Chapter 3
MILL HOUSE FOLKS
The Taylors of Taylor's Mill were not aristocrats, according to the Virginia ideas of aristocracy. The ladies of the family could not have joined the Society of Colonial Dames because of any distinction an original Taylor may have won, nor could they have aspired to the Daughters of the American Revolution through paternal lines, unless having ground corn for George Washington's hoe-cakes would have made them eligible to that patriotic society.
The Taylors prided themselves on not being aristocrats. At least it was a habit of the men of the family to mention it rather often—but it was a well-known fact that they had made it a rule to marry aristocrats. They had been doing it for generations. Enough blood of the princely Cavaliers had been fused into the Taylor stock to bring its average up to aristocratic par; but the present head of the family, Major Robert Taylor, carried on the Taylor traditions by insisting he was not an aristocrat.
"Just millers!" he would assert. "Nothing but millers who live by grinding others' corn."
This statement the ladies of the family insisted was absurd. To be sure the Taylors still owned the mill and ground other persons' corn as well as their own, but the revenue obtained from the little old mill was as a drop in a bucket compared to the money made by the hub factory, across the little river from the mill, drowning with its raucous buzz saws the soft purring noise made by the ancient machinery which was still run by the splashing mill-wheel, just as it had been in George Washington's time.
While not as old an industry as the mill, the hub factory was not a recent Taylor venture. It had been in existence for almost a hundred years. An astute Taylor had not been content with merely grinding the corn belonging to other persons but had decided that the great force that lay in the little river could furnish power to turn lathes as well as millstones and the swift current could also bring the necessary logs to the factory. The machinery at the mill had not changed with time and the meal was the same as it had been in George Washington's day, coarsely ground with the taste of the corn intact. The mill had been handed down from father to son and each generation had taken pride in the quality of the meal ground at Taylor's Mill. But the hub factory was down-to-date. Major Robert Taylor never let a labor-saving device escape him. His hubs had as good a reputation as his corn meal. No longer did they depend upon the little river to bring logs to the factory as the neighboring forests had been denuded, but a spur of the main railroad came to the door of the building and a shuttle engine puffed back and forth hauling up logs and taking off the finished hubs.
Major Taylor was considered a just man to work for, although a bit stern and uncompromising. He had a sharp tongue that made him feared by his employees, although there were times when his heart had been discovered to be kind enough. The colored hands liked him better than the white ones.
"Ol' Marse Bob, he done made me feel lak mo' kinds er monkeys than ever got in No's Awk," said Silas Johnson, who had charge of the mill, known to the whole county as "Brer Johnson." "But it don't make no min' to me. The bigger monkey he makes er me the mo' he does for my po* oY Pearly Gates."
"Ain't it the truf?" answered his companion and assistant, Buck Jourdan.
"It looks ter me lak Marse Bob done got sharper tongueded arter Marse Tom up an' lef home."
"Laws-a-mussy, Brer Johnson, that were nigh on fifteen year ago. He done had time to git over his spleen. Sometimes when he comes in the mill he talks lak his gall bladder done bus' in his mouf."
"He got wuss an' mo' of it arter Miss Myra done read outen a Noo York paper that Young Marse Tom wa' daid; daid an' buried in Noo York 'thout ever sendin' his paw a line. They do say Young Marse Tom had done got married ter some furren lady an' Ol' Marse Bob had done 'sulted Young Tom time an' agin 'bout his wife, an' done tol' him never ter darken his do' an' never ter mention his wife's name ter him an' he done sint back Marse Tom's letters 'thout even openin' 'em. Th'ain't no wonder his wife didn't sen' her paw-in-law no message 'bout her husband arter all them comtumelies. Mo' 'n lakly the po' thing didn't know nothin' but Choctaw or some kinder furren talk, anyhow. Po' lady! I reckon she griebed a lot over lil' Marse Tom. He sho' wa' one lakly young man."
"He sho' wa'!" agreed Buck. "He wa' the mos' lakly er all Marse Bob an' Miss Evy's chilluns, ter my min'. Marse Spot air so glumified an' Miss Evelyn an' Miss Myra air so proudified. Not that they ain't moughty fine folks," he hastened to add, observing an indignant gleam in the eye of Silas Johnson.
