And from the ten minutes in the library of Major Buchanan the
disciplining of the heart of Phoebe Donelson began and was carried on
with utter relentlessness. The first castigation occurred when David
failed to phone her at two o'clock, and a half-hour later Caroline Darrah
called anxiously to know her decision and impart the information that
David had arranged that she and Phoebe go out to the fork in her car with
Mrs. Buchanan. Phoebe, to her own surprise, found that she intensely
desired another arrangement that involved David and his small electric,
but she received the blow with astonishing meekness and delighted
Caroline with her enthusiastic acquiescence in the plans for the evening.
And so through the busy afternoon while David Kildare met committees,
sent in reports and talked over plans, he also managed to sandwich in the
settling of numerous little details that went to make good the night's
sport. And it was all done in apparent high spirits but with an indignant
pain in his usually glad heart.
Meanwhile Caroline Darrah, in a whirl of domestic excitement incident to
the preparing of a hamper for the midnight lunch out on the ridge, which
she had entreated Mrs. Matilda to leave entirely to her newly-acquired
housewifery, stepped into the middle of the pool political and never knew
it, in the innocence of her old-fashioned woman's heart.
"Miss Ca'line," ventured Jeff as he assisted her in packing the huge
hamper that occupied the center of the dining-room table, "is Mister Dave
sure 'pinted to be jedge of the criminal court--he ain't a-joking is he?"
"Why, no, indeed, Jeff," answered Caroline Darrah as she rolled
sandwiches in oiled paper before putting them into a box. "What made you
think that?"
"Well, it's a kinder poor white folksy job fer him, fooling with
crap-shooting niggers and whisky soaks, but if he wants it he's got ter
have it, hear me! And Miss Ca'line, some of us colored set has made up
our minds that it's time fer us ter git out and dust ter help him. You
see this here is a independent race and it's who gits the votes, no
'Publican er Dimocrat to it. That jest naterally turns the colored vote
loose at the polls. And fer the most of the black fools it's who bids the
mostes, I'm sorry ter say, as is the fact."
"But you know Mr. David has said from the first that he will not buy a
vote. Will he have to lose--how many of the colored people are there--oh,
Jeff, will he have to be beaten?" Caroline Darrah clasped a sandwich to
the death in her hands and questioned the negro with the same faith that
she would have used in questioning Major Buchanan.
"No, ma'am, he ain't going ter git nigger-beat if we can help it--us
society colored set, you understand, Miss Ca'line." Jeff's manner was an
interesting mixture of pomposity and deference.