THE
DAUGHTER, OF
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G. VERB
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THE DAUGHTER
OF A REBEL
A NOVEL
BY
G. VERB TYLER
NEW YORK
DUFFIELD & COMPANY
1913
COPYRIGHT, 1913
BY DUFFIELD & COMPANY
TO
MY MOTHER
THE SWEETEST VIRGINIAN
OF THEM ALL
2138502
CONTENTS
BOOK 1
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE GIRL I
II REBELLION 6
III OPPOSITION ii
IV VANISHING HOMESTEADS 24
V DREAMS UNVEILED 27
VI THE LOVER'S APPEAL 33
VII A PRODUCT OF WAR 39
VIII THE MOTHER 46
IX THE GRIM VISITOR 56
X THE MASTER IN THE HOUSE 59
XI CONFLICTING EMOTIONS 63
XII NEGRO HEROISM 68
XIII THE HISTORIC JAMES 80
XIV DISINTEGRATION 85
XV THE BATTLE 88
XVI THE FLOWER GIRL 101
XVII THE CURB BIT 107
XVIII RESTING ON CONVENTIONS 113
XIX A LIFE AT STAKE 119
XX THE FREEDMAN'S INHERITANCE 124
XXI LYNCH LAW 131
XXII HANDS ON THE BIBLE 135
XXIII A SACRIFICE REVEALED 138
XXIV STRUGGLES IN NEW CONDITIONS 142
XXV A MOCK CEREMONY 148
XXVI DESPERATE CHIVALRY 152
CONTENTS
CHAPTEB PAGE
XXVII THE LIGHTNING STRIKES 162
XXVIII BEYOND His TENSION 167
XXIX VISIONS OF THE OLD AND NEW 174
BOOK II
I A NIGHT ON WHEELS 187
II THE LOST SHEEP 193
III DANGERS OF FREEDOM 198
IV THE SKY-LIGHT ROOM 203
V BOARDING HOUSE LIFE 209
VI WET BLANKETS 216
VII THE UNEXPECTED VISITOR 225
VIII THE SOUTHERN ONLOOKER 232
IX SENTENCED TO CHAINS 236
X A SILENT PROTECTOR 244
XI THE COLONEL 246
XII FAILURE 252
XIII HALLUCINATIONS 256
XIV THE PLEA 264
XV THE HELPING HAND 266
XVI THE DREAM REALIZED 272
XVII A CLASHING OF WILLS 277
XVIII TEMPTATION 285
BOOK III
I VICTORY PROCLAIMED 297
II SILENT REMINDERS 303
III INTO THE FOLD 311
IV LOVE 319
BOOK I
The Daughter of a Rebel
CHAPTER I
THE GIRL
ON the third day of April in the year 1886, a girl
was seated at an old rickety table in her bare little
room, writing. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes
were bright. It was evident that she was much in
earnest.
The room was on the top floor of a small brick
house, and there were no comforts in it. The single
bed was hard and uninviting. The door of the wash-
stand was broken, as was also the spout of the pitcher.
There were dull-red, well-worn shades over the win-
dows, but no curtains. Save a narrow strip by the side
of the bed, the floor was carpetless. The mirror, that
reflected the girl as she sat writing, was blurred and
cracked. A Bible, an old album, and a vase con-
taining some pampas-grass, on another table, were the
only ornaments of the room. There was a small
rocker with an improvised seat of the selvages of flan-
nel, the original one having long since worn away.
A cheap clock ticked loudly in the center of a tall,
black-painted mantel-piece. The occupant was oblivi-
ous to her surroundings.
Page Warwick was a product of the Civil War.
Born when Virginia had scarcely caught her breath
from flash of gun and roar of cannon, she seemed one
of their sparks that would not expire.
A child of rare emotional nature, possessed of highly
2 THE DAUGHTER OF A REBEL
imaginative perceptions, she had fed upon tales of war,
its horror and despair, until these things and all they
suggested had become a part of her.
She had sat on the knees of ex-soldiers and listened ;
she had sat at the feet of her Mammy and listened ; she
had sat in the pews of the churches and listened;
she had sat at the firesides or on the porches of devas-
tated homes and listened. When she grew 1 older she
visited the places formerly used as hospitals for the
wounded and dying. She went to the graves of sol-
diers, in the soldiers' burying ground, and there with
the little wooden headpieces staring at her in straight
lines, lived over the tragic death of each one, as she
read the name, and when she came to one who was
nameless, she would feel her heart break.
