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 Journal of Autoimmunity xxx (xxxx) xxxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Autoimmunity
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jautimm

Review article

The epidemiology and pathogenesis of coronavirus disease (COVID-19)

outbreak
Hussin A. Rothana, Siddappa N. Byrareddyb,c,d,∗
a
Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA
b
Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience, University of Nebraska Medical Centre, Omaha, NE, USA
c
Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Anatomy, Omaha, NE, USA
d
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Nebraska Medical Centre, Omaha, NE, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is caused by SARS-COV2 and represents the causative agent of a potentially
Coronavirus fatal disease that is of great global public health concern. Based on the large number of infected people that were
COVID-19 exposed to the wet animal market in Wuhan City, China, it is suggested that this is likely the zoonotic origin of
Wuhan city COVID-19. Person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 infection led to the isolation of patients that were sub-
Pneumonia
sequently administered a variety of treatments. Extensive measures to reduce person-to-person transmission of
Pathogenesis
COVID-19 have been implemented to control the current outbreak. Special attention and efforts to protect or
reduce transmission should be applied in susceptible populations including children, health care providers, and
elderly people. In this review, we highlights the symptoms, epidemiology, transmission, pathogenesis, phylo-
genetic analysis and future directions to control the spread of this fatal disease.

1. Introduction cardiovascular disease [6]. These patients were presumed to be infected

in that hospital, likely due to nosocomial infection. It was concluded
Coronavirus is one of the major pathogens that primarily targets the that the COVID-19 is not a super-hot spreading virus (spread by one
human respiratory system. Previous outbreaks of coronaviruses (CoVs) patient to many others), but rather likely spread due to many patients
include the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV and the getting infected at various locations throughout the hospital through
Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-CoV which have been pre- unknown mechanisms. In addition, only patients that got clinically sick
viously characterized as agents that are a great public health threat. In were tested, thus there were likely many more patients that were pre-
late December 2019, a cluster of patients was admitted to hospitals with sumably infected. As of January 22, 2020, a total of 571 cases of the
an initial diagnosis of pneumonia of an unknown etiology. These pa- 2019-new coronavirus (COVID-19) were reported in 25 provinces
tients were epidemiologically linked to a seafood and wet animal (districts and cities) in China [7]. The China National Health Com-
wholesale market in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China [1,2]. Early reports mission reported the details of the first 17 deaths up to January 22,
predicted the onset of a potential Coronavirus outbreak given the es- 2020. On January 25, 2020, a total of 1975 cases were confirmed to be
timate of a reproduction number for the 2019 Novel (New) Coronavirus infected with the COVID-19 in mainland China with a total of 56 deaths
(COVID-19, named by WHO on Feb 11, 2020) which was deemed to be [8]. Another report on January 24, 2020 estimated the cumulative in-
significantly larger than 1 (ranges from 2.24 to 3.58) [3]. cidence in China to be 5502 cases [9]. As of January 30, 2020, 7734
The chronology of COVID-19 infections is as follows. The first cases cases have been confirmed in China and 90 other cases have also been
were reported in December 2019 [4]. From December 18, 2019 through reported from a number of countries that include Taiwan, Thailand,
December 29, 2019, five patients were hospitalized with acute re- Vietnam, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Japan, Singapore,
spiratory distress syndrome and one of these patients died[5]. By Jan- Republic of Korea, United Arab Emirates, United States, The Phi-
uary 2, 2020, 41 admitted hospital patients had been identified as lippines, India, Australia, Canada, Finland, France, and Germany. The
having laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection, less than half of these case fatality rate was calculated to be 2.2% (170/7824) [10]. The first
patients had underlying diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, and case of COVID-19 infection confirmed in the United States led to the

