MAM' LINDA.

Thames Star, Volume LXII, Issue 17390, 30 March 1928, Page 3

MAM' LINDA.

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CHAPTER XIV. "That's the pity of it," Carson said, with a sigh. At this juncture there was the sound oi a windowrsash sliding upward, and old Dwight put out his head. "Come on in." he called out "Your mother is awake, and absolutely refuses to believe foil haven't a dozen bulletholes in you." "All right, lather, I'm coming," Carson said, and impulsively he held out his hand and clasped Helen's in a steady, sympathetic pressure. "Now, you go to bed, little girl/'' he said, more tenderly than he realised. In fact, it was a term he had used only once 1 before, long before her luother's death. "Pardon me," he pleaded; "I. didn't know what I was saying. I—l was worried over seeing you look so tired, and—and I spoke without thinking." "You can say it whenever you wish, Carson," she said. "As if 1 could get angry at you after —after " But she did not finish, for, with her hand stil warmly clasping his fingers, she was listening to a distant sound. It was a restless human tread on a resounding floor. "It's Mam' Linda," Helen said. "She walks like that night and day. 1 must go to her and—tell her you are back; but, oh! how can I? Goodnight. Carson. I'll never forget what you have done —never." CHAPTER XV. Alter an almost sleepless night, spent for.the greater part in despouden treflections over his failure in the things to which he had directed his hopes and energies, Carson rose about seven o'clock, went into his mother's room to ask how she had rested through the night, and then descended to breakfast. It was eight o'clock when he arrived at his office. Garner was there in a cloud of dust, sweeping a pile of torn papers into the already filled fireplace. ".I'm going tp touch a match to this place the first rainy day—if I think of it," he said. "It's liable to set the roof on fire when it's dry, as it is now." "Any news from the mountains?" Carson' asked, as he sat down at his desk.

"Yes, Pole Baker was in here just now." Garner leaned his broomhandle against the mantelpiece, and stood critically eying his partner's worn face and dejected mien. "He said the mob. or mobs, for there are twenty of them, had certainly hemmed Pete in. He was hiding somewhere oh Elk Knob, and they hadn't then located him. Pole left there long before day, and said they had already set in afresh. I reckon it will be over soon. He told me to keep you here if 1 had to swear out a writ of dangerous lunacy against you. He says you have not only killed your own political chances,' but you couldn't save the boy if you were, the daddy of every man in the chase. They've smelled blood, and they want to taste it." "You needn't worry about me," Carson said, dejectedly. "I realise how helpless I was yesterday, and am still. There was only one thing that might have been done if we had acted rightly, and that was to telegraph the Governor for troops." "But you wouldn't sanction that; you know you wouldn't," said Garner. You know every mother's son of those white men is acting according to the purest dictates of his inner soul. They think they are right'. They believe

Bv WILL N. HARBEN. (Author of "Ann Boyd," "Pole Baker," "Abner Daniel," etc )

in law, and, while 1 am a member of the bar, by heaven!- 1 say to you.that our whole legal system is rotten to the core. Politics will clear a criminal at the drop of a hat. A dozen voters can jerk a "man from life imprisonment to the streets of this town by a single telegram. "No, you know those sturdy men over there' think they are right, and you would not be the cause of armed men shooting them down like rabbits in a fence comer." "No. they think they are right," Ca.rson said. "And they were my friends till this came up. Any mail?" "I haven't been to the post-office. I wislr you'd go.. You need exercise; you are oft' colour —you are as yellow as a new saddle. Drop this thing. The Lord Himself can't make water run mi-hill. Quit thinking about it."

Carson went out into the quiet street •and walked along to the post-office. At the intersection of the streets near the Johnston House, on any ordinary day, a dozen drays and hacks in the care of negro drivers would have been seen; and on the drays and about the "hacks stood, as a rule, many idle negro men and boys; 'but tliite morning the spot was significantly vacant. At the negro barber-shop, kept by Buck Black a mulatto of marked" and intelligence for one of his race, only the black barbers might be seen, and they were not lounging about the door, but stood at their chairs, their faces grave, their tongues unusually silent. They might be asking themselves question's as to tlie possible extent of the fires of race-hatred just now raging—if the capture and death of Pete Warren would ouench the conflagration, or if it would roll on towards them like the licking flames of a burning prairie —they might, I say, ask themselves .such questions, but to the patrons of their 'trade they kept discreet silence. And no white man who went near them that day would ask them what they believed' or what they felt, for the blacks are not a people who give much thought even to their own social problems. They had leaned for many generations upon white guidance, and with childlike, hereditary instinct, they were leaning still. -Finding no letters of importance in the little glass-faced and numbered box at the post-office, Carson, sick at hear* and utterly discouraged, went up to the Club. ' Here, idly knocking the balls about on a billiard table, a cigar in his mouht, was Keith Gordon. "Want to play a game of pool?" he asked. "Not this morning, old man," Carson answered. "Well. I don't cither," said Keith. "I went to the bank and fried to add up some figures for the old man, but mv thinker wouldn't work. It's out of whack. That blasted nigger Pete is the prime cause of my being upset. I came bv Major Warren's this morning. Sirter feels awfully sorry for Mam' Linda, and asked me to take her a jar of jelly. You know old coloured people love little attentions like that from white people, when they are sick or in trouble. Well"—Keith held up his hands., the palms outward—-" 1 don't want any more in .mine. I've been to death-bed scenes, funerals, wrecks on railroads, and all sorts of horrors.'but that was simply too much. It simply beggars description—to see that old woman bowed there in her door like a dumb brute with its tongue tied to a stake. It made me ashamed of myself, though, for not at_ least trying to do something. I gloried in vou. old man. You failed, but you tried. By the way, that's the only comfort Mam' Linda has had—the only thing. Helen was there, the dear girl

—and to think her visit home has to be like—this!—she was there trying to soothe the old woman; but nothing that was said could produce anything but that awful groaning of hers till Lewis said something about your going over there yesterday,' and that stirred her up. She rose in her chair and walked to the gate, and folded her big arms across her breast.

. " *'l thank God young marster felt fer me dat way.' she said. 'He's de best young man on de face o' de earth. I'll go down ter my grave blessing "im fer dis. He's got er soul in 'im. He knows' how old Mammy Lindy feels, 'en he was tryin' to help her. God bless Vim! He couldn't do nothin', but he tried—he tried, dough everybody was holdin' 'im back en sayin' it would spile his 'lection. Well, if it do harm 'im, it will show tint God done turn ergin white en black bote.' I came away," Keith finished, after a pause, in which Carson said nothing. "1 couldn't stand it. Helen was crying like a child, her face wet with tears, and she wasn't trying to hide it. I wa-s looking for someone to come with the final news, and I didn't want to face that. Good God, old man, what are we coming to? Historians, Northern ones, seem to think the days of slavery were benighted, but God knows such things as this never happened then. Now. did it?" "No; it's terrible," Carson agreed, and he stepped to a window and looked out over the roofs of the near-by .stores to the waggon-yard beyond. (To be continued.)