Jr. Thomas Dixon

“ A judge has no right to spare a man who has taken human life because he is sorry for the prisoner. I have no right, as a leader, to suspend this penalty on you. Your act in destroying the civil law, arresting men without warrant and holding them by military force without bail or date of trial, was, in my judgment, a crime of the highest rank, not merely against me—one individual whom you happened to hate—but against every man, woman and child in the state. Unless that crime is punished another man, as daring in high office, may repeat it in the future. ”

“ Norton spoke with persuasive tenderness:
"You mustn't think of such madness! I'll send you abroad at once and you can begin life over again——"
Helen suddenly snatched the chair to which she had been holding out of her way and faced Norton with flaming eyes:
"I don't want to be an exile! I've been alone all my miserable orphan life! I don't want to go abroad and die among strangers! I've just begun to live since I came here! I love the South—it's mine—I feel it—I know it! I love its blue skies and its fields—I love its people—they are mine! ”

“ I've lied about you before—I'd lie now to save you this anguish, but it's no use—we all have to face things in the end!"
With a mad cry of pain, the girl sprang to her feet and staggered to the table:
"Oh, God, how could any man with a soul—any living creature, even a beast of the field—bring me into the world—teach me to think and feel, to laugh and cry, and thrust me into such a hell alone! My proud father—I could kill him!"
Norton extended his hands to her in a gesture of instinctive sympathy:
"Come, you'll see things in a calm light to-morrow, you are young and life is all before you!" ”

“ She turned and saw Cleo leaning against the table with blanched face and chattering teeth.
"Call Andy and Aunt Minerva—and go for the doctor—his heart's beating—quick—the doctor—he's alive—we may save him!"
She knelt again on the floor, took Tom's head in her lap, wiped the blood from the clean, white forehead, pressed her lips to his and sobbed:
"Come back, my own—it's I—Helen, your little wife—I'm calling you—you can't die—you're too young and life's too dear. We've only begun to live, my sweetheart! You shall not die!" ”

“ The sensitive soul of the girl had seen the tragedy before she rushed into the library. At the first shot she sprang to her feet, her heart in her throat. The report had sounded queerly through the closed doors and she was not sure. She had entered the hall, holding her breath, when the second shot rang out its message of death.
She was not the woman who faints in an emergency. She paused just a moment in the door, saw the ghastly heap on the floor and rushed to the spot.
She tore Tom's collar open and placed her ear over his heart:
"O God! He's alive—he's alive!" ”

“ For a while Norton stood with folded arms gazing at Cleo, his eyes smouldering fires of wonder and loathing. The woman was trembling beneath his fierce scrutiny, but he evidently had not noted the fact. His mind was busy with a bigger problem of character and the possible depths to which a human being might fall and still retain the human form. He was wondering how a man of his birth and breeding, the heir to centuries of culture and refinement, of high thinking and noble aspirations, could ever have sunk to the level of this yellow animal—this bundle of rags and coarse flesh! ”

“ She stopped suddenly and lifted her hand, staring with wildly dilated eyes at the nails of her finely shaped fingers to find if the telltale marks of negro blood were there which she had seen on Cleo's. Finding none, the horror in her eyes slowly softened into a look of despairing tenderness as she went on:
"The one passionate yearning of my soul has been to be a mother—to feel the breath of a babe on my heart, to hear it lisp my name and know a mother's love—the love I've starved for—and now, it can never be!" ”

“ As he began to realize it, his heart went out to the great city with a throb of gratitude.
When the novelty of the new world had gradually worn off a feeling of loneliness set in. He couldn't get used to the crowds on every street, these roaring rivers of strange faces rushing by like the waters of a swollen stream after a freshet, hurrying and swirling out of its banks.
At first he had found himself trying to bow to every man he met and take off his hat to every woman. It took a long time to break himself of this Southern instinct. ”

“ It will be hard, the darkness and the loneliness again. But I can't drag you down, my sweetheart, my hero! Your life must be big and brilliant. I've dreamed it thus. You shall be a man among men, the world's great men—and so I am going out of your life!"
"You shall not!" the boy cried fiercely. "I tell you I don't believe this hideous thing—it's a lie, I tell you—it's a lie, and I don't care who says it! Nothing shall separate us now. I'll go with you to the ends of the earth and if you sink into hell, I'll follow you there, lift you in my arms and fight my way back through its flames!" ”

