The House Behind The Cedars [0]
THE HOUSE BEHIND THE CEDARS
BY CHARLES W. CHESNUTT
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