on a corner, around which the

cedar hedge turned, continuing along the side of

the garden until it reached the line of the front of

the house. The piazza to a rear wing, at right

angles to the front of the house, was open to inspection

from the side street, which, to judge from its

deserted look, seemed to be but little used. Turning

into this street and walking leisurely past the

back yard, which was only slightly screened from

the street by a china-tree, Warwick perceived the

young woman standing on the piazza, facing an

elderly woman, who sat in a large rocking-chair,

plying a pair of knitting-needles on a half-finished

stocking. Warwick's walk led him within three

feet of the side gate, which he felt an almost

irresistible impulse to enter. Every detail of the

house and garden was familiar; a thousand cords

of memory and affection drew him thither; but a

stronger counter-motive prevailed. With a great

effort he restrained himself, and after a momentary

pause, walked slowly on past the house, with a

backward glance, which he turned away when he

saw that it was observed.

Warwick's attention had been so fully absorbed

by the house behind the cedars and the women

there, that he had scarcely noticed, on the other

side of the neglected by-street, two men working

by a large open window, in a low, rude building

with a clapboarded roof, directly opposite the back

piazza occupied by the two women. Both the men

were busily engaged in shaping barrel-staves, each

wielding a sharp-edged drawing-knife on a piece of

seasoned oak clasped tightly in a wooden vise.

"I jes' wonder who dat man is, an' w'at he 's

doin' on dis street," observed the younger of the

two, with a suspicious air. He had noticed the

gentleman's involuntary pause and his interest in

the opposite house, and had stopped work for a

moment to watch the stranger as he went on down

the street.

"Nev' min' 'bout dat man," said the elder one.

"You 'ten' ter yo' wuk an' finish dat bairl-stave.

You spen's enti'ely too much er yo' time stretchin'

yo' neck atter other people. An' you need n' 'sturb

yo'se'f 'bout dem folks 'cross de street, fer dey

ain't yo' kin', an' you're wastin' yo' time both'in'

yo' min' wid 'em, er wid folks w'at comes on de

street on account of 'em. Look sha'p now, boy, er

you'll git dat stave trim' too much."

The younger man resumed his work, but still

found time to throw a slanting glance out of the

window. The gentleman, he perceived, stood for

a moment on the rotting bridge across the old

canal, and then walked slowly ahead until he

turned to the right into Back Street, a few rods

farther on.

II

AN EVENING VISIT

Toward evening of the same day, Warwick took

his way down Front Street in the gathering dusk.

By the time night had spread its mantle over the

earth, he had reached the gate by which he had

seen the girl of his morning walk enter the cedar-

bordered garden. He stopped at the gate and

glanced toward the house, which seemed dark and

silent and deserted.

"It's more than likely," he thought, "that they

are in the kitchen. I reckon I'd better try the

back door."

But as he drew cautiously near the corner, he

saw a man's figure outlined in the yellow light

streaming from the open door of a small house

between Front Street and the cooper shop. Wishing,

for reasons of his own, to avoid observation,

Warwick did not turn the corner, but walked on

down Front Street until he reached a point from

which he could see, at a long angle, a ray of light

proceeding from the kitchen window of the house

behind the cedars.

"They are there," he muttered with a sigh of

relief, for he had feared they might be away. "I

suspect I'll have to go to the front door, after all.

No one can see me through the trees."

He retraced his steps to the front gate, which

he essayed to open. There was apparently some

defect in the latch, for it refused to work. Warwick

remembered the trick, and with a slight sense

of amusement, pushed his foot under the gate and

gave it a hitch to the left, after which it opened

readily enough. He walked softly up the sanded

path, tiptoed up the steps and across the piazza,

and rapped at the front door, not too loudly, lest

this too might attract the attention of the man

across the street. There was no response to his

rap. He put his ear to the door and heard voices

within, and the muffled sound of footsteps. After

a moment he rapped again, a little louder than

before.

There was an instant cessation of the sounds

within. He rapped a third time, to satisfy any

lingering doubt in the minds of those who he felt

sure were listening in some trepidation. A moment

later a ray of light streamed through the

keyhole.

"Who's there?" a woman's voice inquired

somewhat sharply.

"A gentleman," answered Warwick, not holding

it yet time to reveal himself. "Does Mis'

Molly Walden live here?"

"Yes," was the guarded answer. "I'm Mis'

Walden. What's yo'r business?"

"I have a message to you from your son

John."

A key clicked in the lock. The door opened, and

the elder of the two women Warwick had

seen upon the piazza stood in the doorway, peering

curiously and with signs of great excitement into

the face of the stranger.

"You 've got a message from my son, you say?"

she asked with tremulous agitation. "Is he sick,

or in trouble?"

"No. He's well and doing well, and sends

his love to you, and hopes you've not forgotten

him."

"Fergot him? No, God knows I ain't fergot

him! But come in, sir, an' tell me somethin'

mo' about him."

Warwick went in, and as the woman closed the

door after him, he threw a glance round the room.

On the wall, over the mantelpiece, hung a steel

engraving of General Jackson at the battle of

New Orleans, and, on the opposite wall, a framed

fashion-plate from "Godey's Lady's Book." In

the middle of the room an octagonal centre-table

with a single leg, terminating in three sprawling

feet, held a collection of curiously shaped sea-shells.

There was a great haircloth sofa, somewhat the

worse for wear, and a well-filled bookcase. The

screen standing before the fireplace was covered

with Confederate bank-notes of various denominations

and designs, in which the heads of Jefferson

Davis and other Confederate leaders were

conspicuous.

"Imperious Caesar, dead, and turned to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away,"

murmured the young man, as his eye fell upon this

specimen of decorative art.

The woman showed her visitor to a seat. She

then sat down facing him and looked at him closely.

"When did you last see my son?" she asked.

"I've never met your son," he replied.

Her face fell. "Then the message comes

through you from somebody else?"

"No, directly from your son."

She scanned his face with a puzzled look. This

bearded young gentleman, who spoke so politely

and was dressed so well, surely--no, it could

not be! and yet--

Warwick was smiling at her through a mist of

tears. An electric spark of sympathy flashed

between them. They rose as if moved by one

impulse, and were clasped in each other's arms.

"John, my John! It IS John!"

"Mother--my dear old mother!"

"I didn't think," she sobbed, "that I'd ever

see you again."

He smoothed her hair and kissed her. "And

are you glad to see me, mother?"

"Am I glad to see you? It's like the dead

comin' to life. I thought I'd lost you forever,

John, my son, my darlin' boy!" she answered,

hugging him strenuously.

"I couldn't live without seeing you, mother,"

he said. He meant it, too, or thought he did,

although he had not seen her for ten years.

"You've grown so tall, John, and are such a

fine gentleman! And you ARE a gentleman now,