In short, there were never two sides to any question that interested Hotchkiss. He held the Southern people responsible for American slavery, and would have refused to listen to any statement of facts calculated to upset his belief. He was narrow-minded, bigoted, and intensely in earnest. Some writer, Newman, perhaps, has said that a man will not become a martyr for the sake of an opinion; but Newman probably never came in contact with the whipper-snappers of Exeter Hall, or their prototypes in this country—the men who believe that philanthropy, and reform, and progress generally are worthless unless it be accompanied by strife, and hate, and, if possible, by bloodshed. You find the type everywhere; it clings like a leech to the skirts of every great movement. The Hotchkisses swarm wherever there is an opening for them, and they always present the same general aspect. They are as productive of isms as a fly is of maggots, and they live and die in the belief that they are promoting the progress of the world; but if their success is to be measured by their operations in the South during the reconstruction period, the world would be much better off without them. They succeeded in dedicating millions of human beings to misery and injustice, and warped the minds of the whites to such an extent that they thought it necessary to bring about peace and good order by means of various acute forms of injustice and lawlessness.
Mr. Hotchkiss was absolutely sincere in believing that the generation of Southern whites who were his contemporaries were personally responsible for slavery in this country, and for all the wrongs that he supposed had been the result of that institution. He felt it in every fibre of his cultivated but narrow mind, and he went about elated at the idea that he was able to contribute his mite of information to the negroes, and breed in their minds hatred of the people among whom they were compelled to live. If there had been a Booker Washington in that day, he would have been denounced by the Hotchkisses as a traitor to his race, and an enemy of the Government, just as they denounced and despised such negroes as Uncle Plato.
Hotchkiss went along the road in high spirits. He had delivered a blistering address to the negroes at the meeting of the league, and he was feeling happy. His work, he thought, was succeeding. Before he delivered his address, he had initiated Ike Varner, who was by all odds the most notorious negro in all that region. Ike was a poet in his way; if he had lived a few centuries earlier, he would have been called a minstrel. He could stand up before a crowd of white men, and spin out rhymes by the yard, embodying in this form of biography the weak points of every citizen. Some of his rhymes were very apt, and there are men living to-day who can repeat some of the extemporaneous satires composed by this negro. He had the reputation among the blacks of being an uncompromising friend of the whites. In the town, he was a privileged character; he could do and say what he pleased. He was a fine cook, and provided possum suppers for those who sat up late at night, and ice-cream for those who went to bed early. He tidied up the rooms of the young bachelors, he sold chicken-pies and ginger-cakes on public days, and Cephas, whose name was mentioned at the beginning of this chronicle, is willing to pay five dollars to the man or woman who can bake a ginger-cake that will taste as well as those that Ike Varner made. He was a happy-go-lucky negro, and spent his money as fast as he made it, not on himself, but on Edie, his wife, who was young, and bright, and handsome. She was almost white, and her face reminded you somehow of the old paintings of the Magdalene, with her large eyes and the melancholy droop of her mouth. Edie was the one creature in the world that Ike really cared for, and he had sense enough to know that she cared for him only when he could supply her with money. Yet he watched her like a hawk, madly jealous of every glance she gave another man; and she gave many, in all directions. Ike's jealousy was the talk of the town among the male population, and was the subject for many a jest at his expense. His nature was such that he could jest about it too, but far below the jests, as any one could see, there was desperation.
In spite of all this, Ike was the most popular negro in the town. His wit and his good-humour commended him to the whole community. He had moved his wife and his belongings into the country, two or three miles from town, on the ground that the country is more conducive to health. Ike's white friends laughed at him, but the negro couldn't see the joke. Why should a negro be laughed at for taking precautions of this sort, when there is a whole nation of whites that keeps its women hid, or compels them to cover their faces when they go out for a breath of fresh air? The fact is that Ike didn't know what else to do, and so he sent his handsome wife into exile, and went along to keep her company. Nevertheless, all his interests were within the corporate limits of Shady Dale, and he was compelled by circumstances to leave Edie to pine alone, sometimes till late at night. Whether Edie pined or not, or whether she was lonely, is a question that this chronicler is not called on to discuss.
Now, the fact of Ike's popularity with the whites had struck Mr. Hotchkiss as a very unfavourable sign, and he set himself to work to bring about a change. He sent some of the negro leaders to talk with Ike, who sent them about their business in short order. Then Mr. Hotchkiss took the case in hand, and called on Ike at his house. The two had an argument over the matter, Ike interspersing his remarks with random rhymes which Hotchkiss thought very coarse and crude. At the conclusion of the argument, Hotchkiss saw that the negro had been laughing at him all the way through, and he resented this attitude more than another would. He went away in a huff, resolved to leave the negro with his idols.
This would have been very well, if the matter had stopped there, but Edie put her finger in the pie. One day when Ike was away, she called to Hotchkiss as he was passing on his way to town, and invited him into the house. There was something about the man that had attracted the wild and untamed passions of the woman. He was not a very handsome man, but his refinement of manner and speech stood for something, and Edie had resolved to cultivate his acquaintance. He went in, in response to her invitation, and found that she desired to ask his advice as to the best and easiest method of converting Ike into a union Leaguer. Hotchkiss gave her such advice as he could in the most matter-of-fact way, and went on about his business. Otherwise he paid no more attention to her than if she had been a sign in front of a cigar-store. Edie was not accustomed to this sort of thing, and it puzzled her. She went to her looking-glass and studied her features, thinking that perhaps something was wrong. But her beauty had not even begun to fade. A melancholy tenderness shone in her lustrous eyes, her rosy lips curved archly, and the glow of the peach-bloom was in her cheeks.
