A betrayed trust : a story of our own times and country : a romance of the Middle West

Front matter

FT MEADE GenCo 1 1

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

A STORY OF OUR OWN TIMES AND COUNTRY

Preface

This little story is sent out to the Ep worth Leaguers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as a character study. As such it deals with the motives and purposes of the heart, and seeks by living illustrations to show how these influences conduct and affect its virtue.

It pleads for fidelity in the keeping of vows whose motives and purposes are good. The disposition to lightly esteem sacred obligations is one of the most appalling tendencies of our times. It is clearly seen in affairs political throughout our entire country, and seriously threatens the perpetuity of our national government; and from the days of Ananias and Sapphira to the present it has been more or less prevalent in the Church of God, menacing everything we hold dear in our holy Christianity.

The study also endeavors to make plain the doctrine of temptation as taught in the Word of God. In the two leading temptations, two very dissimilar motives are presented. The first is an apparently harmless one, to please a friend ; the second is a deep, villainous scheme to obtain a selfish end, even though it cause the ruin of a friend. But the former suggested the latter, and the reader is left to judge which is the greater sin.

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To please a friend within the realm of righteous conduct is a commendable action, but to please a friend at the expense of the right and of one’s honor is an awful crime. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”

If this little book proves to be a help and a stimulus to better living in the life of any of our young people, the purpose of the author will be fully met and he will ever be grateful to God for the privilege of writing it. W. T. McClure,

Spring-field , Mo.

September 5, 1903.

Chapter I. Roxbury

Halfway up the Boston Mountain, in one of our Western States, upon a fertile plateau of the Ozark range, is a picturesque little village which we here designate Roxbury. In approaching Roxbury from the north one begins the ascent of the mountain at a point just five miles distant from the village; yet in following the road, which at first winds around the base of the mountain and then ascends by zigzag stages to the summit, one must travel at least twice five miles.

If the journey seems monotonous to the weary traveler, the prospect which lies beyond will fully repay all his labor. The beautiful landscape, the inspiring atmosphere, and the delightful associations in Roxbury soon make him forget all about the tiresome mountain journey.

The plateau of which we have spoken is some seven or eight miles in length and perhaps as much as five miles in width. When first discovered, it was covered over with a thick growth of cane such as is found upon the rich soil of the river bottoms, but this has long since given way, under skillful cultivation, to productive fields and gardens.

It is dotted over here and there with modest but

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comfortable farmhouses and large, commodious barns. Beautiful meadows, with many fine cattle and splendid thoroughbred horses grazing upon them, are to be seen in every direction. Magnificent apple orchards cover the hillsides, and blue grass, growing as luxuriantly as it does in the most fertile regions of Kentucky, adorns all the yards and enriches all the meadows. Flowers of every description and of the most bewitching colors line the walks to the houses and often festoon the front gate, greeting the visitor with a perfume most enchanting.

A beautiful valley stretching from the south toward the northwest lies almost in the center of this delightful plateau. In this valley, like a pearl in a great shell, is the village of Roxbury. A clear stream of water running from the mountains on the south to the great basin on the north with tortuous channel threads its way in and out through the valley and through the very center of the village. The highway to Texas and Mexico leads through this valley, and Clear Creek, as the stream is rightly named, crosses it some six or eight times in the short space of a mile.

The highway forms the principal street in Roxbury. There are a few cross streets running east and west, and here and there a short street running north and south, but no regular blocks, such as one might see in any other town as large as Roxbury. All the business of the village is conducted on the highway. There are four general stores, two drug stores, two blacksmith shops, a post office, a doctor’s office, a small hotel, and perhaps a half-dozen other small houses used for meat market, barber shops, restau-

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O rants, and so on. Back of these business houses, and extending up to the summit of the hills upon both sides of the valley, are many comfortable cottages, which shelter a contented and happy people.

Twenty years ago Roxbury was as isolated a place as one might wish to see. Indeed, it had no connection with the outside world except through the daily mails. There was not a telegraph line, a railroad, or a steamboat line within a hundred miles of its quiet precincts. There was nothing to disturb the monotony of its usual proceedings, except the coming and the going of the stagecoach every morning and evening. At these times there was a flurry of excitement, as the people in good-humored familiarity gathered around the post office to get their mail, and jostled and joked each other with the playfulness of children.

