Organization Development and Change 10th Edition Cummings Solutions Manual
Organization Development and Change 10th Edition Cummings Solutions Manual
Organization Development and Change 10th Edition Cummings Solutions Manual
Organization Development and Change 10th Edition Cummings Solutions Manual
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11. attracted attention all over the country, and are still referred to in
the legal literature of to-day as models of their kind.
And yet all that Briscoe Bascom accomplished at the bar and on
the bench was the result of intuition rather than of industry.
Indolence sat enthroned in his nature, patient but vigilant. When he
retired from the bench, he gave up the law altogether. He might
have reclaimed his large practice, but he preferred the ease and
quiet of his home.
He was an old man before he married—old enough, that is to say,
to marry a woman many years his junior. His wife had been reared in
an atmosphere of extravagance; and although she was a young
woman of gentle breeding and of the best intentions, it is certain
that she did not go to the Bascom Place as its mistress for the
purpose of stinting or economizing. She simply gave no thought to
the future. But she was so bright and beautiful, so gentle and
unaffected in speech and manner, so gracious and so winsome in all
directions, that it seemed nothing more than natural and right that
her every whim and wish should be gratified.
Judge Bascom was indulgent and more than indulgent. He
applauded his wife’s extravagance and followed her example. Before
many years he began to reap some of the fruits thereof, and they
were exceeding bitter to the taste. The longest purse that ever was
made has a bottom to it, unless, indeed, it be lined with Franklin’s
maxims.
The Judge was forty-eight years old when he married, and even
before the beginning of the war he found his financial affairs in an
uncomfortable condition. The Bascom Place was intact, but the
pocket-book of its master was in a state bordering on collapse.
The slow but sure approach to the inevitable need not be
described here. It is familiar to all people in all lands and times. In
the case of Judge Bascom, however, the war was in the nature of a
breathing-spell. It brought with it an era of extravagance that
overshadowed everything that had been dreamed of theretofore.
12. During the first two years there was money enough for everybody
and to spare. It was manufactured in Richmond in great stacks.
General Robert Toombs, who was an interested observer, has aptly
described the facility with which the Confederacy supplied itself with
money. “A dozen negroes,” said he, “printed money on the hand-
presses all day to supply the government, and then they worked
until nine o’clock at night printing money enough to pay themselves
off.”
Under these circumstances, Judge Bascom and his charming wife
could be as extravagant or as economical as they pleased without
attracting the attention of their neighbors or their creditors. Nobody
had time to think or care about such small matters. The war-fever
was at its height, and nothing else occupied the attention of the
people. The situation was so favorable, indeed, that Judge Bascom
began to redeem his fortune—in Confederate money. He had land
enough and negroes a plenty, and so he saved his money by storing
it away; and he was so successful in this business that it is said that
when the war closed he had a wagon-load of Confederate notes and
shin-plaster packed in trunks and chests.
The crash came when General Sherman went marching through
Hillsborough. The Bascom Place, being the largest and the richest
plantation in that neighborhood, suffered the worst. Every horse,
every mule, every living thing with hide and hoof, was driven off by
the Federals; and a majority of the negroes went along with the
army. It was often said of Judge Bascom that “he had so many
negroes he didn’t know them when he met them in the big road;”
and this was probably true. His negroes knew him, and knew that he
was a kind master in many respects, but they had no personal
affection for him. They were such strangers to the Judge that they
never felt justified in complaining to him even when the overseers ill-
treated them. Consequently, when Sherman went marching along,
the great majority of them bundled up their little effects and
followed after the army. They had nothing to bind them to the old
place. The house-servants, and a few negroes in whom the Judge
took a personal interest, remained, but all the rest went away.
13. Then, in a few months, came the news of the surrender, bringing
with it a species of paralysis or stupefaction from which the people
were long in recovering—so long, indeed, that some of them died in
despair, while others lingered on the stage, watching, with dim eyes
and trembling limbs, half-hopefully and half-fretfully, the
representatives of a new generation trying to build up the waste
places. There was nothing left for Judge Bascom to do but to take
his place among the spectators. He would have returned to his law-
practice, but the people had well-nigh forgotten that he had ever
been a lawyer; moreover, the sheriffs were busier in those days than
the lawyers. He had the incentive,—for the poverty of those days
was pinching,—but he lacked the energy and the strength necessary
to begin life anew. He and hundreds like him were practically
helpless. Ordinarily experience is easily learned when necessity is the
teacher, but it was too late for necessity to teach Judge Bascom
anything. During all his life he had never known what want was. He
had never had occasion to acquire tact, business judgment, or
economy. Inheriting a vast estate, he had no need to practice thrift
or become familiar with the shifty methods whereby business men
fight their way through the world. Of all such matters he was
entirely ignorant.
