Constance Woolson - For the Major - A Novelette

EDGERLEY the first lay on the eastern flank of Chillawassee Mountain; Edgerley the second six hundred feet above. The first Edgerley, being nearer the high civilization of the state capital, claimed the name, and held it; while the second Edgerley was obliged to content itself with an added "far." Far Edgerley did not object to its adjective so long as it was not considered as applying especially to the distance between it and the lower town. It was "far," if you pleased – far from cities, far from traffic, from Babylon, from Zanzibar, from the Pole – but it was not "far" from Edgerley. Rather was Edgerley far from it, and – long may she keep so! Meanwhile Edgerley the first prospered, though rather plebeianly. She had two thousand inhabitants, cheese factories, saw-mills, and a stage line across Black Mountain to Tuloa, where connection was made with a second line, which went eastward to the railway. An Edgerley merchant, therefore, could reach the capital of his state in fifty-five hours: what could man want more? The merchants were of the opinion that they wanted nothing; they fully appreciated their advantages, and Edgerley. But their neighbors on top of the mountain, who looked down upon them in more senses than one, did not agree with them in their opinion; they infinitely preferred their own village, though it had no factories, no saw-mills, no stage line to Tuloa, and no necessity for one, and no two thousand inhabitants – hardly, indeed, and with stretching, a bare thousand. There would seem to have been little in these lacks upon which to found a pride, if the matter had been viewed with the eyes of that spirit of progress which generally takes charge of American towns; but, so far at least, the Spirit of Progress had not climbed Chillawassee Mountain, and thus Far Edgerley was left to its prejudiced creed.

The creed was ancient – both towns boasting an ante-Revolutionary origin – but, though ancient, Madam Carroll of the Farms had been the first to embody it in a portable phrase; brief (for more words would have given too much importance to the subject), calmly superior, as a Carroll phrase should be. Madam Carroll had remarked that Edgerley seemed to her "commercial." This was excellent. "Commercial!" Nothing could be better. Whatever Far Edgerley was, it certainly was not that.

Madam Carroll of the Farms, upon a certain evening in May, 1868, was sitting in her doorway, her eyes fixed upon the dull red line of a road winding down the mountain opposite. This road was red because it ran through red clay; and a hopelessly sticky road it was, too, at most seasons of the year, as the horses of the Tuloa stage line knew to their cost. But the vehicle now coming through the last fringes of the firs was not a stage; and it was drawn, also, by two stout mules that possessed a tenacity of purpose greater even than that of red clay. It was the carriage of Major Carroll of the Farms, Far Edgerley, and at the present moment it was bringing home his daughter from the western terminus of the railway.

A gentleman's carriage drawn by mules might have seemed something of an anomaly in certain localities farther eastward. But not here. Even Edgerley regarded this possession of its rival with a respect which included the mules, or rather, which effaced them in the general aroma of the whole, an aroma not actual (the actual being that of ancient leather not unacquainted with decay), but figurative – the aroma of an undoubted aristocracy. For "the equipage," as it was called, had belonged to the Carrolls of the Sea Islands, who, in former days of opulence, had been in the habit of spending their summers at the Farms. When their distant cousin, the Major, bought the Farms, he bought the carriage also. This was as well. The Sea Island Carrolls had no longer any use for a carriage. They had not even mules to draw it, and, as they lived all the year round now upon one of their Sea Islands, whose only road through the waste of old cotton-fields was most of the time overflowed, they had nothing to draw it upon; so the Major could as well have the benefit of it. This carriage with its mules now came into sight on the zigzags of the mountain opposite; but it had still to cross the lower valley, and climb Chillawassee, and night had fallen before the sound of its wheels was heard on the little bridge over the brook which crossed what was called Carroll Lane, the grassy avenue which led from Edgerley Street up the long knoll to Carroll Farms.

"Chew up, Peter! chew up, then. Chew!" Inches, the coachman, said to his mules: Inches wished to approach the house in good style. The mules, refusing to entertain this idea, came up to the door on a slow walk. Inches could, however, let down the steps with a flourish; and this he proceeded to do by the light of the candle which Madam Carroll had brought with her to the piazza. The steps came down with a long clatter. And they had clanked in their imprisonment all the way from Tuloa. But no one in Far Edgerley would have sacrificed them for such trifles as these; they were considered to impart an especial dignity to "the equipage" (which was, indeed, rather high-hung). No other carriage west of the capital had steps of this kind. It might have been added that no other carriage east of it had them either. But Chillawassee did not know this, and went on contentedly admiring. As to the clatter made when the steps were let down – at the church door, for instance, on Sunday mornings – did it not announce that the Major and his wife had arrived, that they were about to enter? And were not people naturally glad to know this in time? They could be all ready, then, to look.

Upon this occasion the tall girl who had arrived, scarcely touching the unfolded steps, sprang lightly to the ground, and clasped the waiting lady in her arms. "Oh, mamma, how glad I am to see you again! But where is my father?"

"He felt very tired, Sara, and as it is late, he has gone to his room. He left his love for you. You know we expected you two hours ago."

"It is but little past ten. He must be still awake. Could I not slip in for a moment, just to speak to him? I would not stay."

"He has been asleep for some time. It would be better not to disturb him, wouldn't it?"

"If he is asleep – of course," answered Sara Carroll. But her tone was a disappointed one.

"You will see him in the morning," said the elder lady, leading the way within.

"But a whole night to wait is so long!"

"You do not intend, I presume, to pass this one in wakefulness?" said Madam Carroll.

Sara laughed. "Scar, too, is asleep, I suppose?"

"Yes. But Scar you can waken, if you like; he falls asleep again readily. He is in the first room at the head of the stairs."

The girl flew off, coming back with a bright face. "Dear little fellow!" she said, "his hands and cheeks are as soft as ever. I am so glad that he has not grown into a great, rough boy. It is a year and a half since I have seen him, and he seems exactly the same."

"He is the same," said Madam Carroll. "He does not grow."

"I am delighted to hear it," replied Sara, answering stoutly the mother's implied regret. And then they both laughed.

Judith Inches, sister of the coachman, now served a light repast for the traveller in the dining-room. But when it was over, the two ladies came back to the door-way.

"For I want to look out," Sara said. "I want to be sure that I am really at home at last; that this is Chillawassee, that the Black Range is opposite, and that there in the west the long line of Lonely Mountain is rising against the sky."

"As it is dark, perhaps you could see them as well from a comfortable chair in the library," suggested Madam Carroll, smiling.

"By no means. They will reveal themselves to me; you will see. I know just where they all ought to be; I made a map from the descriptions in your letters."