∗
Corresponding author. Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience Durham Research Center, 8047 985880 Nebraska Medical Center Omaha,
NE, 68198-5880, USA
E-mail addresses: hrothan@gsu.edu (H.A. Rothan), sid.byrareddy@unmc.edu (S.N. Byrareddy).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaut.2020.102433
Received 10 February 2020; Received in revised form 17 February 2020; Accepted 18 February 2020
0896-8411/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Hussin A. Rothan and Siddappa N. Byrareddy, Journal of Autoimmunity,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaut.2020.102433
H.A. Rothan and S.N. Byrareddy Journal of Autoimmunity xxx (xxxx) xxxx

description, identification, diagnosis, clinical course, and management

of this case. This includes the patient's initial mild symptoms at pre-
sentation and progression to pneumonia on day 9 of illness [11]. Fur-
ther, the first case of human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 was
reported in the US on January 30, 2020 (https://www.cdc.gov/media/
releases/2020/p0130). The CDC has so far screened > 30,000 passen-
gers arriving at US airports for the novel coronavirus. Following such
initial screening, 443 individuals have been tested for coronavirus in-
fection in 41 states in the USA. Only 15 (3.1%) were tested positive, 347
were negative and results on the remaining 81 are pending (https://
www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov). A report published in Nature
revealed that Chinese health authorities concluded that as of February
7, 2019, there have been 31,161 people who have contracted the in-
fection in China, and more than 630 people have died (http://www.
nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00154) of infection. At the time of
preparing this manuscript, the World Health Organisation (WHO) re-
ported 51,174 confirmed cases including 15, 384 severe cases and 1666
death cases in China. Globally, the number of confirmed cases as of this
writing (February 16, 2020) has reached 51,857 in 25 countries
(https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-
reports) (Fig. 1).

Fig. 2. The systemic and respiratory disorders caused by COVID-19 infection.

2. Symptoms The incubation period of COVID-19 infection is approximately 5.2 days. There
are general similarities in the symptoms between COVID-19 and previous be-
The symptoms of COVID-19 infection appear after an incubation tacoronavirus. However, COVID-19 showed some unique clinical features that
period of approximately 5.2 days [12]. The period from the onset of include the targeting of the lower airway as evident by upper respiratory tract
COVID-19 symptoms to death ranged from 6 to 41 days with a median symptoms like rhinorrhoea, sneezing, and sore throat. Additionally, patients
of 14 days [8]. This period is dependent on the age of the patient and infected with COVID-19 developed intestinal symptoms like diarrhoea only a
status of the patient's immune system. It was shorter among pa- low percentage of MERS-CoV or SARS-CoV patients exhibited diarrhoea.
tients > 70-years old compared with those under the age of 70 [8]. The
most common symptoms at onset of COVID-19 illness are fever, cough, admission, some of the cases show an infiltrate in the upper lobe of the
and fatigue, while other symptoms include sputum production, head- lung that is associated with increasing dyspnea with hypoxemia [17].
ache, haemoptysis, diarrhoea, dyspnoea, and lymphopenia [5,6,8,13]. Importantly, whereas patients infected with COVID-19 developed gas-
Clinical features revealed by a chest CT scan presented as pneumonia, trointestinal symptoms like diarrhoea, a low percentage of MERS-CoV
however, there were abnormal features such as RNAaemia, acute re- or SARS-CoV patients experienced similar GI distress. Therefore, it is
spiratory distress syndrome, acute cardiac injury, and incidence of important to test faecal and urine samples to exclude a potential al-
grand-glass opacities that led to death [6]. In some cases, the multiple ternative route of transmission, specifically through health care
peripheral ground-glass opacities were observed in subpleural regions workers, patients etc (Fig. 2) [15,16]. Therefore, development of
of both lungs [14] that likely induced both systemic and localized im- methods to identify the various modes of transmission such as feacal
mune response that led to increased inflammation. Regrettably, treat- and urine samples are urgently warranted in order to develop strategies
ment of some cases with interferon inhalation showed no clinical effect to inhibit and/or minimize transmission and to develop therapeutics to
and instead appeared to worsen the condition by progressing pul- control the disease.
monary opacities [14] (Fig. 2).
It is important to note that there are similarities in the symptoms
between COVID-19 and earlier betacoronavirus such as fever, dry 3. Pathogenesis
cough, dyspnea, and bilateral ground-glass opacities on chest CT scans
[6]. However, COVID-19 showed some unique clinical features that The severe symptoms of COVID-19 are associated with an increasing
include the targeting of the lower airway as evident by upper re- numbers and rate of fatalities specially in the epidemic region of China.
spiratory tract symptoms like rhinorrhoea, sneezing, and sore throat On January 22, 2020, the China National Health Commission reported
[15,16]. In addition, based on results from chest radiographs upon the details of the first 17 deaths and on January 25, 2020 the death

