11 In the Fields

They reached Pleasantville without trouble, and found Mr. Newton in a bad humor, although he had spent several calm, morning hours at the hotel.

“What they need up here” he said “is not a railroad but a police force.”

“I’m afraid we’ll have to do without fresh capital from Chicago,” said Tom Kidd ruefully a little later to Harry Beauchamp.

“It may be so,” said. Harry, “but never you mind, Tom. The oil’s here and the coal’s here, and they’ve got to get out. Your railroad’s gone far enough already to be a success, and the more of it is owned in Groveton the better for Groveton.”

But Mr. Newton brightened up considerably after Cynthia and Rose appeared upon the veranda. After all, an adventure was an adventure, and, since he was safely out of it, he could now talk genially of what was past.

“The mountains are really picturesque sometimes, Miss Braxton,” he said, “but one likes the comforts of a good hotel. You should have seen Mr. Beauchamp and me tearing through the woods last evening. It was dark before we got here, and I can tell you I was glad to see the lights of the hotel.”

“He was in front, wasn’t he?”

“In front? Oh, you mean, Mr. Beauchamp. Why, of course! I’m a stranger in these parts, and he’s a native.”

He did not notice her coldness as he rattled on, but Charlie Wentworth, an observant man, took a comprehensive glance, and then he murmured softly to himself: “Why will a man tie a rope about his own neck?”

They returned that afternoon to Groveton and Harry, full of his wish to help Tom Kidd and Groveton, wrote almost a page for the Herald, telling of the great work that was going on under the impulse given by the distinguished young engineer, Mr. Thomas Kidd. Soon the mountains would be pouring an overwhelming flood of both oil and coal into the lap of Groveton, and that meant a great leap in prosperity. When he sent the last sheet copy to the composing room, Mr. Flynn came and stood gravely beside him.

“Six threatening letters from tobacco growers have come in today, Mr. Beauchamp,” he said. “Of course, they’re all anonymous, but our average for such letters is rising. Three more barns have been burned in our region, and a farmer who resisted has been wounded.”

Harry’s face fell.

“Confound such lawlessness!” he exclaimed. “Why does it happen, just when I’m trying to help Tom Kidd bring in capital!”

“The farmers claim that they are ground into the dust by a trust,” said Dick Flynn.

“Yes, I know, but there’s no relief in shotguns.”

Mr. Flynn went away, shaking his head as if he were not wholly convinced, and Harry, although tired, wrote another editorial against the Band of Justice. He was greatly enraged that these things should happen at such a time, and he expressed himself with unwonted heat. He called upon Kentucky to clear away the smirch from her name and to put down all lawlessness. A good cause, if good it be, must win by fair means.

Several lawyers and officials constituting a sort of informal club sat the next morning in the County Clerk’s office. Judge Braxton was in the chair. He had just read Harry Beauchamp’s editorial aloud, and the other two were thinking about it, Professor Rose taking comfortable whiffs at a long pipe, while the County Clerk savored a cigar. Judge Braxton had let the paper fall across his lap, and was looking through the open door across the courthouse lawn. The air this morning was crisp and fresh. Summer seemed to have taken a sudden flight. The leaves on the beeches and maples were stained with red and yellow dyes, and some were falling.

“I think Harry’s just a little bit too fierce,” said the Clerk. “You don’t ever cure anything all in a minute, and if you call a man names, he’s apt to get madder and do worse than ever, instead of reforming. What was the name of the old French fellow, Professor, who said ‘don’t bite off more than you can chew?’”

“Talleyrand, and he said ‘not too much zeal’ but it comes to the same thing.”