"I didn't know the man was a preacher," she said, laughing at herself in the glass.
Time and again she called Mr. Hotchkiss in as he went by, and on some occasions they held long consultations at the little gate in front of her door. Ike was not at all blind to these things; if he had been, there was more than one friendly white man to call his attention to them. The negro was compelled to measure Hotchkiss by the standard of the most of the white men he knew. He was well aware of Edie's purposes, and he judged that Hotchkiss would presently find them agreeable.
Ike listened to Edie's arguments in behalf of the union League with a great deal of patience. Prompted by Hotchkiss, she urged that membership in that body would give him an opportunity to serve his race politically; he might be able to go to the legislature, and, in that event, Edie could go to Atlanta with him, where (she said to herself) she would be able to cut a considerable shine. Moreover, membership in the league, with his aptitude for making a speech, would give him standing among the negro leaders all over the State.
Ike argued a little, but not much, considering his feelings. He pointed out that all his customers, the people who ate his cakes and his cream, and so forth and so on, were white, and felt strongly about the situation. Should they cease their patronage, what would he and Edie do for victuals to eat and clothes to wear?
"Oh, we'll git along somehow; don't you fret about that," said Edie with a toss of her head.
"Maybe you will, but not me," replied Ike.
At last, however, he had consented to join the league, and appeared to be very enthusiastic over the matter. As Mr. Hotchkiss went along home that night—the night on which the young men had gone to the country dance—he was feeling quite exultant over Ike's conversion, and the enthusiasm he had displayed over the proceedings. After he had decided to go home rather than wait for Bridalbin, he hunted about in the crowd for Ike, but the negro was not to be found. As their roads lay in the same direction Hotchkiss would have been glad of the negro's company along the way, and he was somewhat disappointed when he was told that Ike had started for home as soon as the meeting adjourned. Mr. Hotchkiss thereupon took the road and went on his way, walking a little more rapidly than usual, in the hope of overtaking Ike. At last, however, he came to the conclusion that the negro had remained in town. He was sorry, for there was nothing he liked better than to drop gall and venom into the mind of a fairly intelligent negro.
As for Ike, he had his own plans. He had told Edie that in all probability he wouldn't come home that night, and advised her to get a nearby negro woman to stay all night with her. This Edie promised to do. When the league adjourned, Ike lost no time in taking to the road, and for fear some one might overtake him he went in a dog-trot for the first mile, and walked rapidly the rest of the way. Before he came to the house, he stopped and pulled off his shoes, hiding them in a fence-corner. He then left the road, and slipped through the woods until he was close to the rear of the house. Here his wariness was redoubled. He wormed himself along like a snake, and crept and crawled, until he was close enough to see Edie sitting on the front step—there was but one—of their little cabin. He was close enough to see that she had on her Sunday clothes, and he thought he could smell the faint odour of cologne; he had brought her a bottle home the night before.
He lay concealed for some time, but finally he heard footsteps on the road, and he rose warily to a standing position. Edie heard the footsteps too, for she rose and shook out her pink frock, and went to the gate. The lonely pedestrian came leisurely along the road, having no need for haste. When he found that it was impossible to overtake Ike, Mr. Hotchkiss ceased to walk rapidly, and regulated his pace by the serenity of the hour and the deliberate movements of nature. The hour was rapidly approaching when solitude would be at its meridian on this side of the world, and a mocking-bird not far away was singing it in.
Mr. Hotchkiss would have passed Ike's gate without turning his head, but he heard a voice softly call his name. He paused, and looked around, and at the gate he saw the figure of Edie. "Is that you, Mr. Hotchkiss? What you do with Ike?"
"Isn't he at home? He started before I did."
"He ain't comin' home to-night, an' I was so lonesome that I had to set on the step here to keep myse'f company," said Edie. "Won't you come in an' rest? I know you must be tired; I got some cold water in here, fresh from the well."
"No, I'll not stop," replied Mr. Hotchkiss. "It is late, and I must be up early in the morning."
"Well, tell me 'bout Ike," said Edie. "You got 'im in the league all right, I hope?" She came out of the gate, as she said this, and moved nearer to Hotchkiss. In her hand she held a flower of some kind, and with this she toyed in a shamefaced sort of way.
"Mr. Varner is now a member in good standing," replied Hotchkiss, "and I think he will do good work for his race and for the party."
Edie moved a step or two nearer to him, toying with her flower. Now, Mr. Hotchkiss was a genuine reformer of the most approved type, and, as such, he was entitled to as many personal and private fads as he chose to have. He was a vegetarian, holding to the theory that meat is a poison, though he was not averse to pie for breakfast. His pet aversion, leaving alcohol out of the question, was all forms of commercial perfumes. As Edie came close to him, he caught a whiff of her cologne-scented clothes, and his anger rose.
"Why will you ladies," he said, "persist in putting that sort of stuff on you?"
"I dunner what you mean," replied Edie, edging still closer to Hotchkiss.
"Why that infernal——"
He never finished the sentence. A pistol-shot rang out, and Hotchkiss fell like a log. Edie, fearing a similar fate for herself, ran screaming down the road, and never paused until she had reached the dwelling of Mahlon Butts. She fell in the door when it was opened and lay on the floor, moaning and groaning. When she could be persuaded to talk, her voice could have been heard a mile.
"They've killt him!" she screamed; "they've killt him! an' he was sech a good man! Oh, he was sech a good man!"