But Roxbury was by no means a dull place. It had its own college sitting upon the summit of its western hill, and nearly all of the inhabitants of the town were graduates of the institution. The college was older than the village, and it was its fair name and wonderful success that brought Roxbury into existence. Besides this noble institution, the village had its churches, two of them, its public school building, of which it was justly proud, and its own genial society of college professors and their families, and scores of finely educated young men and women from all sections of our great republic as visitors and health seekers, in addition to those^ born within its sacred precints. None of the people were rich, and yet none of them were so poor that they needed to be helped. Everybody lived upon an

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equal plane with his neighbors, and there was always a hearty welcome for all who might wish to come to every social event or public service given in the village.

The citizens were for the most part farmers whose lands lay around the town, a few well-to-do gentlemen who lived upon the interest of their formerly accumulated capital, a doctor of medicine, two ministers of the gospel, the college president, and the professors and the merchants named above. Among these merchants was one who, by strict attention to business for many years, together with a most rigid economy, had accumulated quite a fortune for an inhabitant of Roxbury. He was a modest, unpretentious man, who lived like his neighbors in the enjoyment of all the necessaries of life, but with no external indication that he was worth any more money than they. He was not a miser. On the contrary, he dispensed without ostentation a broad and liberal charity to the many poor in the country around him. He was justly esteemed by all who knew him as a man of upright life and of straightforward dealing in all of his business transactions.

In his younger days, before the great civil war, he carried on an extensive business. He had clerks in his store, negroes on his farms, teamsters on the road, and by his thrift and energy he contrived to form a market for the people in general, and to afford employment for nearly all the idle men in the vicinity. But now he was growing old. He did not care to be worried with a large business. He had plenty of money to support himself and his wife the remainder of their days, and was therefore exempt from that

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slavish toil which is an absolute necessity in the life of many. And so he dismissed his clerks, let his stock of goods run down, took the teamsters off the road, and, under pretense of doing a small business, confined himself to the store every day. Many wondered that he did not quit business altogether, not knowing that a man who has been actively engaged in business all of his life cannot bear to be idle even in his old age. But there was another reason why he confined himself so assiduously to the store, which will appear as our story develops.

On his large farm, which he called the plantation, he usually kept one white man, and, after the negroes were freed, as many of his old slaves as cared to stay and work for wages. But after a time death removed his favorite negro man, and the others soon became so indolent and worthless that he dismissed them all, put his farm into pasture, and employed one white man to care for all of it.

The merchant, whose name was Ewing Murray, was a very large man. He was tall and well proportioned, and in his youth had been as erect as an Indian, but now he was somewhat stooped about the shoulders. His head was very large and entirely bald, except a few silken locks that fringed the base of his skull and hung in ringlets about his ears and upon the back of his neck. His high forehead and well-defined nose, mouth, and chin indicated strong, virile traits of character. His keen, deep-blue eyes revealed a kind, tender heart and great generosity of soul. At the same time they were capable of evpressing the greatest possible determination or the most fiery wrath and indignation, yet he was a peace-

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able man, who feared God reverently and loved his fellow-man with a sincere devotion.

It was at the close of a beautiful day in the early autumn that Mr. Murray sat on the small platform in front of his store, apparently wholly absorbed in studying some minute spot on the ground directly in front of him. He was evidently revolving some very serious question in his mind.

The sun was slowly sinking into the bosom of a fleecy cloud in the western horizon, and was gilding the top of the spire and the minarets of the college with pure gold, and flooding the valley below with a soft, mellow light that gave added beauty to its already bewitching scenery. A Sabbathlike stillness brooded over the entire village. The gentle murmur of the creek, rippling over the white stones in its pebbly bed, could be distinctly heard where Mr. Murray was sitting. The twitter of the birds in the tree tops beyond the store sounded like a chorus of children's voices in the distance. The lowing of the cattle in the meadows, the crowing of the cocks in the distant barnyards, the tinkling of the bells upon the homecoming herd of village cows in the valley, floated out upon the evening air in most charming strains of plaintive music. The calm serenity of the hour, permeated by nature's sweetly solemn music, intensified the seriousness of Mr. Murray's pensive mood.