To add to his anxiety, a girl had been born to him late in life, his
first and only child. In his confusion and perplexity he was prepared
to regard the little stranger as merely a new and dreadful
responsibility, but it was not long before his daughter was a source
of great comfort to him. Yet, as the negroes said, she was not a
“luck-child;” and bad as the Judge’s financial condition was, it grew
steadily worse.
Briefly, the world had drifted past him and his contemporaries and
left them stranded. Under the circumstances, what was he to do? It
is true he had a magnificent plantation, but this merely added to his
poverty. Negro labor was demoralized, and the overseer class had
practically disappeared. He would have sold a part of his landed
estate; indeed, so pressing were his needs that he would have sold
everything except the house which his father had built, and where
14. he himself was born,—that he would not have parted with for all the
riches in the world,—but there was nobody to buy. The Judge’s
neighbors and his friends, with the exception of those who had
accustomed themselves to seizing all contingencies by the throat
and wresting tribute from them, were in as severe a strait as he
was; and to make matters worse, the political affairs of the State
were in the most appalling condition. It was the period of
reconstruction—a scheme that paralyzed all whom it failed to
corrupt.
Finally the Judge’s wife took matters into her own hand. She had
relatives in Atlanta, and she prevailed on him to go to that lively and
picturesque town. He closed his house, being unable to rent it, and
became a citizen of the thrifty city. He found himself in a new
atmosphere. The north Georgia crackers, the east Tennesseeans,—
having dropped their “you-uns” and “we-uns,”—and the Yankees had
joined hands in building up and pushing Atlanta forward. Business
was more important than politics; and the rush and whirl of men and
things were enough to make a mere spectator dizzy. Judge Bascom
found himself more helpless than ever; but through the influence of
his wife’s brother he was appointed to a small clerkship in one of the
State departments, and—“Humiliation of humiliations!” his friends
exclaimed—he promptly accepted it, and became a part of what was
known as the “carpet-bag” government. The appointment was in the
nature of a godsend, but the Judge found himself ostracized. His
friends and acquaintances refused to return his salutation as he met
them on the street. To a proud and sensitive man this was the
bitterness of death, but Judge Bascom stuck to his desk and made
no complaint.
By some means or other, no doubt through the influence of Mrs.
Bascom, the Judge’s brother-in-law, a thrifty and not over-
scrupulous man, obtained a power of attorney, and sold the Bascom
Place, house and all, to a gentleman from western New York who
was anxious to settle in middle Georgia. Just how much of the
purchase-money went into the Judge’s hands it is impossible to say,
but it is known that he fell into a terrible rage when he was told that
15. the house had been sold along with the place. He denounced the
sale as a swindle, and declared that as he had been born in the
house he would die there, and not all the powers of earth could
prevent him.
But the money that he received was a substantial thing as far as it
went. Gradually he found himself surrounded by various comforts
that he had sadly missed, and in time he became somewhat
reconciled to the sale, though he never gave up the idea that he
would buy the old place back and live there again. The idea haunted
him day and night.
After the downfall of the carpet-bag administration a better feeling
took possession of the people and politicians, and it was not long
before Judge Bascom found congenial work in codifying the laws of
the State, which had been in a somewhat confused and tangled
condition since the war. Meanwhile his daughter Mildred was
growing up, developing remarkable beauty as well as strength of
mind. At a very early age she began to “take the responsibility,” as
the Judge put it, of managing the household affairs, and she
continued to manage them even while going to school. At school she
won the hearts of teachers and pupils, not less by her aptitude in
her books than by her beauty and engaging manners.
But in spite of the young girl’s management—in spite of the
example she set by her economy—the Judge and his wife continued
to grow poorer and poorer. Neither of them knew the value of a
dollar, and the money that had been received from the sale of the
Bascom Place was finally exhausted. About this time Mrs. Bascom
died, and the Judge was so prostrated by his bereavement that it
was months before he recovered. When he did recover he had lost
all interest in his work of codification, but it was so nearly completed
and was so admirably done that the legislature voted him extra pay.
This modest sum the daughter took charge of, and when her father
was well enough she proposed that they return to Hillsborough,
where they could take a small house, and where she could give
16. music lessons and teach a primary school. It need not be said that
the Judge gave an eager assent to the proposition.
III.
As Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom passed the Bascom Place on his way
home, after gathering from Major Jimmy Bass all the news and
gossip of the town, he heard Mr. Francis Underwood, the owner of
the Place, walking up and down the piazza, singing. Mr. Underwood
appeared to be in a cheerful mood, and he had a right to be. He was
young,—not more than thirty,—full of life, and the world was going
on very well with him. Mr. Grissom paused a moment and listened;
then he made up his mind to go in and have a chat with the young
man. He opened the gate and went up the avenue under the cedars
and Lombardy poplars. A little distance from the house he was
stopped by a large mastiff. The great dog made no attempt to attack
him, but majestically barred the way.
“Squire,” yelled Joe-Bob, “ef you’ll call off your dog, I’ll turn right
’roun’ an’ go home an’ never bother you no more.”
“Is that you, Joe-Bob?” exclaimed Mr. Underwood. “Well, come
right on. The dog won’t trouble you.”
The dog thereupon turned around and went up the avenue to the
house and into the porch, where he stretched himself out at full
length, Joe-Bob following along at a discreet distance.
“Come in,” said Underwood heartily; “I’m glad to see you. Take
this large rocking-chair; you will find it more comfortable than the
smaller one.”
Mr. Grissom sat down and looked cautiously around to see where
the dog was.
“I did come, Squire,” he said, “to see you on some kinder
business, but that dratted dog has done skeered it clean out ’n me.”
17. “Prince is a faithful watcher,” said Underwood, “but he never
troubles any one who is coming straight to the house. Do you, old
fellow?” The dog rapped an answer on the floor with his tail.
“Well,” said Joe-Bob, “I’d as lief be tore up into giblets, mighty
nigh, as to have my sev’m senses skeered out’n me. What I’m
afeared of now,” he went on, “is that that dog will jump over the
fence some day an’ ketch old Judge Bascome whilst he’s a-pirootin’
’roun’ here a-lookin’ at the old Place. An’ ef he don’t ketch the
Judge, it’s more’n likely he’ll ketch the Judge’s gal. I seen both of
’em this very evenin’ whilst I was a-goin’ down town.”
“Was that the Judge?” exclaimed young Mr. Underwood, with
some show of interest; “and was the lady his daughter? I heard they
had returned.”
“That was jest percisely who it was,” said Joe-Bob with emphasis.
“It wa’n’t nobody else under the shinin’ sun.”
“Well,” said Mr. Underwood, “I have seen them walking by several
times. It is natural they should be interested in the Place. The old
gentleman was born here?”
“Yes,” said Joe-Bob, “an’ the gal too. They tell me,” he went on,
“that the old Judge an’ his gal have seed a many ups an’ downs. I
reckon they er boun’ fer to feel lonesome when they come by an’
look at the prop’ty that use’ to be theirn. I hear tell that the old
Judge is gwine to try an’ see ef he can’t git it back.”
Francis Underwood said nothing, but sat gazing out into the
moonlight as if in deep thought.
“I thinks, says I,” continued Joe-Bob, “that the old Judge’ll have to
be lots pearter ’n he looks to be ef he gits ahead of Squire
Underwood.”
The “Squire” continued to gaze reflectively down the dim
perspective of cedars and Lombardy poplars. Finally he said:—
“Have a cigar, old man. These are good ones.”
18. Joe-Bob took the cigar and lighted it, handling it very gingerly.
“I ain’t a denyin’ but what they are good, Squire, but somehow er
nuther me an’ these here fine seegyars don’t gee,” said Joe-Bob, as
he puffed away. “They’re purty toler’ble nice, but jest about the time
I git in the notion of smokin’ they’re done burnted up, an’ then ef
you ain’t got sev’m or eight more, it makes you feel mighty
lonesome. Now I’ll smoke this’n’, an’ it’ll sorter put my teeth on edge
fer my pipe, an’ when I git home I’ll set up an’ have a right nice
time.”
“And so you think,” said Underwood, speaking as if he had not
heard Joe-Bob’s remarks about the cigar—“and so you think Judge
Bascom has come to buy the old Place.”
“No, no!” said Joe-Bob, with a quick deprecatory gesture. “Oh, no,
Squire! not by no means! No, no! I never said them words. What I
did say was that it’s been talked up an’ down that the old Judge is a-
gwine to try to git his prop’ty back. That’s what old Major Jimmy
Bass said he heard, an’ I thinks, says I, he’ll have to be monst’us
peart ef he gits ahead of Squire Underwood. That’s what I said to
myself, an’ then I ast old Major Jimmy, says I, what the Judge would
do wi’ the prop’ty arter he got it, an’ Major Jimmy, he ups an’ says,
says he, that the old Judge would sell it back to Frank Underwood,
says he.”
The young man threw back his head and laughed heartily, not less
at the comical earnestness of Joe-Bob Grissom than at the gossip of
Major Jimmy Bass.