She was distinctly a product of the Civil War. To
her it represented a tragedy such as had never been
enacted upon the earth. She saw no glory in it. The
picture was grewsome, hideous, with monuments of
despair on its pallid surface. All the music was fu-
neral drums. All the participants, martyrs. At night
when she would close her eyes to sleep they marched
single file before her, weary and blood-stained, or she
saw them en masse on the fields beneath the burning
sun or the cold moon, and sometimes she cried out.
When slavery was spoken of as a crime she thought
of this crime, and a half mad laugh would break from
her. When anyone spoke of the war being over, she
sneered and told of the wounded in heart who still
lived, of the half dead and alive victims as much a part
of it as the grave is of death.
She felt so intensely that she had never stopped to
think or attempt to reason. The impressions of her
childhood still controlled her. The name of Grant was
THE GIRL 3
associated in her mind with bloodshed. " Beast " But-
ler was to her a beast indeed, and she never thought of
him, except as she had seen him cartooned with horns.
All this was real and vital to her, and the fears of her
childhood continued to dominate her. " The Yankees
are coming " recalled to her the absolutely docile and
horror-struck obedience that the sentence filled her
with, when Mammy wanted to " scare " her to bed or
good behavior.
The house in which dwelt this imaginative emotional
young girl was the very poorest of her late father's
possessions. It was situated in an obscure street. It
had always been occupied by poor people. Sometimes
they paid rent, sometimes they didn't. Her father
never thought much about it. It was unimportant to
him; it was home to her. The rent was paid now,
it had to be because the pitiful sum was her only means
of support. The people she rented it to got it cheaper
by allowing her to keep a room on the top floor. She
tried eating with them as another mutual benefit, but
there were five children, molasses at every meal, and
the man ate in his shirt sleeves. It embarrassed them
and it was impossible to her.
It was her tenant, Mrs. Bartlett herself, who had ar-
ranged for her meals across the street with an old lady,
a Mrs. Stebbins, who took boarders. Mrs. Bartlett,
a young thing of twenty-seven, with five children and
bowed down by poverty like the rest, did this out of
kindness. She was always kind to Page. She never
failed to tell her to call on her if she was ever sick.
Page often wondered how often Mrs. Bartlett had
told her this. But she was never sick, she was always
well, and good, as she sometimes said disconsolately,
for a long life. Yes, Mrs. Bartlett was very good,
4 THE DAUGHTER OF A REBEL
goodness breathed forth from her whole hard-worked
little body.
Page wiped the tears from her eyes and fell to think-
ing of her. How strange it all was. She thought of
the house, the stiff, little parlor with a chair or two;
the etagere, the antiquated piano, the red plush album,
and herself up there above it all. As she thought, a
child's voice came up to her in a whining wail. It
was Sadie May's voice. Sadie May, the only girl and
the youngest child, was the idol of the house. She was
not a pretty child, and she looked stupid, like a little
doll dressed up, but much of the means of the family
were expended upon Sadie May, and the mother told
Page one day that if that child were to die it would be
her death as sure as there was a God in heaven. Page
knew that she meant it.
At times this home with Sadie May and all the rest
sickened her, and she would put on her hat and walk
by an old house, the real home, where they all lived
in the days before she was born, and gave dinners and
balls and parties and danced all night, and were happy.
It seemed to Page, when she heard those days recalled,
that there never could have been such happiness any-
where in all the world since it was created. It was
turned, the grand old house, into a hospital now; it
had met a fate equal to that of the descendants of those
who had lived in it, and yet she loved to go there and
look at it ; the sad staring windows seemed to gaze at
her with pathetic recognition. There was a rose-bush
in the yard that her grandmother had planted with
her own hands. The matron always sent her a bunch
of the first blooms. Her father's name was cut in
one of the pillars of the porch. He had played on that
porch when he was a little boy. Page had never played
THE GIRL 5
there it was gone, gone away from them before she
could remember. She had never known it except as a
hospital, but she went there very, very often. She
loved to see it when the flowers were blooming, or
when the moon was shedding its silver light upon it
tenderly, lovingly, just as it used to. Sometimes she
thought she could see her grandmother standing by
the old rose-bush guarding it, and she really believed
if it were cut down for some practical purpose, a
thunderbolt from heaven would be directed to the
spot.