All the other merchants were closing up for the night, and now and then as they passed by him one after another called out pleasantly: “Come, Uncle Ewing; it is time to close up." Generally he made some reply to pleasant sorties of this kind, but this evening he took no notice of them. He wore a

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troubled, perplexed look on his face, and^sat deeply buried in his own thoughts. The truth is that, notwithstanding his usually genial and cheerful disposition, his seeming independence in the financial world, his charming home, and his most devoted and worthy wife, Mr. Murray sometimes fell into inexplicable fits of melancholy, and at such times would sit, chewing his tobacco and whittling a pine stick, in abject silence for a whole day at a time. It was usually some very trivial thing that brought on these spells of despondency, and it was usually some very trivial thing that dispelled the gloom as suddenly as it had come. If there was any real reason for his present dejection, it was that his man on the farm had that day notified him that he was going West and that his place must be filled at once by some other man. Albert (the man on the farm) had satisfactorily managed the plantation for the last five years. He knew just what the merchant wanted done on the place and just how to do it, and he did it without the suggestion or oversight of anybody. Mr. Murray gave himself no concern whatever about the plantation beyond receiving daily Albert’s faithful report. The thought of losing so valuable a servant, with no probability of finding any one who, even after months of training, could take his place, was enough to give him the blues.

There is no telling how long Mr. Murray would have sat there, with his eyes fixed upon the ground and his mind wholly absorbed in thought, had he not been aroused from his reverie by the sound of a footfall in front of him, accompanied by the very pleasant voice of a young man saying: “Good evening, Uncle Ewing.” Everybody called Mr. Murray “Uncle Ew-

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ing,” and it was therefore no surprise to him that this total stranger should address him so familiarly. Mr. Murray looked up and hastily scanned the young man from head to foot. He was a short, sturdy young fellow, square-shouldered and very muscular in form. He had steel-gray eyes, dark-brown hair, and an honest, good-looking face. His clothes bespoke his poverty. His straw hat had evidently seen hard service through two seasons. His coat and trousers were too short for him, and both were well worn. His shoes were old and rusty, and here and there were worn into holes. He carried on his shoulder a short hickory stick, to which was attached a small bundle of clothing. And over all, from hat to shoes, was a thick coating of dust.

Still staring at the young man, Mr. Murray said in interrogative tones : “Good evening, sir.”

Whereupon the young man advanced, took off his hat, and, putting it under his arm, began to fish in his pocket mysteriously for a note, which he finally found and handed to Mr. Murray, who took it from his hand and read :

Dear Mr. Murray: This will introduce to you my son John. He is seeking employment. He is a good, honest boy, who has no bad habits, who is sincere and always truthful, as I believe. But he knows very little of the world and the ways of the world. It is with no small degree of anxiety about his future that his mother and I have consented for him to go forth to make his way in the world. If he could get a good place, with some good, honest man like yourself, we would feel perfectly satisfied about him.

If you cannot give him anything to do, perhaps you can direct him to some other good man who can use him. We shall ever hold ourselves under lasting obligations to you for anything you may be able to do for our dear boy. Hoping to hear from you through John at no distant day, I am yours truly, j. Q. Carey.

Mr. Murray folded the note and put it into his pocket, and, struggling up from his chair, extended his hand to the young man and said to him : “How do you do, my son ? I am glad to see you. Wait until I lock up the store, and we will go up to supper. Take my chair and rest while I am getting ready/''

“Thank you, sir,” said John, and, taking the chair to the edge of the platform, he sat down. He was very tired. He had walked more than twenty miles that day over the mountain, and had had nothing to eat since he left home. Mr. Murray’s invitation to go with him to supper after the store was locked up fell upon his ears as most gracious words indeed. “How kind he is !” he mused. “I do hope he will employ me. I should never grow tired trying to serve a man like that.” Yet he dared not indulge the hope too sanguinely. It were far better not to expect anything than to have one’s heart set upon a definite attainment, and then be disappointed. “I wonder what he thinks of me,” he was saying to himself, when Mr. Murray came out of the store and said: “I am ready now, John. Did I keep you waiting very long?”

“O no, sir. I was very tired, and I enjoyed the rest here in your chair.”

Then they started up the hill together toward the merchant’s house.

“Did you walk all the way from home?” said Mr. Murray.

“Yes, sir ; I walked all the way,” replied John.

“What time did you start this morning?”

“It was about eight o’clock, I think, sir ; but I was

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so much upset by the thought of leaving home that I really did not take much note of the time.”

“Is this the first time you have ever been away from home ?”

“Yes, sir; it is the first time I ever went out with the intention of being away from home more than one night at a time.”