Figure 1. The chronological incidence of COVID-19 infections and death cases in China. Infections with COVID-19 appears in December 2019. At the time of
preparing this manuscript, February 16, 2020 there have been 51,174 people who have contracted the infection in China, and more than 1666 people have died.

2
H.A. Rothan and S.N. Byrareddy Journal of Autoimmunity xxx (xxxx) xxxx

cases increased to 56 deaths [8]. The percentage of death among the 5. Phylogenetic analysis
reported 2684 cases of COVID-19 was approximately 2.84% as of Jan
25, 2020 and the median age of the deaths was 75 (range 48–89) years World Health Organisation (WHO) has classified COVID-19 as a β
[8]. CoV of group 2B [23]. Ten genome sequences of COVID-19 obtained
Patients infected with COVID-19 showed higher leukocyte numbers, from a total of nine patients exhibited 99.98% sequence identity [19].
abnormal respiratory findings, and increased levels of plasma pro-in- Another study showed there was 99.8–99.9% nucleotide identity in
flammatory cytokines. One of the COVID-19 case reports showed a isolates from five patients and the sequence results revealed the pre-
patient at 5 days of fever presented with a cough, coarse breathing sence of a new beta-CoV strain [5]. The genetic sequence of the COVID-
sounds of both lungs, and a body temperature of 39.0 °C. The patient's 19 showed more than 80% identity to SARS-CoV and 50% to the MERS-
sputum showed positive real-time polymerase chain reaction results CoV [5,19], and both SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV originate in bats [24].
that confirmed COVID-19 infection [14]. The laboratory studies showed Thus, the evidence from the phylogenetic analysis indicates that the
leucopenia with leukocyte counts of 2.91 × 10^9 cells/L of which COVID-19 belongs to the genus betacoronavirus, which includes SARS-
70.0% were neutrophils. Additionally, a value of 16.16 mg/L of blood CoV, that infects humans, bats, and wild animals [25].
C-reactive protein was noted which is above the normal range COVID-19 represents the seventh member of the coronavirus family
(0–10 mg/L). High erythrocyte sedimentation rate and D-dimer were that infects humans and has been classified under the orthocoronavir-
also observed [14]. The main pathogenesis of COVID-19 infection as a inae subfamily. The COVID-19 forms a clade within the subgenus sar-
respiratory system targeting virus was severe pneumonia, RNAaemia, becovirus [25]. Based on the genetic sequence identity and the phylo-
combined with the incidence of ground-glass opacities, and acute car- genetic reports, COVID-19 is sufficiently different from SARS-CoV and it
diac injury [6]. Significantly high blood levels of cytokines and che- can thus be considered as a new betacoronavirus that infects humans.
mokines were noted in patients with COVID-19 infection that included The COVID-19 most likely developed from bat origin coronaviruses.
IL1-β, IL1RA, IL7, IL8, IL9, IL10, basic FGF2, GCSF, GMCSF, IFNγ, IP10, Another piece of evidence that supports the COVID-19 is of bat origin is
MCP1, MIP1α, MIP1β, PDGFB, TNFα, and VEGFA. Some of the severe the existence of a high degree of homology of the ACE2 receptor from a
cases that were admitted to the intensive care unit showed high levels diversity of animal species, thus implicating these animal species as
of pro-inflammatory cytokines including IL2, IL7, IL10, GCSF, IP10, possible intermediate hosts or animal models for COVID-19 infections
MCP1, MIP1α, and TNFα that are reasoned to promote disease severity [20]. Moreover, these viruses have a single intact open reading frame
[6]. on gene 8, which is a further indicator of bat-origin CoVs. However, the
amino acid sequence of the tentative receptor-binding domain re-
sembles that of SARS-CoV, indicating that these viruses might use the
4. Transmission same receptor [5].