Brother Johnson chuckled. He could criticize his white folks if he had a mind to but nobody else could do it in his presence and go unscathed. He had belonged to the Taylors and all his family had belonged to the Taylors. Ever since Taylor's Mill had been grinding corn there had been a Johnson to help a Taylor. Emancipation of the negroes had meant little to him. He still belonged to the Taylors and the Taylors belonged to him. He and his old wife, Aunt Pearly Gates, lived in the same cabin they had occupied since before the war and he had charge of the mill just as he had before Virginia passed an order of secession on that day in April in '61. In the old days he had a place to live, clothes to wear and plenty of food. The only difference was that now he must pay for the food and clothes with money earned by serving the Taylors instead of just service to the Taylors.
Brother Johnson held the same contempt for the modern hub factory that his father before him had held.
"Noisy, highfalutin', bumptious place!" he would mutter when the great buzz saws drowned the splash and whirr of his old mill.
On the mill side of the river the country remained as of old. Alders and rushes bordered the stream and the corn lands met them in an irregular, friendly line. The arched stone bridge that spanned the river immediately above the mill-dam was as old as the mill and it too seemed to have been intended by Nature to be there, so perfectly did it harmonize with its surroundings.
On the other side of the river the hub factory shrieked its down-to-dateness with shrill whistles. It flaunted its efficiency in every line of its red brick ugliness. Nature would none of it. No alders grew on the factory side of the river and a barren stretch of land divided the factory site from the pleasant farm lands beyond. On that side was a country store which had tried to keep up with the factory in modern methods but, being after all a country store, had lapsed into its original state long ago.
The factory hands, white and colored, lived in cottages and cabins dotted through the county. Major Taylor paid good wages and had no trouble in getting labor. In busy seasons a hundred men were employed in the hub factory; two men and a boy in the mill. The Taylors' farm was in an arm of the river on the mill side, eight hundred acres as fertile as there was in a fertile county. The land rolled gently from the flat, rich river bottom, changing gradually into more decided undulations. In the distance one could see the foothills of the Blue Ridge and on clear days the mountains, blue and far away.
Mill House told, more loudly than any Taylor, that its original owner had not been of the aristocracy. Although the main part of the building had been erected at the period when colonial architecture flourished in Virginia, no colonial trace was left. No doubt the bricks had been brought from England but they had been put into place by a matter-of-fact person who had in his mind merely the building of a house with four walls, with holes left therein for windows and doors. The ceilings were low and the woodwork of the simplest, with none of the beautiful moulding which characterized most colonial homes. Each succeeding generation had added in some way to the house and the effect was on the whole pleasing. Mill House gave one an idea of comfort and plenty. Each lean-to had been built, if without architectural plan, at least with the intention of making things more comfortable for the inhabitants. Broad porches had been added from time to time and windows opening on those porches had been cut down and made into glass doors.
Each high-born lady who had married into the Taylor family had brought with her treasures from her home—a set of Chippendale chairs, a Sheraton sideboard, a claw-foot table or the portrait of some ancestor in high stock and powdered cue. So it was that, in spite of the fact that the present head of the Taylor family, and owner of Mill House, persisted in asserting himself to be no aristocrat, he was the possessor of perhaps as fine a collection of antique furniture as could be found in Virginia.
Major Robert Taylor was showing more than his sixty-five years of age. His hair, which had been blond, was snow white. His face was lined and seamed with wrinkles; his shoulders were stooped; his back bent. He looked like a man of seventy-five or more. However, his eyes were as blue as ever they had been; his hearing was even keener; his tongue, if possible, sharper. On that morning in June he sat in his library waiting for the mail before going to the hub factory. He was a lonely soul, a bookish man who had nobody with whom he could talk books. His son, Spottswood, and his daughters, Evelyn and Myra, read when there was nothing else to do and their type of reading matter was not the kind to appeal to the Major. Spot confined himself to the daily paper and an occasional magazine of short stories or a farmers' quarterly. Myra kept up with the continued stories in two or three magazines, and read with interest all the advertisements and articles on the subject of domestic science, although she had no occasion to use the information gained thereby, since the queen of Mill House kitchen, Aunt Testy, brooked no interference from members of the household as to her domain. Evelyn was deeply religious and read only books of devotion or stories about missionaries and their travels and trials in foreign lands.