“You remember Bill Jennings from Upshur County,” said Judge Braxton slowly. “He came to Groveton twenty years ago to live. Upshur is pretty wild and hilly country. Bill was rough, but he was smart. He might have been able to read a little, but I know he couldn’t write. He had made a lot of money logging, and his wife was ambitious. They bought a place here, and came into the lowlands. Mrs. Jennings might have succeeded with Bill, but she rushed things too much. She must have store carpets on the floors, big fluffy curtains before the windows, and a lot of improvements all at once. Bill stood them for a while, but when she demanded that he put on a collar every time he came to table, he broke out. ‘I’m practisin’ with a fork, when I’ve et with a knife all my life,’ he said. ‘I tripped and fell on one uv them things you call a rug an’ I didn’t say nothin.’ I put on my shoes in the evenin’ when the parson comes, but I’ll be dammed, if I put on a paper collar every time I set down to eat.’ Nor did he. He sold out and went back to Upshur, and, as the story books say, ‘lived happily ever afterwards.’”

“But Harry wears well,” said Professor Ross.

“No one can doubt it,” said Judge Braxton heartily. “There is not a better boy in the State of Kentucky nor an abler. But I don’t like the way things are shaping up in this region. Dave Strong is still making those red hot speeches of his, and that wild mountaineer, Cad Burke, and Dick Logsdon have been seen with him more than once. What business have Cad Burke and Dick poking their noses into the dark tobacco trouble?”

“None at all” replied Professor Ross and then they relapsed into silence. Judge Braxton left presently, mounted his horse, which stood, bridled and saddled, in front of his own yard, and rode away. His course took him westward among the tobacco fields, and as he came out from the nest of hills in which Groveton sat, he noticed the nipping nature of the air. Here the leaves were flying faster and the fields of corn were turning yellow. “Frost is not far away,” said the weather wise old Judge to himself, “and the tobacco knives must be busy.” This, in fact, was what he had come to see—the flash of the tobacco knives, and he was not mistaken.

Frost would be a terrible thing for the tobacco and the farmer who owned it, its white touch in a single morning reducing the value of the plant from perhaps twenty cents a pound to nothing. Frost-bitten tobacco was of no account. Here always was the problem for the farmer—should he give the plant a few days longer for a better maturity and risk the frost, or should he cut it now? But the gray cold in the air told too plainly of what would come and in every field the farmer, his sons and his hired man, were at work. There could be no lingering in this crisis over the labor. It was like getting a ship into port before a coming storm that would wreck everything.

The farmer, his sons and his hired man, moved steadily up and down the rows. The heavy tobacco knife, with one sweep, slashed off the stalk near the ground, and then with another sweep, split it down the center in order that it might be hung up to dry on the tobacco sticks. But always they were bent over, always stooping, always in the position that stiffened the bones, and made every man old long before his time.

The Judge saw that the tobacco leaves were thick and strong. All things had favored the plant that year. Rain, sun and cloud had come at the right time. In quality and quantity alike, it excelled anything ever known before in the Dark Tobacco region, and in that double fact, lay the misfortune to the farmer. The tobacco market was a fixed entity, its consumption increasing in a steady but slow ratio from year to year. All the tobacco, going from grower to consumer, must pass through certain defined channels. The great trust and the smaller concerns would know how many hogsheads they wanted, and the regie purchases to be made for the European countries would also be known to the last hogshead. With the great crop, down would go the price of tobacco fully one half. The farmer who received twenty cents a pound for fine leaf the year before would receive only ten now, but his labor would remain the same, and his bills at the stores would not be changed. None knew these facts better than the Judge, and his heart was torn within him, torn by sympathy for his own people, who were his world, and the fear lest they put themselves in the wrong before that larger, but vague, world outside.

In a stretch of woods at his right, a man was clearing trees and underbrush from a narrow space on a sheltered slope. Here on “new ground” he would sow a plant bed in the following spring. Before this year’s crop was in, the preparation for next year’s had already begun.

In another grove by the roadside, a farmer and his two young sons were making hogsheads. Boards as long as a man, cut and split earlier in the year, but seasoned now, were being set up and then enclosed with thin, flat strips of wood as flexible as withes. They enclosed the boards at the top and bottom and there were also several circles between. These were nailed into place and a plank bottom was nailed in. Then the hogshead was ready and it could be bought for $2.50. It would be used only once. It required both knowledge of timber and manual skill to be a good hogshead-maker, and the Judge, for a little while, watched the farmer and his sons, as they worked deftly with saw and hatchet, adze and hammer.