And thus by easy and natural questions the man led the boy into talking about himself and his journey with as little embarrassment as if they had been boon companions all their lives. Mr. Murray, having cast off his melancholy spirit, was really as much interested in what the boy had to say as if it were the most important thing that could be said by his most intimate and time-honored friend. When they came to the house he introduced John to his wife, and entertained him as though he were some distinguished guest. Mrs. Murray, noticing that the boy seemed a little embarrassed* in her presence, and having all her married life devoted herself untiringly to entertaining her husband’s friends, at once set about doing everything she could to make things pleasant for the stranger. But he could not help feeling self-conscious. He looked at his dust-begrimed hands and clothes, and the color mounted to his dusty cheeks.

Mr. Murray, noticing this, called out : “Gus, come here. Take this gentleman out on the back porch and dust his clothes and give him some soap and water to wash his face and hands.”

“Yes, sah,” said the negro, and, beckoning^ to John, he said : “Come dis heah way, sah. I brush you off.”

When they returned John looked a great deal cleaner, but he did not entirely lose his embarrassment

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II until after he sat down to the table and began to eat. He was so ravenously hungry, and everything seemed so good, that he soon forgot himself and fell to eating with as much freedom as if he were in his mother’s dining room.

Mr. Murray thoroughly enjoyed the supper, too ; it did him good to see John eating so heartily. He kept encouraging him to take some of this and some of that, until the boy’s appetite was entirely satisfied.

After supper Mr. and Mrs. Murray and John sat down in the sitting room, and Mr. Murray asked John all sort of questions about himself and the family at home ; about the number of children, and all of their names ; about the health of his father and mother, and whether they were beginning to look old; about the work on his father’s farm, what they planted, and how many acres, what they sowed and what kind of a harvest it yielded; about the lead mine craze, of which he had heard from somebody (John wondered who could have told him about it) ; about the public school in his neighborhood, and how long he had gone to school, and whether he expected to go to school any more ; about the Sunday school and the preaching in the neighborhood; about the religious revival which he had heard was held near his father’s house. And although there were so many questions, they were interspersed with so many comments on John’s answers, and occasionally interrupted by Mrs. Murray’s merry laughter and pointed, earnest questions, that brought out John’s keenness of discernment and gave spice and variety to the conversation, that John did not feel that he was being especially chatechised, though he did wonder

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where and how Mr. Murray could have learned so much about his home affairs.

At nine o’clock the colored boy came in to show the “gemman” upstairs. Mr. and Mrs. Murray arose and said good night to John. He acknowledged the courtesy and retired with the boy. The boy carried a lamp in his hand to light the way through the halls. They turned to the right at the head of the stairs, and here the boy opened a door and said : “Dis heah yo’ room.” They both went in, and the colored boy set the lamp on the table before the open fireplace and went downstairs. He ran through the lower hall and back to the kitchen, where his mother was still busy clearing away the supper dishes. As he burst into the kitchen door he had his hand over his mouth, and at regular intervals was giggling and snorting through his fingers.

“What de matter wid you, nigger?” said his mother, glaring at him fiercely out of the corners of her eyes.

“I ain’t neber seen no gemman like dat come to our house afo’. When dat Mistah Richardson done come heah fum St. Louis he had on fine clothes and a gol’ watch and a dimund in his shut and shoes a-shinin’ till ye could see yerself in ’em. But ’fo’ de Lawd, mammy, dat feller upstairs sho’ nuf des’ look like a tramp.”

She scowled at him, and then poured forth a regular torrent of indignation : “Shet yo’ mouf, nigger. Ain’t I neber gwine to l’arn you not to talk ’bout comp’ny in de house ? Dese heah free niggers ain’t got no manners, nohow. I reckon de good Lawd knowed what he wuz a-doin’ when he done free ’em, but I ain’t neb-

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er yit see no use in freein’ blab mouf niggers like you is. Good thing fur you, boy, I ain’t got no oberseer heah to-night. I’d make him take you out and give you twenty-five lashes fur dat imperdence. Dat I would, you black rascal, cornin’ in heah snortin’ and carryin’ on like dat ’bout nice gemman massa done tell you to carry upsta’rs. Git outen heah now, and go to yo’ bed dis minit, ’fo’ I done break dis heah shubble han’le ober yo’ head. You heah me, nigger? Git, I tell you !”

The boy understood her perfectly, and lost no time in complying with her request.

In the meantime John was gazing about his room abstractedly. The bed, with its white spread and clean pillow slips, looked very inviting to a boy excessively tired with a day’s labors. But he did not hurry to bed. He looked into the mirror on the dresser opposite him, and for the first time became conscious of the shabby appearance of his clothes. He blushed and took up the hairbrush and brushed his hair, as though he thought that might relieve his untidy appearance. “How strange it all seems to me !” he said to himself. “These people are so very kind to me. And Mr. Murray asked me so many questions about the folks at home. I wonder if he is trying to find out whether I am a proper person to stay all night in his house or whether he was as much interested in me and our family as he really seemed to be?”