“It seems, then, that we are going to have lively times around
here,” said Underwood, by way of comment.
“Yes, siree,” exclaimed Joe-Bob; “that’s what Major Jimmy Bass
allowed. Do you reckon, Squire,” he continued, lowering his voice as
though the matter was one to be approached cautiously, “do you
reckon, Squire, they could slip in on you an’ trip you up wi’ one of
’em writs of arousement or one of ’em bills of injectment?”
19. “Not unless they catch me asleep,” replied Underwood, still
laughing. “We get up very early in the morning on this Place.”
“Well,” said Joe-Bob Grissom, “I ain’t much of a lawyer myself, an’
so I thought I’d jest drap in an’ tell you the kind of talk what they’ve
been a-rumorin’ ’roun’. But I’ll tell you what you kin do, Squire. Ef
the wust comes to the wust, you kin make the old Judge an’ the gal
take you along wi’ the Place. Now them would be my politics.”
With that Joe-Bob gave young Underwood a nudge in the short
ribs, and chuckled to such an extent that he nearly strangled himself
with cigar smoke.
“I think I would have the best of the bargain,” said the young
man.
“Now you would! you reely would!” exclaimed Joe-Bob in all
seriousness. “I can’t tell you the time when I ever seed a likelier gal
than that one wi’ the Judge this evenin’. As we say down here in
Georgia, she’s the top of the pot an’ the pot a-b’ilin’. I tell you that
right pine-blank.”
After a little, Mr. Grissom rose to go. When Mr. Underwood urged
him to sit longer, he pointed to the sword and belt of Orion hanging
low in the southwest.
“The ell an’ yard are a-makin’ the’r disappearance,” he said; “an’ ef
I stay out much longer, my old ’oman’ll think I’ve been a-settin’ up
by a jug somewheres. Now ef you’ll jest hold your dog, Squire, I’ll
go out as peaceful as a lamb.”
“Why, I was just going to propose to send him down to the big
gate with you,” said young Underwood. “He’ll see you safely out.”
“No, no, Squire!” exclaimed Joe-Bob, holding up both hands. “Now
don’t do the like of that. I don’t like too much perliteness in folks,
an’ I know right well I couldn’t abide it in a dog. No, Squire; jest
hold on to the creetur’ wi’ both hands, an’ I’ll find my way out. Jest
ketch him by the forefoot. I’ve heard tell before now that ef you’ll
20. hold a dog by his forefoot he can’t git loose, an’ nuther kin he bite
you.”
Long after Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom had gone home young Francis
Underwood sat in his piazza smoking and thinking. He had a good
deal to think about, too, for he was perhaps the busiest and the
thriftiest person that Hillsborough had ever seen. He had a dairy
farm stocked with the choicest strains of Jersey cattle, and he
shipped hundreds of pounds of golden butter all over the country
every week in the year; he bred Percheron horses for farm-work and
trotting-horses for the road; he had a flourishing farm on which he
raised, in addition to his own supplies, a hundred or more bales of
cotton every year; he had a steam saw-mill and cotton-gin; he was a
contractor and builder; and he was also an active partner in the
largest store in Hillsborough. Moreover he took a lively interest in the
affairs of the town. His energy and his progressive ideas seemed to
be contagious, for in a few years the sleepy old town had made
tremendous strides, and everything appeared to move forward with
an air of business—such is the force of a genial and robust example.
There is no doubt that young Underwood was somewhat coolly
received when he first made his appearance in Hillsborough. He was
a New Yorker and therefore a Yankee; and some of the older people,
who were still grieving over the dire results of the war, as old people
have a right to do, made no concealment of their prejudices. Their
grief was too bitter to be lightly disposed of. Perhaps the young man
appreciated this fact, for his sympathies were wonderfully quick and
true. At any rate, he carried himself as buoyantly and as genially in
the face of prejudice as he did afterwards in the face of friendship.
The truth is, prejudice could not stand before him. He had that
magnetic personality which is a more precious possession than fame
or fortune. There was something attractive even in his restless
energy; he had that heartiness of manner and graciousness of
disposition that are so rare among men; and, withal, a spirit of
independence that charmed the sturdy-minded people with whom he
cast his lot. It was not long before the younger generation began to
21. seek Mr. Underwood out, and after this the social ice, so to speak,
thawed quickly.
In short, young Underwood, by reason of a strong and an
attractive individuality, became a very prominent citizen of
Hillsborough. He found time, in the midst of his own business
enterprises, to look after the interests of the town and the county.