CHAPTER II
REBELLION
ON this particular morning, this third day of April,
1886, she was particularly depressed. The pitiful sum
due weekly for her meals, which she took across the
way, had not been paid, and she had eaten little. She
was half hungry. Her thoughts were tragic, her mood
savage, yet gentle, and she was filled with exaggerated
self-pity and pity for those like her.
In these moods she always wrote, dipping the pen in
her own heart's blood, believing in a self-imposed duty
to express vital facts that every one should know about.
Through blinding tears that dripped upon the paper
in front of her, she continued to pour her passionate
thoughts, occasionally giving vent to a sob, occasion-
ally repressing one, the words flowing from her pen,
even as the tears flowed from her eyes.
Two years before she had written a little story that
included a description of a negro river-baptizing, and
it had been accepted for publication by a first-class
magazine.
The acceptance had been accompanied by a flattering
letter from the editor requesting her to submit other
contributions.
This incident had revolutionized her entire existence.
Her joy converted her into a creature with a brain on
fire and a pen always in her hand. From that day she
wrote without ceasing. She wrote of everything, the
war, before the war, after the war, the soldiers, her
6
REBELLION 7
relatives, her friends, the negroes and of inanimate
things as well. When her only pair of shoes wore out,
she wrote their history and pressed her lips to them
that they had served her for inspiration. She flashed
her brain upon common objects, converting everything
she saw into a wonder for her pen to describe. And
every single thing, after the first story that she wrote,
came back to her.
The effect upon her of continuous effort and con-
tinuous disappointment was at times maddening. She
grew sensitive and concealed the fact that she was
continuing to write, but she never ceased. She watched
for the postman, met him at the door, and when he
handed her the rejected manuscript, she would turn
giddy and reach her room in a half-conscious condi-
tion. Every time this occurred it caused her momen-
tary loss of courage and self-confidence.
Then it was that she would lock herself in her room,
open her trunk, take out her one printed story, with
the acceptance slip pinned to it, read both over again
to convince herself that her effort was not a mad
dream.
Not once did this little experience fail to kindle
within her a new excitement and renewed determina-
tion ; not once did it fail to repeat its message that she
could become an author. Did not the printed words
and the letter from the editor prove it? She would
take out the editor's letter, that was safely stored away
in a little pearl box that had belonged to her mother,
and read it the words she knew by heart all over
again.
Finally she laid down her pen, raised her head half
defiantly and faced herself in the old cracked mirror
opposite.
8 THE DAUGHTER OF A REBEL
The vision that met her gaze arrested her attention
and diverted it from her theme to herself. She cen-
tered upon the reflection, suddenly fascinated by her
own charms. She saw, as through a mist, a fair girl
with a lovely patrician face crowned in pale chestnut,
gold-tinted hair, beneath which glowed, sullen and ex-
cited, a pair of exquisitely expressive gray eyes. She
saw a beautiful mouth, slightly compressed, and she
knew that behind the crimson lips were two rows of
even white teeth firmly set. Beneath the compressed
and firmly set teeth she deliberately noted the sensitive
chin, tremulous, yet determined, and the full passionate
throat, around which was a faded ribbon that had
been washed, and beneath that a calico waist, also
faded. Her face paled and a half-bitter smile parted
the sullen mouth.
" That is I," she said aloud, " that poverty-stricken
creature is I, Page Warwick ! "
Suddenly there came to her, like an unexpected
flash of lightning in a clear sky, a thought that struck
and startled her. This thought had long hovered
about her brain, but had never dared enter it before.
It frightened her. If she could go away, free herself
of old conditions, be where she would not be dominated
by the opinions of others, where she could think more
freely, unhampered by the vigilant surveillance of her
elders and all the conventions that made up their and
her life, she could become an author in reality and in-
dependent.
It was a very bold thought, her teaching having been
that of any kind of independent existence on the part
of woman, any effort except attention to her household
duties was " unladylike."
She was a child of the old South that demanded of
REBELLION 9
its women acquiescence in and obedience to ordained
laws, no matter what they were. Action was for men,
not women. She tried to think of one woman who
had rebelled against conditions and taken an independ-
ent step and she could not recall one. Yet, the
thought had occurred to her, not only had it occurred,
but it was taking possession of her. She tried to ef-
face it by pushing back her hair and standing up. It
remained and she took her seat again but with a feel-
ing of helplessness. She was bound hand and foot,
and she knew it, a slave to the ideas of others ; and to
all that had been established by her forefathers since
Virginia had its birth. Two conflicting elements be-
gan to contend in her, pulling her different ways like
wild horses. As this thought of change of break-
ing way, pressed closer to her heart, her brain refused
it, shrieking at her old thoughts, old laws. She saw
this fierce battle and her excitement increased, till her
flushed face paled. Her heart fiercely demanding
change, at terrific odds with the dictates of her brain,
was not yet sufficiently liberated to join in her
rebellion. And she knew that her heart must fight its
battle with terrific odds against her while her brain
would daily be reinforced by an army that was legion.
