The Voice of the People

Voice of the People, The

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Title: The Voice of the People
Author: Ellen Glasgow
Release Date: August 10, 2005 [EBook #16505]
Language: English
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
"THE DESCENDANT"
AND
"PHASES OF AN INFERIOR PLANET"
CROWNED MASTERPIECES OF MODERN FICTION

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The Voice of the People
BY
Ellen Glasgow

NEW YORK, DOUBLEDAY PAGE & COMPANY, 1904
Copyright, 1900, by ELLEN GLASGOW
Published September, 1902

TO REBE GORDON GLASGOW

THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

BOOK I
FAIR WEATHER AT KINGSBOROUGH

I
The last day of Circuit Court was over at Kingsborough.
The jury had vanished from the semicircle of straight-backed chairs in
the old court-house, the clerk had laid aside his pen along with his air
of listless attention, and the judge was making his way through the
straggling spectators to the sunken stone steps of the platform outside.

As the crowd in the doorway parted slightly, a breeze passed into the
room, scattering the odours of bad tobacco and farm-stained clothing.
The sound of a cow-bell came through one of the small windows, from
the green beyond, where a red-and-white cow was browsing among the
buttercups.
"A fine day, gentlemen," said the judge, bowing to right and left. "A
fine day."
He moved slowly, fanning himself absently with his white straw hat,
pausing from time to time to exchange a word of greeting--secure in the
affability of one who is not only a judge of man but a Bassett of
Virginia. From his classic head to his ill-fitting boots he upheld the
traditions of his office and his race.
On the stone platform, just beyond the entrance, he stopped to speak to
a lawyer from a neighbouring county. Then, as a clump of men
scattered at his approach, he waved them together with a bland,
benedictory gesture which descended alike upon the high and the low,
upon the rector of the old church up the street, in his rusty black, and
upon the red-haired, raw-boned farmer with his streaming brow.
"Glad to see you out, sir," he said to the one, and to the other, "How are
you, Burr? Time the crops were in the ground, isn't it?"
Burr mumbled a confused reply, wiping his neck laboriously on his red
cotton handkerchief.
"The corn's been planted goin' on six weeks," he said more distinctly,
ejecting his words between mouthfuls of tobacco juice as if they were
pebbles which obstructed his speech. "I al'ays stick to plantin' yo' corn
when the hickory leaf's as big as a squirrel's ear. If you don't, the luck's
agin you."
"An' whar thar's growin' corn thar's a sight o' hoein'," put in an alert,
nervous-looking countryman. "If I lay my hoe down for a spell, the
weeds git so big I can't find the crop."

Amos Burr nodded with slow emphasis: "I never see land take so
natural to weeds nohow as mine do," he said. "When you raise peanuts
you're raisin' trouble."
He was a lean, overworked man, with knotted hands the colour of the
soil he tilled and an inanely honest face, over which the freckles
showed like splashes of mud freshly dried. As he spoke he gave his
blue jean trousers an abrupt hitch at the belt.
"Dear me! Dear me!" returned the judge with absent-minded, habitual
friendliness, smiling his rich, beneficent smile. Then, as he caught sight
of a smaller red head beneath Burr's arm, he added: "You've a
right-hand man coming on, I see. What's your name, my boy?"
The boy squirmed on his bare, brown feet and wriggled his head from
beneath his father's arm. He did not answer, but he turned his bright
eyes on the judge and flushed through all the freckles of his ugly little
face.
"Nick--that is, Nicholas, sir," replied the elder Burr with an apologetic
cough, due to the insignificance of the subject. "Yes, sir, he's leetle, but
he's plum full of grit. He can beat any nigger I ever seed at the plough.
He'd outplough me if he war a head taller."
"That will mend," remarked the lawyer from the neighbouring county
with facetious intention. "A boy and a beanstalk will grow, you know.
There's no helping it."
"Oh, he'll be a man soon enough," added the