“How’s the hogshead trade, Jake?” he said at last to the farmer. He knew every man for twenty miles around, and called them all by their first names.

“Good, good, Judge, fine!” replied the man, “but I’ve got to make all I kin out uv it this year ’cause there ain’t goin’ to be any sale for hogsheads next year.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you know, Judge? We ain’t goin’ to raise no tobacco next season. There’s an agreement. We’re goin’ to hold back this big crop, an’ then plant nuthin’ ’till things are fixed. I guess that’ll bring the monopolies aroun’. I’m in it, I’m willin’ to give up the hogsheads fur a better price on my tobacco. They’re goin’ in to it all through these counties, an’ up through the Bluegrass too an’ down in Tennessee. Uv course some fellers are holdin’ out, an’ are makin’ ground ready for plant beds, but I guess we’ll get ’em later on.”

The Judge thoughtfully stroked the mane of his horse. “And your leader is Dave Strong.” he said.

The man came down to the fence.

“It’s no use my tryin’ to hide the truth from you, Judge Braxton,” he said, “’cause you know. Yes, it’s Dave Strong an’ a mighty good man he is. You are fur us too, Judge Braxton. You can’t help it, an’ I says too that them as is with us is with us, and them that ain’t, ain’t.”

“I suppose that’s so, Jake,” said Judge Braxton, “but don’t you fellows go too far.”

“Trust us, Judge,” said the man as he returned to his work.

Judge Braxton rode on, and everywhere his mind, so keenly alive to the temperature of his own world, received the same impression. The influences at work had accomplished much. The movement was already far larger, and far more aggressive than most people, even in Groveton, suspected.

As he rode back he met no less a person than Dave Strong himself, a confident and exultant Dave Strong, mounted on a huge black horse, and riding as if the road were scarcely wide enough for him. He hailed Judge Braxton from a distance—everybody knew the Judge. The upright figure and the crown of snowy white hair under the slouch hat were a familiar sight in a dozen counties.

“Good morning,” he said, stopping his horse as the Judge did the same. “You are not coming from court, are you?”

“No,” replied the Judge, “I’ve been taking a look at the tobacco fields, and also I’ve been hearing a lot about you, Dave.”

“Nothing bad I hope,” said Strong. The flicker of his eye showed that he expected something flattering.

“I hear that the farmers are going to hold back this year’s tobacco crop, and that they are getting up an agreement to plant none next year. People tell me, Dave, that you are the head and front of it in these parts.”

“I’ve had my share in it,” replied Strong, with aggressive pride. “Everybody in the Dark Tobacco region has got to come into the Band of Justice, and in the Bluegrass they’ve got to do it, too!”

“Have got to?”

“That’s what I said—if they know what’s good for ’em.”

“See here, Dave,” said the Judge gravely. “There have been too many barn burnings and things of that kind already. It’s a free country, and if a man wants to sell his tobacco to anybody, he has a right to do it.”

“Maybe,” said Strong, “but in war you’ve got to fight hard, and I tell you another thing, Judge, that Harry Beechum, if he’s got any sense, will call off his paper. The Herald has been lighting into us again this morning. We’re fighting for our rights, and we don’t want our own people turning on us.”

Strong spoke with great heat, and again the sensitive and experienced mind of Judge Braxton received an impression.

“Dave,” he said, earnestly, “I said just now don’t you go too far, and I say it again. How you, and those who are with you, let Harry Beauchamp alone. He is just as confident that he is right as you are that you are right, and he’s entitled to his opinion. Besides he’s done a lot for Groveton, and all this region, and you mustn’t forget that.”

“I’m forgetting nothing,” said Strong obstinately.