Her sympathies went out to her heart and she almost
swore aloud allegiance to it, but was again attacked
by fright.
She looked about her, terrified at familiar inanimate
objects that might have detected her impulse in the
corners, under the bed, and through the open door,
for imaginary eyes and ears that might be upon her,
and all the while the desire was taking a fixed form.
She tried to fight it again and held her hands hard
pressed to the sides of her chair to keep herself steady,
io THE DAUGHTER OF A REBEL
but she knew that she had not succeeded did not
want to succeed.
At last there came over her a sense of guilt ; it was
the same feeling that takes possession of the soldier
in battle when, overcome by the horrors of the situa-
tion, he contemplates becoming a deserter.
CHAPTER III . <
OPPOSITION
SUDDENLY Page remembered that it was Wednes-
day.
Every Wednesday, rain or shine, a visit of respect
was paid to her Aunt Constance. Together they
looked over her bureau drawers, straightened them out,
and then sat together chatting.
Page loved her Aunt Constance with a deep and
abiding love. She had been a second mother to her,
but the laws of their existence and the regularity with
which they were enforced, wore upon her. For the
first time, however, she dreaded this visit. How to
confess to Aunt Constance how to leave Aunt Con-
stance! These two thoughts confronted her like pis-
tols leveled at her.
She knew that she was the light of her aunt's life,
the one bright light that had atoned for a lonely,
blighted existence.
She found her seated by the window, with hen
spectacles on, trying to make a wrapper out of an old
India shawl.
The room, unlike Page's, was large and deep, and,
as she did light housekeeping light indeed it was
a tall screen hid the washstand and little kitchen ar-
rangements. The family portraits, that she had clung
to through thick and thin, lined the high walls, and
some of them were very beautiful. Here she sat day
n
12
after day thinking of the past and communing with the
dead and gone. Her bed and bureau and wardrobe
were preserved, too, out of the wreck of her home, and
as though God willed it so, this distinguished lady had
a distinguished environment.
Imperiousness and reserve were as natural to her as
though some secret authority had been bestowed upon
her at birth. No matter what her circumstances were,
and they had been lowly and trying, it was as impos-
sible for her to appear ordinary as for the lightning-
stripped oak to appear weak. As a child, Page had
stood in awe of this lovely, dignified aunt, but all that
had now passed away and between the two was perfect
sympathy and understanding.
At present, Aunt Constance was doing the darning
and mending for a family of eight in exchange for her
room and for her breakfast, the only regular meal she
had, she washed the tea things. She was a pathetic
figure, this impoverished maiden lady, who had suf-
fered in proud silence every day since the war. It
was not the suffering, but the courage that made her
pathetic. She was but one of many. It was hard on
the younger ones like Page, who had to sit by and see
such as she, their old darlings, in want ; see them with-
out proper clothing, without proper food, and with
none of the little elegancies their hearts craved.
" Page," she said, when they had had a cup of tea
and some crackers, and the two, neither very skillfully,
were at work on the old wrapper, " is what I have
heard true? "
" What is that, Aunt Constance ? "
" That you are still shutting yourself up in your
room writing? "
" It is true, Aunt Constance ! "
OPPOSITION 13
" What are you writing about, my darling ? "
" I'm writing a tragedy, Aunt Constance I'm
writing a novel of the war ! "
Aunt Constance's gentle face clouded a moment.
" The war, Page," she said, " the real war will never
get into the books. Mortal pen could never handle it,
and you, what do you know about the war, my dear!
You weren't born until the war was over ! "
" I know the results of it," said Page gravely. " I
know what I see to-day ! "
" My dear," she exclaimed, " thank God the war is
over; let its horrors be buried."