One of his first movements was to organize an agricultural society
which held its meeting four times a year in different parts of the
county. It was purely a local and native suggestion, however, that
made it incumbent on the people of the neighborhood where the
Society met to grace the occasion with a feast in the shape of a
barbecue. The first result of the agricultural society—which still
exists, and which has had a wonderful influence on the farmers of
middle Georgia—was a county fair, of which Mr. Underwood was the
leading spirit. It may be said, indeed, that his energy and his money
made the fair possible. And it was a success. Young Underwood had
not only canvassed the county, but he had “worked it up in the
newspapers,” as the phrase goes, and it tickled the older citizens
immensely to see the dailies in the big cities of Atlanta, Macon, and
Savannah going into rhetorical raptures over their fair.
As a matter of fact, Francis Underwood, charged with the fiery
energy of a modern American, found it a much easier matter to
establish himself in the good graces of the people of Hillsborough
and the surrounding country than did Judge Bascom when he
returned to his old home with his lovely daughter. Politically
speaking, he had committed the unpardonable sin when he accepted
office under what was known as the carpet-bag government. It was
an easy matter—thus the argument ran—to forgive and respect an
enemy, but it was hardly possible to forgive a man who had proved
false to his people and all their traditions—who had, in fact, “sold his
birthright for a mess of pottage,” to quote the luminous language
employed by Colonel Bolivar Blasingame in discussing the return of
Judge Bascom. It is due to Colonel Blasingame to say that he did not
allude to the sale of the Bascom Place, but to the fact that Judge
22. Bascom had drawn a salary from the State treasury while the
Republicans were in power in Georgia.
This was pretty much the temper of the older people of
Hillsborough even in 1876. They had no bitter prejudices against the
old Judge; they were even tolerant and kindly; but they made it
plain to him that he was regarded in a new light, and from a new
standpoint. He was made to feel that his old place among them
must remain vacant; that the old intimacies were not to be renewed.
But this was the price that Judge Bascom was willing to pay for the
privilege of spending his last days within sight of the old homestead.
He made no complaints, nor did he signify by word or sign, even to
his daughter, that everything was not as it used to be.
As for the daughter, she was in blissful ignorance of the situation.
She was a stranger among strangers, and so was not affected by the
lack of sociability on the part of the townspeople—if, indeed, there
was any lack so far as she was concerned. The privations she
endured in common with her father were not only sufficient to
correct all notions of vanity or self-conceit, but they had given her a
large experience of life; they had broadened her views and enlarged
her sympathies, so that with no sacrifice of the qualities of womanly
modesty and gentleness she had grown to be self-reliant. She
attracted all who came within range of her sweet influence, and it
was not long before she had broken down all the barriers that
prejudice against her father might have placed in her way. She
established a primary school, and what with her duties there and
with her music-class she soon had as much as she could do, and her
income from these sources was sufficient to support herself and her
father in a modest way; but it was not sufficient to carry out her
father’s plans, and this fact distressed her no little.
Sometimes Judge Bascom, sitting in the narrow veranda of the
little house they occupied, would suddenly arouse himself, as if from
a doze, and exclaim:—
“We must save money, daughter; we must save money and buy
the old Place back. It is ours. We must have it; we must save
23. money.” And sometimes, in the middle of the night, he would go to
his daughter’s bedside, stroke her hair, and say in a whisper:—
“We are not saving enough money, daughter; we must save more.
We must buy the old Place back. We must save it from ruin.”
IV.
There was one individual in Hillsborough who did not give the cold
shoulder to Judge Bascom on his return, and that was the negro
Jesse, who had been bought by Major Jimmy Bass some years
before the war from Merriwether Bascom, a cousin of the Judge.
Jesse made no outward demonstration of welcome; he was more
practical than that. He merely went to his old master with whom he
had been living since he became free, and told him that he was
going to find employment elsewhere.
“Why, what in the nation!” exclaimed Major Bass. “Why, what’s the
matter, Jess?”
The very idea was preposterous. In the Bass household the negro
was almost indispensable. He was in the nature of a piece of
furniture that holds its own against all fashions and fills a place that
nothing else can fill.
“Dey ain’t nothin’ ’t all de matter, Marse Maje. I des took it in my
min’, like, dat I’d go off some’r’s roun’ town en set up fer myse’f,”
said Jesse, scratching his head in a dubious way. He felt very
uncomfortable.
“Has anybody hurt your feelin’s, Jess?”
“No, suh! Lord, no, suh, dat dey ain’t!” exclaimed Jesse, with the
emphasis of astonishment. “Nobody ain’t pester me.”
“Ain’t your Miss Sarah been rushin’ you roun’ too lively fer to suit
your notions?”
“No, suh.”
24. “Ain’t she been a-quarrelin’ after you about your work?”
