I know, you are housekeeper, and a very conscientious one I think. But I wonder if your duties in the early morning are too exacting to permit you to ride with me before breakfast. You see I want to make a tour of inspection over the plantation and I’d like to have you for my guide. The days are so warm that I have a fancy to ride in the cool of the morning. Would it please you to accompany me and tell me about things?”
“I’ll like that very much. I’m always down stairs by five o’clock, so if you like we can ride at six any morning you please. That will give us three hours before breakfast.”
“Thank you very much,” Arthur replied. “If you please, then, we’ll ride tomorrow morning.”
When Arthur came down stairs the next morning he found the maids busily polishing the snow-white floors with pine needles and great log and husk rubbers, while their young mistress was giving her final instructions to Johnny, the dining room servant. Hearing Arthur’s step on the stair she commanded the negro to bring the coffee urn and in answer to the young master’s cheery good morning, she handed him a cup of steaming coffee.
“This is a very pleasant surprise,” he exclaimed. “I had not expected coffee until breakfast time.”
“Oh, you must never ride soon in the morning without taking coffee first,” she replied. “That’s the way to keep well. We always have a big kettle of coffee for the field hands before they go to work. Their breakfast isn’t ready till ten o’clock, and the coffee keeps the chill off.”
“Why is their breakfast served so late?”
“Oh, they like it that way. They don’t want anything but coffee soon in the morning. They breakfast at ten, and then the time isn’t so long before their noonday dinner.”
“I should think that an excellent plan,” answered the doctor. “As a hygienist I highly approve of it. After all it isn’t very different from the custom of the French peasants. But come, Miss Dorothy, Ben has the horses at the gate.”
The girl, fresh-faced, lithe-limbed and joyous, hastily donned her long riding skirt which made her look, Arthur thought, like a little child masquerading in some grown woman’s garments, and nimbly tripped down the walk to the gate way. There she quickly but searchingly looked the horses over, felt of the girths, and, taking from her belt a fine white cambric handkerchief, proceeded to rub it vigorously on the animals’ rumps. Finding soil upon the dainty cambric, she held it up before Ben’s face, and silently looked at him for the space of thirty seconds. Then she tossed the handkerchief to him and commanded: – “Go to the house and fetch me another handkerchief.”
There was something almost tragic in the negro’s humiliation as he walked away on his mission. Arthur had watched the little scene with amused interest. When it was over the girl, without waiting for him to offer her a hand as a step, seized the pommel and sprang into the saddle.
“Why did you do that, Miss Dorothy?” the young man asked as the horses, feeling the thrill of morning in their veins, began their journey with a waltz.
“What? rub the horses?”
“No. Why did you look at Ben in that way? And why did it seem such a punishment to him?”
“I wanted him to remember. He knows I never permit him to bring me a horse that isn’t perfectly clean.”
“And will he remember now?”
“Certainly. You saw how severely he was punished this time. He doesn’t want that kind of thing to happen again.”
“But I don’t understand. You did nothing to him. You didn’t even scold him.”
“Of course I didn’t. Scolding is foolish. Only weak-minded people scold.”
“But I shouldn’t have thought Ben fine enough or sensitive enough to feel the sort of punishment you gave him. Why should he mind it?”
“Oh, everybody minds being looked at in that way – everybody who has been doing wrong. You see one always knows when one has done wrong. Ben knew, and when I looked at him he saw that I knew too. So it hurt him. You’ll see now that he’ll never bring you or me a horse on which we can soil our handkerchiefs.”
“Where did you learn all that?” asked Arthur, full of curiosity and interest.
“I suppose my father taught me. He taught me everything I know. I remember that whenever I was naughty, he would look at me over his spectacles and make me ever so sorry. You see even if I knew I had done wrong I didn’t think much about it, till father looked at me. After that I would think about it all day and all night, and be, oh, so sorry! Then I would try not to displease my father again.”
“Your father must have been a very wise as well as a very good man!”
“He was,” and two tears slipped from the girl’s eyes as she recalled the father who had been everything to her from her very infancy. “That is why I always try, now that he is gone, never to do anything that he would have disliked. I always think ‘I won’t do that, for if I do father will look at me.’ You see I must be a great deal more careful than other girls.”
“Why? I see no reason for that.”
“That’s because you don’t know about – about things. I was born bad, and if I’m not more careful than other girls have to be, I shall be very bad when I grow up.”
“Will you forgive me if I say I don’t believe that?” asked Arthur.
“Oh, but it’s true,” answered the girl, looking him straight in the face, with an expression of astonishment at his incredulity.
Arthur saw fit to change the conversation. So he returned to Ben’s case.
“Most women would have sent Ben to the overseer for punishment, wouldn’t they?”
“Some would, but I never find that necessary. Besides I hate your overseer.”
“Why? What has he done to incur your displeasure, Miss Dorothy?”
“Now you’re mocking me for minding things that are none of my business,” said the girl with a touch of contrition in her voice.
“Indeed I am not,” answered the young man with earnestness. “And you have not been doing anything of the kind. I asked you to tell me about things here at Wyanoke, because it is necessary that I should know them. So when you tell me that you hate the overseer here, I want to know why. It is very necessary for me to know what sort of man he is, so that I may govern myself accordingly. I have great confidence in your judgment, young as you are. I am very sure you would not hate the overseer without good cause. So you will do me a favor if you’ll tell me why you hate him.”
“It is because he is cruel and a coward.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve seen it for myself. He strikes the field hands for nothing. He has even cruelly whipped some of the women servants with the black snake whip he carries. I told him only a little while ago that if I ever caught him doing that again, I’d set my dogs on him. No Virginia gentleman would permit such a thing. Uncle Robert – that’s the name I always called your uncle by – would have shot the fellow for that, I think.”
“But why did Uncle Robert employ such a man for overseer?”