There was no answer to these questions ; for, while Mr. Murray had vigorously plied John with questions, he had maintained throughout the conversation a dignified reserve concerning his intentions in so doing. Finding that he could not solve the problem, John laid the whole matter aside and went to bed, and was soon lost in a deep, restful sleep.

Long after John retired, Mr. Murray in pensive mood sat alone before the open fire in his room, now and then raking the glowing coals closer together; then, sitting with his elbows on his knees, he peered into the fire as if he were trying to read its deep hidden secrets. Mrs. Murray had gone to the kitchen to give some instructions to the servants concerning breakfast, and had found Gus’s mother in a towering rage about “dat impudent nigger, Gus, talkin’ ’bout de comp’ny in de house,” and she detained her mistress quite a while with her story and her fearful forebodings concerning the whole race of free negroes.

Mr. Murray had not moved from his position before the fire for some time. The stillness of death pervaded the room. The fitful glare of the fire light gave a ghostly significance to everything around him. One who knew him well might have said: “His melancholy spell is returning.” But it was not so. He was serious, almost to tears, but it was not that feeling of indefinable despondency which he had felt that afternoon in front of his store. The young fellow upstairs had stirred his sympathies. Nothing so touched him as the struggles of an honest young man trying to make his way in the world. But this young man, in his youth and inexperience, appealed to his great heart and enlisted its deep interest as no other had ever done. “It is just fifty years, y-e-s, I b-e-l-i-e-v-e it i-s j-u-s-t exactly fifty years,” said he in an undertone which he did not wish or expect any one to hear.

“What is it, my dear?” said his wife, who had returned from the kitchen just in time to hear her husband’s strange soliloquy. She pulled her chair up close to his and sat down.

He took her small, wrinkled hand in his and tenderly smoothed the wrinkles with his great thumb. She laid her left arm across his broad shoulders and began in a thoughtless manner to play with the silken curls upon the back of his neck. For a few moments both were silent. Mr. Murray had always had a singular aversion to speaking of his own personal history. And, though he had been married nearly forty years, he had never spoken to his wife of his childhood days or of that period of his youth and young manhood which intervened between his childhood and the time she first met him. It was not without effort and many secret qualms that he brought himself to the point of doing so now. But he knew that she had heard the sentence which had unintentionally escaped his lips. Silence was therefore more embarrassing than a full explanation, and so he answered her: “I was just saying, my dear, that it is just fifty years since father died.”

“What made you think of that ?” she asked, not trying to conceal her surprise.

“That boy upstairs. He has set a whole train of reminiscenses going through my brain at lightning speed,” said he. Then he proceeded to tell her the story of his early life. At first he began in a low tone of voice and proceeded very slowly, fearing that some sentence of self-laudation might unconsciously escape his lips. Then as his heart warmed with the theme which had so often glowed therein in his silent meditations he forgot himself and told his story with the pathos and power that is born of an experience that stirs one’s heart to the very depths. The strange glare of the weird fire light upon his face, the deep emotion of his great soul struggling in vain to find full expression in speech, so intensified the interest of the story that it held Mrs. Murray as ghost stories hold children, thrilling and charming them, though exciting them almost to the point of frenzy.

“We lived near Washington, in Rhea County, Tenn., when I was a boy. Father had a large family. There were twelve children in all. Brother Dan was the eldest, and I was the second child. Father sold out everything he had, and at once got ready to move out West, where he thought he could buy cheaper land and make a better living for his family. Brother Dan went to St. Louis expecting to come to us at Denison, Tex., having on the way made close observation of vacant lands in Missouri. We got on a flatboat at Washington and went down the Cumberland River to the Mississippi. There we changed boats, taking a steamer to the mouth of the Arkansas River. Here we changed boats again and started up the Arkansas, intending to go as far west as that boat could carry us. We had gotten to Morrillton, Ark., when father was suddenly stricken down with the cholera, and died within three hours from the time he was taken sick. Of course there was great excitement on board, and, though the captain was a kind-hearted man, he was compelled to put us off the boat at Morrillton. Mother and I, with the ten younger children, with broken hearts and bewildered minds gathered around father’s lifeless