“No, Marse Maje; she ain’t say a word.”
“Well, then, Jess, what in the name of common sense are you
gwine off fer?” The major wanted to argue the matter.
“I got it in my min’, Marse Maje, but I dunno ez I kin git it out
straight.” Jesse leaned his cane against the house, and placed his
hat on the steps, as if preparing for a lengthy and elaborate
explanation. “Now den, hit look dis way ter me, des like I’m gwine
ter tell you. I ain’t nothin’ but a nigger, I know dat mighty well, en
nobody don’t hafter tell me. I’m a nigger, en you a white man.
You’re a-settin’ up dar in de peazzer, en I’m a-stan’in’ down yer on
de groun’. I been wid you a long time; you treat me well, you gimme
plenty vittles, en you pay me up when you got de money, en I hustle
roun’ en do de bes’ I kin in de house en in de gyarden. Dat de way it
been gwine on; bofe un us feel like it all sati’factual. Bimeby it come
over me dat maybe I kin do mo’ work dan what I been a-doin’ en git
mo’ money. Hit work roun’ in my min’ dat I better be layin’ up
somepin’ n’er fer de ole ’oman en de chillun.”
“Well!” exclaimed Major Bass with a snort. It was all he could say.
“En den ag’in,” Jesse went on, “one er de ole fambly done come
back ’long wid his daughter. Marse Briscoe Bascom en Miss Mildred
dey done come back, en dey ain’t got nobody fer ter he’p um out no
way; en my ole ’oman she say dat ef I got any fambly feelin’ I better
go dar whar Marse Briscoe is.”
For some time Major Jimmy Bass sat silent. He was shocked and
stunned. Finally Jesse picked up his hat and cane and started to go.
As he brushed his hat with his coat-sleeve his old master saw that
he was rigged out in his Sunday clothes. As he moved away the
major called him:—
“Oh, Jess!”
“Suh?”
25. “I allers knowed you was a durned fool, Jess, but I never did know
before that you was the durndest fool in the universal world.”
Jesse made no reply, and the major went into the house. When he
told his wife about Jesse’s departure, that active-minded and sharp-
tongued lady was very angry.
“Indeed, and I’m glad of it,” she exclaimed as she poured out the
major’s coffee; “I’m truly glad of it. For twenty-five years that nigger
has been laying around here doing nothing, and we a-paying him.
But for pity’s sake I’d ’a’ drove him off the lot long ago. You mayn’t
believe it, but that nigger is ready and willing to eat his own weight
in vittles every week the Lord sends. I ain’t sorry he’s gone, but I’m
sorry I didn’t have a chance to give him a piece of my mind. Now,
don’t you go to blabbing it around, like you do everything else, that
Jesse has gone and left us to go with old Briscoe Bascom.”
Major Bass said he wouldn’t, and he didn’t, and that is the reason
he expressed surprise when Joe-Bob Grissom informed him that
Jesse was waiting on the old Judge and his daughter. Major Jimmy
was talkative and fond of gossip, but he had too much respect for
his wife’s judgment and discretion to refuse to toe the mark, even
when it was an imaginary one.
The Bascom family had no claim whatever on Jesse, but he had
often heard his mother and other negroes boasting over that they
had once belonged to the Bascoms, and fondness for the family was
the result of both tradition and instinct. He had that undefined and
undefinable respect for people of quality that is one of the virtues, or
possibly one of the failings, of human nature. The nearest approach
to people of quality, so far as his experience went, was to be found
in the Bascom family, and he had never forgotten that he had
belonged to an important branch of it. He held it as a sort of
distinction. Feeling thus, it is no wonder that he was ready to leave a
comfortable home at Major Jimmy Bass’s for the privilege of
attaching himself and his fortunes to those of the Judge and his
daughter. Jesse made up his mind to take this step as soon as the
26. Bascoms returned to Hillsborough, and he made no delay in carrying
out his intentions.
Early one morning, not long after Judge Bascom and his daughter
had settled themselves in the modest little house which they had
selected because the rent was low, Mildred heard some one cutting
wood in the yard. Opening her window blinds a little, she saw that
the axe was wielded by a stalwart negro a little past middle age. Her
father was walking up and down the sidewalk on the outside with his
hands behind him, and seemed to be talking to himself.
A little while afterwards Mildred went into the kitchen. She found a
fire burning in the stove, and everything in noticeably good order,
but the girl she had employed to help her about the house was
nowhere to be seen. Whereupon the young lady called her—
“Elvira!”
At this the negro dropped his axe and went into the kitchen.
“Howdy, Mistiss?”
“Have you seen Elvira?” Mildred asked.