Young Master Tom, who had gone to New York to be an artist, had liked the kind of books the Major liked. He had been a reader from the time he was a little lad spelling out the titles on the fine old calf bindings. Spottswood was cut out for a farmer and the eight hundred acres of fertile land in the arm of the little river would keep him busy enough. But Tom—Tom might have done wonders with the hub factory, thought the Major, as he waited for the mail on this June morning. It would have grown under his clear-headed management, grown into a great industry, and yet there would have been time for reading at home in the evenings, reading and long, intimate talks about the books. Tom had a sense of humor and a ready wit and could come back with clever repartee. But these other children—good enough in their way, but with no idea of a joke! It was hardly worth while teasing them, they took life so seriously.
Once Tom had failed to see through his father's grim humor; at least that was how the old man chose to think of the stand he had taken when Tom wanted to go to Paris and study art. It was merely a joke when he sent back his son's letters unopened after the news came that Tom was married. Tom should have known it was a joke and sent them back or written them again—done something besides just remain silent. He should have brought his wife down to the Mill House and let his people see her. He might have known his father would have come around. How could he have been so dense? Did he expect a man of his father's age and temper to be the one to eat humble pie? Why need he have chosen a foreigner to fall in love with? Why hadn't he married a girl in his own county and settled down at the Mill House? There was plenty of room there and if there wasn't it would have been an easy matter to build another L to the old house as his fathers before him had done.
Tom might have had a family, thought the Major. It would have been rather pleasant to have some grandchildren to whom he might leave his money. Spot seemed to have no idea of marrying, and as for Evelyn and Myra—they were old maids from the time they were born! They were handsome enough, with their yellow hair and fair skin—all the Taylors were fair—but suitors were slow to come to the Mill House or the ladies were too particular. Major Taylor had an idea that neither one of his daughters had ever had a proposal of marriage. He freely bantered them because of their lack of admirers. He wondered that it should be the case. Taylors had always married, and married well. It never entered his mind that his own caustic wit and teasing tongue had kept possible admirers away.
"Mail late, as usual!" stormed the Major, standing out on the porch where his daughters sat at opposite sides, as far apart as they could get from one another, Myra studying the intricacies of a fireless cooker advertised in the back of her magazine and Evelyn reading a religious paper.
"Not on speaking terms again, eh?" he questioned, noticing the ladies were not seated in a conversational circle. "Why don't you girls fight it out and not go around peeved and silent? What is your grouch, anyhow? Not speaking to me, either?"
Myra cleared her throat and tried to answer, but was evidently overcome with embarrassment. Evelyn's eyes filled with tears and she put on the martyred expression which always irritated her father beyond endurance.
"It is nothing, Father," Myra finally managed to say. "Evelyn and I had a disagreement about a small matter—"
"I'll be bound it was small!"
"I didn't say a word to Myra—" put in Evelyn.
"Of course not! You never do say a word, just sulk. Fancied grievances! Lack of occupation!"
"I am sure I did not do or say anything unladylike, anything Evelyn could have taken exception to," said Myra in her most refined voice.
Major Taylor laughed ironically. "Unladylike! By Gad! I'd like to see one of you do something unladylike—something that showed you had some red Taylor blood in your veins and not just the over-refined skimmed blue milk you got from your mother's side of the house. You have the Taylor color to your hides and hair, but you stop right there. Red Wood! Red blood! You haven't an ounce of it."
Since the Misses Taylor both prided themselves on the very thing with which their father was twitting them, his statement did something towards restoring their good humor. A silent truce was declared by a mere lifting of aristocratic eyebrows. Their disagreement had been over a trivial cause; indeed, it was difficult to remember what it had been.
"The postman at last!" exclaimed their father. "Here! You imp of Satan!" he called to the crown of a hat and end of a hoe he descried at the top of the high, clipped garden hedge. "Come here!"
The hat promptly disappeared, but the end of the hoe handle still protruded above the garden hedge.
"Don't hide from me! Come here, I say, you imp of Satan! What's that little devil's name? So many darkeys on this place I can't remember their names."
"That's Willie Bell, I think," said Evelyn.
Willie Bell, being discovered, came forward from behind the hedge to report to the master of whom he was in awe.
"Go get the mail from that fool postman. Here, take these letters to him and bring back the ones he gives you! Don't you drop a one! Do you understand?"