" Aunt Constance," Page cried, " the war isn't over,
only a part of it is over. I know the battles are all
over, that those horrors are of the past ; that the blood
of our gallant brave, our darling soldiers, that soaked
the earth, has dried ; that the dying groans and shrieks
that rent the air, are silenced; that the sun no longer
blazes upon the faces of the dead, and that the snow
no longer falls and covers them! Yes, those horrors
of war are over! But there is another horror, an-
other battlefield, where white- faced soul-and-body-
starved survivors eke out a living death ! Aunt Con-
stance," she burst forth, " how can you say the war is
over? Is it over for you and me, and those like us,
who hardly have bread to eat is it over for Miss
Mildred Brockenborough, that sweet, timid, sensitive
old lady, who sits trembling at one corner of the table,
dependent for her bread on the daughter of a former
seamstress in her father's home, and who doesn't wear
a piece of clothing that isn't given out of charity? Is
it over for those of us who are selling ourselves as
wives to our inferiors ? Is it over for those delicate,
fragile girls who go out to work and are no more
14 THE DAUGHTER OF A REBEL
fitted for labor than canary birds ? Is it over for them
when their backs ache, and their tears flow, and when
they choose obscure streets to walk in to avoid meet-
ing their acquaintances, and when every breath they
draw is a breath of shame? Is it over for Mamie
Allison, working in a box factory? No! We are in
the midst of war war that is waged upon our souls
as well as bodies ! "
" Page," returned her aunt excitedly, " I am really
alarmed about you ! You are letting your imagination
run away with you! Our circumstances are pitiable
enough, I know, but don't, my dear child, paint the
picture worse than it is ! "
" The picture can't be worse than it is ! " cried Page,
" and what is going to become of us ? What is going
to become of me ? Am I to sell in a store like Judith
Harrison and fall off to a skeleton in six weeks and be
discharged for hiding from customers rather than
selling them? Am I going to be a governess at the
beck and call of parvenus, whose past inferiority will
revenge itself through me? Am I going on the stage
like little Molly Lou Carter and be stared at by a lot
of vulgar men ? It killed her. It might drive me mad
or I might kill someone. Am I going to keep a
boarding-house, I, who wouldn't know how to run my
own home unless Mammy came to live with me! "
" Page ! " exclaimed Aunt Constance in alarm, " you
exaggerate terribly ! You have a roof over your head
and enough to eat. Try to have more faith, my child.
You mustn't allow yourself to dwell on those things at
all!"
" I must dwell on them, Aunt Constance, for I mean
to tell the wprld about them ! " Tears sprang to the
luminous, excited eyes. " I have a wonderful picture
OPPOSITION 15
to present to the world! There will be many tears
shed over what I shall tell, and men and women will
scoff and sneer and condemn and disbelieve, but they
will not forget what I have told them. The charac-
ters, many of them, will stand up before them pale and
grewsome, but their eyes will burn into their callous
souls! I know of whom I am going to write; they
are marching single file this moment before my eyes!
I think I should write of these things ! I think every
one of us should record his or her impressions of our
vanishing South! We who can only form letters
should write; those of us who can paint should paint,
even though the results be but daubs or shadows of
the picture; embroiderers should learn to embroider
scenes that will go down to the future; the wood-
carver should make images on whatever work he does !
For my part, I want to write about us women! The
broken-down, heart-broken mothers, the old young
women, the sweet, sweet, maiden ladies, purer than
angels, the young girls, all poor, helpless, despairing
some patient, some impatient, we the robbed and the
bereft, in a condition ruthlessly imposed, a condition
the horrors of which have never been revealed. I am
mad to tell of these things. If I only told of you,
don't you think people would want to hear! Suppose
I told of your efforts since the war to help your sweet
self, those efforts that are more pitiful than your
failures ! Suppose I told how you taught little chil-
dren, kept house for the " poor white trash," who
treated you as a servant; how you sewed and em-
broidered and made pickles, and of what you are do-
ing now ! "
The girl's splendid eyes filled with tears. " There
are others like you, Aunt Constance, whose lives are
16 THE DAUGHTER OF A REBEL
poems, that if told should uplift the world and teach
of courage ! I want to tell these things I must ! I
feel impelled to ; I want everybody to know about us
we the living victims of war! We are history
everything about us is history ! You are history, this
old shawl," Page lifted it tragically in her hands, " is
history, and I must write this history, Aunt Constance
I've got to ! There seems to me something super-
latively grand and sublimely touching in it all ! "
She paused while a shudder that she controlled
quickly passed over her.
" I want, also," she burst forth again, " to write
about our poor colored people. Our dear old servants,
helpless as children, dragging wearily along a hopeless
road to the door of shame and despair. I read in the