The Sins of the Father: A Romance of the South
9781465670441
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
A shout in the Court House Square across the narrow street caused him to lift his head with a frown: "Salesday—of course—the first Monday—doomsday for the conquered South—God, the horror of it all!" He laid his pencil down, walked to the window and looked out on the crowd of slouching loafers as they gathered around the auctioneer's block. The negroes outnumbered the whites two to one. A greasy, loud-mouthed negro, as black as ink, was the auctioneer. "Well, gemmen an' feller citizens," he began pompously, "de fust piece er property I got ter sell hain't no property 'tall—hit's dese po' folks fum de County Po' House. Fetch 'em up agin de wall so de bidders can see 'em——" He paused and a black court attendant led out and placed in line against the weatherbeaten walls fifty or sixty inmates of the County Poor House—all of them white men and women. Most of them were over seventy years old, and one with the quickest step and brightest eye, a little man of eighty-four with snow-white hair and beard, was the son of a hero of the American Revolution. The women were bareheaded and the blazing Southern sun of August beat down piteously on their pinched faces. The young editor's fists slowly clinched and his breath came in a deep quivering draught. He watched as in a trance. He had seen four years' service in the bloodiest war in history—seen thousands swept into eternity from a single battlefield without a tear. He had witnessed the sufferings of the wounded and dying until it became the routine of a day's work. Yet no event of all that fierce and terrible struggle had stirred his soul as the scene he was now witnessing—not even the tragic end of his father, the editor of the Daily Eagle—who had been burned to death in the building when Sherman's army swept the land with fire and sword. The younger man had never referred to this except in a brief, hopeful editorial in the newly christened Eagle and Phoenix, which he literally built on the ashes of the old paper. He had no unkind word for General Sherman or his army. It was war, and a soldier knew what that meant. He would have done the same thing under similar conditions. Now he was brushing a tear from his cheek. A reporter at work in the adjoining room watched him curiously. He had never before thought him capable of such an emotion. A brilliant and powerful editor, he had made his paper the one authoritative organ of the white race. In the midst of riot, revolution and counter revolution his voice had the clear ring of a bugle call to battle. There was never a note of hesitation, of uncertainty or of compromise. In the fierce white heat of an unconquered spirit, he had fused the souls of his people as one. At this moment he was the one man hated and feared most by the negroid government in power, the one man most admired and trusted by the white race.