Judge Braxton said no more, but rode thoughtfully back to Groveton. If anybody knew that region, knew it inside and out, knew its logic, feelings and emotions, and knew what it was likely to do, it was he. Now he was sure of several facts, and the first thing he did was to go to the First National Bank, where he had a short but earnest talk with Christopher Lucas. Then he went to the tobacco warehouses, as Harry Beauchamp had once done, and largely for the same purpose.

The Judge felt at once a great change on the “breaks.” Prices were falling rapidly, and the temper of the sellers was sullen, even fierce. The farmers stood apart, saying but little, and there were no longer passages of wit between them and the buyers. In the old days it had been the custom to chaff one another good-naturedly. Men were usually called by their first names, and there were certain stock jokes, that never failed of use, season after season. Bill Coles for instance, had been butted into a creek by a ram ten years before, and his invariable salutation, for ten successive years, as he appeared, upon the “breaks” was: “Well, Bill, are you still taking to freshwater?” and Bill who enjoyed the joke himself, always took a drink—not of fresh water—with the merry buyers at the merry buyers’ expense. Now buyers stood together, farmers stood together, and there was hostility between. Judge Braxton was the only man, whom both sides greeted with friendliness and his presence created no surprise, as now and then he sold a hogshead of tobacco himself from that farm on which he spent a large part of his earnings from the law.

He followed the sales for more than an hour. Prices sagged steadily. The chief buyer was Jerome Arnett, the representative of the great trust, a stout, red-faced man with a swaggering air. Arnett, as the Judge would say, always “felt his oats,” because he was by far the largest buyer on the “breaks.” He was a born judge of tobacco, but he was tactless, invariably asserting by his manner that deference was due to his importance. Today he was buying tobacco, fine tobacco, at his own prices, almost without opposition, and he was in a good humor.

“Hello, Judge,” he exclaimed, “aren’t you selling anything today? Better sell if you’ve got it, because tobacco is going to be a lot cheaper.”

One of the farmers opened his mouth to speak, but another put his hand warningly on his arm. Neither movement escaped the Judge’s wary eye.

“No, Jerome,” he replied, “I’ve nothing to sell, and I may never raise tobacco again. I’m going into grass myself. Tobacco’s too hard on land and man.”

Arnett laughed gustily.

“All right, Judge,” he said. “But there’ll be plenty others. When one man turns to grass, two tobacco men grow in his place.”

“I’m afraid that’s so,” said the Judge, “but, Jerome, you people want to look about you and take notice. This Band of Justice is a bigger thing than you think.”

“A few barn burnings don’t amount to anything,” replied Arnett.

The Judge turned away, not wishing to lead the man on, because he knew that every word he said was heard by the farmers, and added to the flame. Outside he mounted his horse and rode out to his farm. There he went to the barn where one of his hired men was cutting tobacco sticks, the slender pieces of wood, five or six feet long on which the tobacco, before it is stripped from the stalk, is hung in the barn to dry—another step in the endless process from plant to pipe or pouch.

“Bob,” he said, “stop that! Quit cutting those sticks!”

The negro looked up in astonishment.

“Why, Jedge,” he said, “you told me particr’ler to begin it today.”

“I know, but now I tell you, particular, to stop it! Never begin it again! I’ll never raise another hill of tobacco! Throw away the sticks that you have already made. I’m going to grass now, Jim!”

“Grass it is, Jedge,” said Jim delighted. “It’s a heap easier work.”

Meanwhile Christopher Lucas was putting on his coat and strolling over to the office of the Groveton Herald. He had been there but once since the paper was bought by Harry Beauchamp, and his errand now was not to collect a debt, as Harry had made an unexpected payment the day before.

Harry was surprised to see the banker, but he made him none the less welcome.

“Sit down, Mr. Lucas,” he said. “It’s only a little office that I have here, but there’s always room in it for you. ”

Mr. Lucas sat down slowly, and gazed thoughtfully at a festive but friendly cockroach.

“Getting along pretty well, Harry?” he said.

“I think so. I gave proof of it yesterday, didn’t I?”

“You surely did. New press running well?”

“Smoother than oil.”

