Clearing Weather by Cornelia Meigs

Author:Cornelia Meigs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2018-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

SILVER TRUMPETS

If Nicholas’ eyes could have pierced that mystery which lay hidden beyond the horizon, he would have seen the Jocasta in the first portion of her voyage faring prosperously southward. The heavy winds of autumn bore her swiftly; so that she reached Charleston even before the appointed day. While the waiting cargo was being loaded, Michael made a hasty, mud-splashed journey to his brother’s house on the plantation which had so long been home.

The delighted, grinning Negroes came crowding about to welcome him; his old mammy wept with the pleasure of seeing “young Mars’er” in his own place again; then wept once more at hearing that it was only for a day.

“I don’t hold noways with dese yeah ships,” she lamented. “Nobody never came to no good by triflin’ around water.”

Michael’s brother greeted him whole-heartedly; and the two sat that evening in the big parlor, each in his accustomed seat, and talked of cotton, of how Clayton Hawkins had done well with a new process for curing tobacco, and how big Jason, the best field hand, had been hurt by a viciously kicking mule. The conversation ran out finally, and the two sat without speaking for a long time until the older brother burst out with a paraphrase of Mammy Sophy’s words.

“I don’t like this seafaring business, Michael. It isn’t the thing that our people do. You are not even captain of your ship.”

“A man doesn’t take command of a vessel in his first voyage or two, even if he is a Slade of Berkeley County,” returned Michael cheerily. He went on in more serious tone, “I can see what important work there is for such men as you, how great your share is in helping to build up the country. Yet what work is there here for me? A plantation has one head and a hundred or so pairs of hands. I am not the head, and I cannot be the hands. I have had to find out some work for myself that will make me feel that I am part of the great things that are going forward in our time.”

His brother shook his head with less disapproval than before, but still with no very great comprehension. “You always were a fellow for picking up strange ideas, Michael, but I suppose you must go your own way. I’ll own that it is a good thing for me to have my cotton and tobacco go to market at last, even if it has to be in a Yankee-owned vessel.”

Early next morning Michael set off again, with some tuggings at his heart for the place where he had spent such a happy boyhood; but with even greater impulse to be pressing on toward the success of his new venture.

“I wish Nicholas could see all this,” he thought, as he rode under the live oaks and the autumn-colored eucalyptus trees, and galloped along the turnpike toward Charleston.

In company with Etienne Bardeau he had visited the West Indies more than

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.