“Yes’m, she wuz hangin’ roun’ yer when I come roun’ dis mornin’. I
went in dar, ma’m, en I see how de kitchen wuz all messed up, en
den I sont her off. She de mos’ no ’countest nigger gal what I ever
laid my two eyes on. I’m name’ Jesse, ma’m, en I use’ ter b’long ter
de Bascom fambly when I wuz a boy. Is you ready fer breakfus,
Mistiss?”
“Has my father—has Judge Bascom employed you?” Mildred
asked. Jesse laughed as though enjoying a good joke.
“No ’m, dat he ain’t! I des come my own se’f, kaze I know’d in
reason you wuz gwine ter be in needance er somebody. Lord, no ’m,
none er de Bascoms don’t hafter hire me, ma’m.”
“And who told you to send Elvira away?” Mildred inquired, half
vexed and half amused.
27. “Nobody ain’t tell me, ma’m,” Jesse replied. “When I come she
wuz des settin’ in dar by de stove noddin’, en de whole kitchen look
like it been tored up by a harrycane. I des shuck her up, I did, en
tell her dat if dat de way she gwine do, she better go ’long back en
stay wid her mammy.”
“Well, you are very meddlesome,” said Mildred. “I don’t
understand you at all. Who is going to cook breakfast?”
“Mistiss, I done tell you dat breakfus is all ready en a-waitin’,”
exclaimed Jesse in an injured tone. “I made dat gal set de table, en
dey ain’t nothin’ ter do but put de vittles on it.”
It turned out to be a very good breakfast, too, such as it was.
Jesse thought while he was preparing it that it was a very small
allowance for two hearty persons. But the secret of its scantiness
cropped out while the Judge and his daughter were eating.
“These biscuits are very well cooked. But there are too many of
them. My daughter, we must pinch and save; it will only be for a
little while. We must have the old Place back; we must rake and
scrape, and save money and buy it back. And this coffee is very
good, too,” he went on; “it has quite the old flavor. I thought the girl
was too young, but she’s a good cook—a very good cook indeed.”
Jesse, who had taken his stand behind the Judge’s chair, arrayed
in a snow-white apron, moved his body uneasily from one foot to the
other. Mildred, glad to change the conversation, told her father
about Jesse.
“Ah, yes,” said Judge Bascom, in his kindly, patronizing way; “I
saw him in the yard. And he used to belong to the Bascoms? Well,
well, it must have been a long time ago. This is Jesse behind me?
Stand out there, Jesse, and let me look at you. Ah, yes, a likely
negro; a very likely negro indeed. And what Bascom did you belong
to, Jesse? Merriwether Bascom! Why, to be sure; why, certainly!” the
Judge continued with as much animation as his feebleness would
admit of. “Why, of course, Merriwether Bascom. Well, well, I
remember him distinctly. A rough-and-tumble sort of man he was,
28. fighting, gambling, horse-racing, always on the wing. A good man at
bottom, but wild. And so you belonged to Merriwether Bascom?
Well, boy, once a Bascom always a Bascom. We’ll have the old Place
back, Jesse, we’ll have it back: but we must pinch ourselves; we
must save.”
Thus the old Judge rambled on in his talk. But no matter what the
subject, no matter how far his memory and his experiences carried
him away from the present, he was sure to return to the old Place at
last. He must have it back. Every thought, every idea, was
subordinate to this. He brooded over it and talked of it waking, and
he dreamed of it sleeping. It was the one thought that dominated
every other. Money must be saved, the old Place must be bought,
and to that end everything must tend. The more his daughter
economized the more he urged her to economize. His earnestness
and enthusiasm impressed and influenced the young girl in a larger
measure than she would have been willing to acknowledge, and
unconsciously she found herself looking forward to the day when her
father and herself would be able to call the Bascom Place their own.
In the Judge the thought was the delusion of old age, in the maiden
it was the dream of youth; and pardonable, perhaps, in both.
Their hopes and desires running thus in one channel, they loved
to wander of an evening in the neighborhood of the old Place—it
was just in the outskirts of the town—and long for the time when
they should take possession of their home. On these occasions
Mildred, by way of interesting her father, would suggest changes to
be made.
“The barn is painted red,” she would say. “I think olive green
would be prettier.”
“No,” the Judge would reply; “we will have the barn removed. It
was not there in my time. It is an innovation. We will have it
removed a mile away from the house. We will make many changes.
There are hundreds of acres in the meadow yonder that ought to be
in cotton. In my time we tried to kill grass, but this man is doing his
29. best to propagate it. Look at that field of Bermuda there. Two years
of hard work will be required to get the grass out.”