“What’s your insurance on your whole plant, Harry?”

“Six thousand.”

“Make it twelve, Harry. You couldn’t replace it for that.”

“Why, what do you mean, Mr. Lucas?”

“Make it twelve, Harry! Make it twelve at once! So long. I must be going.”

He strolled out of the Herald office, and Harry, impressed—he knew not why—by his words, raised his insurance to twelve thousand dollars that very day. As Christopher Lucas had said, the Herald establishment was easily worth it. Nor did he relax in his efforts to suppress the Night Riders and to show that their increasing acts of violence were not endorsed by the better people of his section and state. Sensitive, high-minded, the criticisms in his “exchanges” hurt him much. He was aware that alien influences were strong in the greater cities of the country where foreign population had accumulated in a much greater ratio than in the country at large. He was aware also that the same alien influences were far more eager to find faults in the United States than they were to discover corresponding or larger faults in Europe, and he was especially anxious that his own state should not furnish them an opportunity for such criticism.

Hence he wrote with all the fire and vigor of a strong and impressionable temperament. Perhaps the faults which he attacked loomed larger to him than they really were, because he dwelled upon them so constantly. Yet, while striving for one thing, he unconsciously achieved another. The fame of the Herald increased yet more and with that fame, its circulation and advertising. No other newspaper published in so small a town was so well known. It had a character, and everybody saw that a personality spoke through it.

Mr. Beauchamp thoroughly endorsed his son’s policy, but Mrs. Leroy, now a fixture in the household, often took another view and Harry felt that she was the stronger influence. She was positive. Mr. Beauchamp was negative, and the result was inevitable.

“Harry,” said she the third evening after his return, “aren’t you afraid that, instead of putting out the fire, you’re merely building it higher?”

“No, I don’t think so,” he replied.

“It seems to me,” she continued, “that editors often write to relieve their minds, instead of seeking to deliver a good result—although they may not know it.”

“Have it your way, Aunt Emma,” said Harry good humouredly.

“How long is young Mr. Newton going to stay in Groveton?” she asked, abruptly changing the subject.

“I don’t know. I believe he is still at the Commercial Hotel. He doesn’t seem to be in any hurry about leaving.”

“No, he hangs on well, and it’s the gossip all over Groveton that he didn’t cut any too romantic or heroic a figure when Tom Kidd took that party up to Pleasantville.”

Harry started to smile, but instantly checked it—he had a man’s instinctive desire to protect another man.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I suppose he did as well as any of us, except Charlie Wentworth. It was Charlie’s speech that was the event of the trip.”

Mrs. Leroy paused. Suddenly the rather large hand that held her fork—they were at dinner—began to tremble. Yet the tremor which soon passed was not of fear or weakness, it bespoke anger.

“Harry,” she said, “I’m glad that Burke woman didn’t offer you food or drink at her house. I couldn’t have got over it, if you had taken either, even if you didn’t then know who she was. Oh, I’ve heard all about it, although you pretended to have forgotten the names of those people, when you spoke of that night on the mountains. You don’t suppose that Rose Compton could keep such a secret, do you?”

Harry knew that the Mason spark was alive in his aunt’s blood. She could never forget how her brother, poor weak, Dick Mason, had died, nor did she wish to forget.

“It was an unfortunate coincidence, Aunt Emma,” he said.

“Perhaps,” she replied, “but it may be true also that these things are brought about for a purpose. You remember the old saying about the mills of God.”

Harry read her thoughts clearly, and he knew that he was a large factor in them. Mr. Beauchamp, not being native to the soil, only half guessed them, but what he did guess alarmed him.

“Come, come, Sister Emma,” he said, “let’s not talk of such things. Better to forget them, if we can.”

Mrs. Leroy was silent but the thoughts in her mind were unchanged. Did the mills of God finally grind out all the corn? And were all things in time made even? She glanced at her nephew. He was a Mason all over, the lithe, tall figure, the strong shoulders and chest, and the keen wary eyes. Yes, Harry could be trusted.

►   ▲