"No, sah! Wha' he?"
"There he is, idiot, coming down the road."
The mail carrier could be heard long before he could be seen, as his dilapidated car made more noise than a motorcycle. He was in sight now, coming along the red clay road that cut the peaceful green of the rolling meadow lands, sharply defining the contour of the hills.
Willie Bell hitched up his trousers, that were sketchily hung on his meager frame by means of a piece of twine, and timidly took the packet of letters to be mailed. Then he turned and ran like a rabbit towards the yard gate.
The Major laughed. "A pretty good little nigger, that! Comes of good stock—Johnson stock. He may some day have charge of the mill. The Johnsons seem to be keener on the perpetuation of the species than we Taylors."
Evelyn and Myra raised their eyebrows again. They wished their father wouldn't mention such things. They also devoutly hoped he would not start in on the fact that they were not doing their part towards keeping the race of Taylors going. It was up to Spottswood, anyhow, but as far as they knew Spot had no idea of having another lean-to added to Mill House. Spot was a quiet, mirthless person who attended to his farming. He seldom mingled in the society of the county families. His sisters bored him intensely, and he, in turn, irritated them by his carelessness in dress and disregard to the niceties of life.
As they sat waiting for Willie Bell to bring the mail, Spot approached. He was a handsome young giant with the golden Taylor hair and blue, blue eyes, but his mouth was sullen and his expression discontented.
Above all things, Spottswood dreaded being corrected and being made game of. His sisters were constantly doing the first and his father seldom addressed a remark to him that the young man did not feel had a latent sting of humor.
"There's a scraper, Spot," suggested Myra, looking meaningly at his shoes caked with clay and pointing to the old iron scraper on the lower step of the porch.
Spot said nothing, but looked even more sullen and sank down on the lowest step.
"We have just been discussing the propagation of the species," said Major Taylor, looking appreciatively at his son's manly proportions, disclosed to good advantage in a loose blue chambray shirt open at the throat, and khaki trousers. "I was saying that Silas Johnson and his descendants have done much more for their country than we Taylors. By Gad! If I had a grandchild I'd leave it everything I possess. I don't see what is the matter with the bunch of you. Effete, aristocratic blood has been diluting our good miller's stock for generations. Here I was, the only child of my parents. To be sure, I managed better than my immediate forbears, but what good did it do to have four children if it stops right there? You girls are over thirty, and Spot, here, is twenty-four. What is the matter with the men and the maids? Where are the county beaux and belles? Is nobody good enough for the likes of you, or is everybody too good?"
Myra and Evelyn looked shocked and uncomfortable during this tirade and Spot became more sullen. He wanted to marry, meant to many some day, but up to that time had seen no one who appealed alike to him and to his family. When his father died he intended to suit himself in a wife, and she would not be any highfaluting, prissy person whom his sisters would choose, but some farmer's daughter who would not be forever insisting upon his mending his manners! He had his eye on just such a girl—little Betsy Bolling, whose home, "The Hedges," was just across the river. She was young yet, only eighteen, but by the time he was ready for her she would be the right age. Spot knew very well, in spite of the Major's bluff assertion concerning the mistake of the Taylors having allied themselves with the aristocracy, that he would not accept for a member of his family one whose birth was not in accordance with the family traditions.
The Major's observations concerning the barrenness of his offspring were cut short by the return of Willie Bell with the mail. The little darkey was quite weighed down with the magazines and pamphlets and parcel post packages.
"The writ letters is tied up on the imside er that there maggotzine," he said, handing all the mail to his master.
"Here's a nickel for not dropping any," said the Major. "Be sure to grow up and marry and have a big family, so some of them can run the mill for me when old Uncle Si is dead."
"Yessah! Much obleeged, sah!"
The boy gave a hitch to his twine suspenders and slipped around the house, glad to escape without further bantering.
The Major sat down and began leisurely sorting the mail. He knew perfectly well that his daughters were eagerly waiting to see if there was anything for them; he knew that Spot had his team tied to the side fence and had come in from the fields not to rest, but to get his mail, but nothing would hurry him. It was too delightful to tease this stolid family of his.