“ The Negro is not here by my act or will, and their continued presence is a constant threat against our civilization. Equality is the law of life and we dare not grant it to the negro unless we are willing to descend to his racial level. We cannot lift him to ours. This truth forced me into a new life purpose twenty years ago. The campaign I have just fought and won is the first step in a larger movement to find an answer to your question in the complete separation of the races—and nothing is surer than that the South will maintain the purity of her home! ”

“ Norton hesitated and said:
"You see we are perfectly calm now. All bitterness is gone from our hearts. We are father and son again."
"Why do you look so queerly at me? Why do you look so strangely at each other?"
"It's only your imagination, dear," Tom said.
"No, there's something wrong," Helen declared desperately. "I feel it in the air of this room—in the strange silence between you. For God's sake tell me what it means! Surely, I have the right to know"—she turned suddenly to Norton—"You don't hate me now, do you, major?" ”

“ Tom lifted his hand emphatically:
"It's no use! You needn't tell me that her blood is tainted—I don't believe it!"
The father came closer:
"You do believe it! In the first mad riot of passion you're only trying to fool yourself."
"It's unthinkable, I tell you! and I've made my decision"—he paused a moment and then demanded: "How do you know her blood is tainted?"
The father answered firmly:
"I have the word both of her mother and father."
"Well, I won't take their word. Some natures are their own defense. On them no stain can rest, and I stake my life on Helen's!" ”

“ He called Cleo into the hall and closed Helen's door.
The old man seized her hand with a cruel grip:
"Do you dare tell me that this girl is your daughter?"
She trembled and faltered:
"Yes!"
"You're a liar!" he hissed. "You may have fooled Norton for twenty years, but you can't fool me. I've seen too much of this sort of thing. I'll stake my immortal soul on it that no girl with Helen's pure white skin and scarlet cheeks, clean-cut features and deep blue eyes can have in her body a drop of negro blood!"
"She's mine all the same, and you know when she was born," the woman persisted. ”

“ The world is always beautiful if we only have eyes to see and ears to hear. Watch that smoke curling straight up from the chimney! That means the clouds are already lifting and the sun will burst through them this afternoon. You mustn't brood, dearest. You must forget the misery that has darkened our world for a moment and remember that it's only the dawn of a new life for us both. We are just boy and girl yet. There's nothing impossible. I'm going to prove to you that my love is the deathless thing in me—the thing that links me to God. ”

“ I propose to make the Negro the only issue of this campaign. There will be no half-way measures, no puling hesitation, no weakness, and it will be a fight to the death in the open. The day for secret organizations has gone in Southern history. There is no Black League to justify a reorganization of the Klan. But the new Black League has a far more powerful organization. Its mask is now philanthropy, not patriotism. Its weapon is the lure of gold, not the flash of Federal bayonets. They will fight to divide the white race on this vital issue. ”

“ I haven't a single friend in the world. I hate negroes. I loathe poor white trash. This is my place, here in your home, among the birds and flowers, with your baby in my arms. You know that I love him and that he loves me. I'll work for you as no one else on earth would. My hands will be quick and my feet swift. I'll be your slave, your dog—you can kick me, beat me, strangle me, kill me if you like, but don't send me away—I—I can't help loving you! Please—please don't drive me away."
The passionate, throbbing voice broke into a sob and she touched his foot with her hand. ”

“ Norton broke into a bitter, angry laugh:
"Are you demanding that I marry you?"
"I'm not quite that big a fool. No. Your laws forbid it. All right—there are higher laws than yours. The law that drew you to me in this room twenty years ago, in spite of all your fears and your prejudices"—she paused and her eyes glowed in the shadows—"I gave you my soul and body then——"
"Gifts I never sought——"
"Yet you took them and I'm here a part of your life. What are you going to do with me? I'm not the negro race. I'm just a woman who loves you and asks that you treat her fairly." ”