Once while the Judge and his daughter were passing by the old
Place they met Prince, the mastiff, in the road. The great dog looked
at the young lady with kindly eyes, and expressed his approval by
wagging his tail. Then he approached and allowed her to fondle his
lionlike head, and walked by her side, responding to her talk in a
dumb but eloquent way. Prince evidently thought that the young
lady and her father were going in the avenue gate and to the house,
for when they got nearly opposite, the dog trotted on ahead, looking
back occasionally, as if by that means to extend them an invitation
and to assure them that they were welcome. At the gate he stopped
and turned around, and seeing that the fair lady and the old
gentleman were going by, he dropped his bulky body on the ground
in a disconsolate way and watched them as they passed down the
street.
The next afternoon Prince made it a point to watch for the young
lady; and when she and her father appeared in sight he ran to meet
them and cut up such unusual capers, barking and running around,
that his master went down the avenue to see what the trouble was.
Mr. Underwood took off his hat as Judge Bascom and his daughter
drew near.
“This is Judge Bascom, I presume,” he said. “My name is
Underwood. I am glad to meet you.”
“This is my daughter, Mr. Underwood,” said the Judge, bowing
with great dignity.
“My dog has paid you a great compliment, Miss Bascom,” said
Francis Underwood. “He makes few friends, and I have never before
seen him sacrifice his dignity to his enthusiasm.”
“I feel highly flattered by his attentions,” said Mildred, laughing. “I
have read somewhere, or heard it said, that the instincts of a little
child and a dog are unerring.”
30. “I imagine,” said the Judge, in his dignified way, “that instinct has
little to do with the matter. I prefer to believe”—He paused a
moment, looked at Underwood, and laid his hand on the young
man’s stalwart shoulder. “Did you know, sir,” he went on, “that this
place, all these lands, once belonged to me?” His dignity had
vanished, his whole attitude changed. The pathos in his voice, which
was suggested rather than expressed, swept away whatever
astonishment Francis Underwood might have felt. The young man
looked at the Judge’s daughter and their eyes met. In that one
glance, transitory though it was, he found his cue; in her lustrous
eyes, proud yet appealing, he read a history of trouble and sacrifice.
“Yes,” Underwood replied, in a matter-of-fact way. “I knew the
place once belonged to you, and I have been somewhat proud of
the fact. We still call it the Bascom Place, you know.”
“I should think so!” exclaimed the Judge, bridling up a little; “I
should think so! Pray what else could it be called?”
“Well, it might have been called Grasslands, you know, or The
Poplars, but somehow the old name seemed to suit it best. I like to
think of it as the Bascom Place.”
“You are right, sir,” said the Judge with emphasis; “you are right,
sir. It is the Bascom Place. All the powers of earth cannot strip us of
our name.”
Again Underwood looked at the young girl, and again he read in
her shining but apprehensive eyes the answer he should make.
“I have been compelled to add some conveniences—I will not call
them improvements—and I have made some repairs, but I have
tried to preserve the main and familiar features of the Place.”
“But the barn there; that is not where it should be. It should be a
mile away—on the creek.”
“That would improve appearances, no doubt; but if you were to
get out at four or five o’clock in the morning and see to the milking
31. of twelve or fifteen cows, I dare say you would wish the barn even
nearer than it is.”
“Yes, yes, I suppose so,” responded the Judge; “yes, no doubt.
But it was not there in my time—not in my time.”
“I have some very fine cows,” Underwood went on. “Won’t you go
in and look at them? I think they would interest Miss Bascom, and
my sister would be glad to meet her. Won’t you go in, sir, and look at
the old house?”
The Judge turned his pale and wrinkled face towards his old
home.
“No,” he said, “not now. I thank you very much. I—somehow—no,
sir, I cannot go now.”
His hand shook as he raised it to his face, and his lips trembled as
he spoke.
“Let us go home, daughter,” he said after a while. “We have
walked far enough.” He bowed to young Underwood, and Mildred
bade him good-bye with a troubled smile.
Prince went with them a little way down the street. He walked by
the side of the lady, and her pretty hand rested lightly on the dog’s
massive head. It was a beautiful picture, Underwood thought, as he
stood watching them pass out of sight.
“You are a lucky dog,” he said to Prince when the latter came
back, “but you don’t appreciate your privileges. If you did you would
have gone home with that lovely woman.” Prince wagged his tail,
but it is doubtful if he fully understood the remark.
V.
One Sunday morning, as Major Jimmy Bass was shaving himself,
he heard a knock at the back door. The major had his coat and
waistcoat off and his suspenders were hanging around his hips. He
was applying the lather for the last time, and the knocking was so
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