"Um humm! A letter for Myra! I'll be bound it is from that patent dust-pan agent. Perhaps he is coming a courting. A magazine for Evelyn with a recipe for serving up missionaries hot and tasty! Another letter for Myra! I bet it's a bill. Here's something for Spot—not from a lady, Spot. They won't write to you unless you write to them."
As he turned over the letters he came upon one for himself in an unknown handwriting. It was written in violet ink on salmon pink paper and smelled of musk.
"See! The ladies write to me whether I do to them or not. I wonder from whom this is. Special delivery stamp, too!"
His daughters let their own mail lie unopened, so interested were they in their father's letter. He saw their excitement and deliberated wickedly before opening it.
"Postmarked New York! I wonder who can be writing me from New York! Sent two days ago! What do I tell you about that postman? He is simply outrageous about keeping mail back. I should have got this yesterday. I am going to write to Washington concerning his delinquency."
Major Taylor fingered the envelope curiously, looking slyly at his daughters, who could not conceal their interest in the salmon pink, highly scented letter. Even Spot looked up from his paper with some show of curiosity. The old man started to open it and then put it aside, a teasing smile on his face. He picked up the other mail and went on examining it leisurely.
"I fancy that letter is from some lady who has known me in former years. How would you children like a stepmother?"
Myra and Evelyn looked shocked and uneasy and Spottswood opened his eyes wide in astonishment. Could their father be joking? It was quite possible he might do such a foolish thing if only to tease his family.
The Major was enjoying himself.
"You need not worry," he laughed. "I am particular. I would not marry anybody who would marry me—certainly not a lady who wrote on such vile-smelling pink paper."
He waited until his family settled themselves to their various mail and then with a great rustling and rattling began opening the offensive letter. They were all attention in a moment. He finally drew out of the envelope the folded sheet.
"What's all this? I must be seeing wrong! I know my glasses need changing. Here, Spot, read this to me! No, you, Myra, you do it! Spot mumbles so."
The letter was addressed to Major Robert Taylor and this is what Myra read:
Dear Sir: I take my pen in hand to inform you that your granddaughter, Rebecca Taylor, is now left alone in New York without money and with nobody of repute, save myself, to do for her. I am a lone widow and do not feel that I can take upon myself the care of a young girl.
In looking over the letters and papers found in a trunk which belonged to the child's father I discovered your existence. In case you are dead I gathered from said letters that there are others of your name whose duty it will be to care for Rebecca.
Rebecca is a good child, although she has had no attention paid to her manners except by your humble servant. I have tried to make her behave ladylike. She is leaving New York to-morrow night and will arrive at O Court House Thursday morning.
No more from yours at present.
Lilburn O'Shea.
As Myra finished reading there was perfect silence on the porch.
Finally Evelyn said: "Of course this is some impostor!"
"Of course!" assented Myra.
"It's the biggest hoax I ever heard of," put in Spottswood.
"What day is this?" asked Major Taylor.
"This is Thursday?" answered Myra.
The Major reflected for a moment.
"Well, whoever this Rebecca is, she must have arrived at the Court House long before this. There will be no one to meet her, so perhaps she will get on the train and go back to New York. I must say I would like to have a look at the person."
Major Taylor was endeavoring to appear calm and indifferent, but his hand was trembling as he reached out for Mrs. O'Shea's letter. Could Tom have had a child after all? Of course not? It was some scheme of the O'Shea person to get money from him. Funny, though, that she had not mentioned money at all. That would come later on. Suppose it turned out to be Tom's daughter! Things went dim before the old man's eyes for a moment. It couldn't be possible. Tom would have told him if he had had a child. Perhaps he had! Perhaps the news had been in one of those letters he had returned unopened!
"My God!" he gasped. "What a fool I have been!"
His daughters usually made a pretext of agreeing with him to keep the barbed arrows of his wit from being sent their way, but when the arbitrary old man declared himself a fool they felt perhaps it would be better to combat his statement.
"Not at all, Father!" they chorused.
"A fool, I say! All kinds of a fool! Don't contradict me! I know a fool when I see one. Get the bay mare hitched to my buggy. I'll go to meet this person myself. Hurry! Hurry!"
"There's someone coming down the road now, Father," said Evelyn. "Look! There are two persons—one a man and the other either a child or an old woman. Can you see them?"
"Certainly! My eyesight is as good as yours. Never mind my buggy yet a while, Spot. I'll await our guests here on the porch."