“ Norton sat in the library for more than an hour trying to nerve himself for the interview while waiting for Helen. He had lighted and smoked two cigars in rapid succession and grown restless at her delay. He rose, strolled through the house and seeing nothing of either Tom or Helen, returned to the library and began pacing the floor with measured tread.
He had made up his mind to do a cruel thing and told himself over and over again that cruel things are often best. The cruelty of surgery is the highest form of pity, pity expressed in terms of the highest intelligence. ”

“ Norton spent the mornings in the nursery executing the doctor's orders with clock-like regularity, while Cleo slept. At noon she quietly entered and took his place. Her meals were served in the room and she never left it until he relieved her the next day. The tireless, greenish eyes watched the cradle with death-like stillness and her keen young ears bent low to catch every change in the rising and falling of the little breast. Through the long watches of the night, the quick alert figure with the velvet tread hurried about the room filling every order with skill and patience. ”

“ And he loved animals. He never passed a stray dog or a cat without a friendly word of greeting. He had often laid on his lounge at home, when tired, and watched a kitten play an hour with unflagging interest. Every movement of this girl's lithe young body suggested such a scene—especially the velvet tread of her light foot, and the delicate motions of her figure followed suddenly by a sinuous quick turn and a childish laugh or cry. The faint shadows of negro blood in her creamy skin and the purring gentleness of her voice seemed part of the gathering twilight. ”

“ Cleo was in his arms that night at old Peeler's and he was stroking her hair as he would have smoothed the fur of a frightened kitten. That strange impulse was the beginning—he could see it now—and it had grown with daily contact, until the contagious animal magnetism of her nearness became resistless. And now he stood a shivering coward in the dark, afraid to enter his own house and look his wife in the face.
Yes, he was a coward. He acknowledged it with a grim smile—a coward! This boastful, high-strung, self-poised leader of men! ”

“ Norton placed his hands in his pockets, and looked him over from head to foot:
"Well, you've got the gall of the devil, I must say, even if you do wear the livery of heaven. You demand free speech at my expense! I like your cheek. It cost my committee two hundred dollars to advertise this meeting and make it a success, and you step up at the last moment and demand that I turn it over to your party. If you want free speech, hire your own hall and make it to your heart's content. You can't address this crowd from a speaker's stand built with my money." ”

“ This home of his father's was all the wreck of war had left him and his heart gave a throb of joy to-night that it was his.
Behind the room where the delicate wife lay, a petted invalid, was the nursery. His baby boy was there, nestling in the arms of the black mammy who had nursed him twenty odd years ago. He could hear the soft crooning of her dear old voice singing the child to sleep. The heart of the young father swelled with pride. ”

“ She couldn't remember the time she had not known and loved Tom. Love filled the universe, past, present and future. There was no task too hard for her hands, no danger she was not ready to meet. The hungry heart had found its own.
Through the long hours of the day she waited without impatience. Each tick of the tiny clock on the mantel brought him nearer. The hands couldn't turn back! She watched them with a smile as she sat in the gathering twilight. ”

“ Cleo made good her vow of perfect service. In the weeks which followed she made herself practically indispensable. Her energy was exhaustless, her strength tireless. She not only kept the baby and the little mother happy, she watched the lawn and the flowers. The men did no more loafing. The grass was cut, the hedges trimmed, every dead limb from shrub and tree removed and the old place began to smile with new life.
Her work of housekeeper and maid-of-all-work was a marvel of efficiency. No orders were ever given to her. ”

“ You've got to tell Tom that Helen is my daughter, and yours—his half sister! Now that they're in love with one another you've got to do it!"
Norton drew back in amazement:
"You mean to tell me that you don't know that they are married?"
With a cry of surprise and terror, the woman leaped to his side, her voice a whisper:
"Married? Who says they are married?"
"Tom has just said so."
"But they are not married!" she cried hysterically. "They can't marry!" ”

“ You keep only negro servants. I grow up with them, fall into their lazy ways, laugh at their antics and see life through their eyes, and now that my life touches theirs at a thousand points of contact, you tell me that we must live together and yet a gulf separates us! Why haven't you realized this before? If what you say about Helen is true, in God's name—I ask it out of a heart quivering with anguish—why haven't you realized it before? I demand an answer! I have the right to know! ”