Based on the large number of infected people that were exposed to 6. Therapeutics/treatment options
the wet animal market in Wuhan City where live animals are routinely
sold, it is suggested that this is the likely zoonotic origin of the COVID- The person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 infection led to the
19. Efforts have been made to search for a reservoir host or inter- isolation of patients that were administered a variety of treatments. At
mediate carriers from which the infection may have spread to humans. present, there are no specific antiviral drugs or vaccine against COVID-
Initial reports identified two species of snakes that could be a possible 19 infection for potential therapy of humans. The only option available
reservoir of the COVID-19. However, to date, there has been no con- is using broad-spectrum antiviral drugs like Nucleoside analogues and
sistent evidence of coronavirus reservoirs other than mammals and also HIV-protease inhibitors that could attenuate virus infection until
birds [10,18]. Genomic sequence analysis of COVID-19 showed 88% the specific antiviral becomes available [7]. The treatment that have so
identity with two bat-derived severe acute respiratory syndrome far been attempted showed that 75 patients were administrated existing
(SARS)-like coronaviruses [19,20], indicating that mammals are the antiviral drugs. The course of treatment included twice a day oral ad-
most likely link between COVID-19 and humans. Several reports have ministration of 75 mg oseltamivir, 500 mg lopinavir, 500 mg ritonavir
suggested that person-to-person transmission is a likely route for and the intravenous administration of 0·25 g ganciclovir for 3–14 days
spreading COVID-19 infection. This is supported by cases that occurred [26]. Another report showed that the broad-spectrum antiviral re-
within families and among people who did not visit the wet animal mdesivir and chloroquine are highly effective in the control of 2019-
market in Wuhan [13,21]. Person-to-person transmission occurs pri- nCoV infection in vitro. These antiviral compounds have been used in
marily via direct contact or through droplets spread by coughing or human patients with a safety track record. Thus, these therapeutic
sneezing from an infected individual. In a small study conducted on agents can be considered to treat COVID-19 infection [27]. Further-
women in their third trimester who were confirmed to be infected with more, there are a number of other compounds that are in development.
the coronavirus, there was no evidence that there is transmission from These include the clinical candidate EIDD-2801 compound that has
mother to child. However, all pregnant mothers underwent cesarean shown high therapeutic potential aganist seasonal and pandemic in-
sections, so it remains unclear whether transmission can occur during fluenza virus infections and this represents another potential drug to be
vaginal birth. This is important because pregnant mothers are relatively considered for the treatment of COVID-19 infection [28]. Along those
more susceptible to infection by respiratory pathogens and severe lines, until more specific therapeutics become available, it is reasonable
pneumonia (https://www.thelancet.com, DOI:https://doi.org/10. to consider more broad-spectrum antivirals that provide drug treatment
1016/S0140-6736(20)30360-3). options for COVID-19 infection include Lopinavir/Ritonavir, Neur-
The binding of a receptor expressed by host cells is the first step of aminidase inhibitors, peptide (EK1), RNA synthesis inhibitors. It is clear
viral infection followed by fusion with the cell membrane. It is reasoned however, that more research is urgently needed to identify novel che-
that the lung epithelial cells are the primary target of the virus. Thus, it motherapeutic drugs for treating COVID-19 infections. In order to de-
has been reported that human-to-human transmissions of SARS-CoV velop pre-and post-exposure prophylaxis against COVID-19, there is an
occurs by the binding between the receptor-binding domain of virus urgent need to establish an animal model to replicate the severe disease
spikes and the cellular receptor which has been identified as angio- currently observed in humans. Several groups of scientists are currently
tensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor [20,22]. Importantly, the working hard to develop a nonhuman primate model to study COVID-
sequence of the receptor-binding domain of COVID-19 spikes is similar 19 infection to establish fast track novel therapeutics and for the testing
to that of SARS-CoV. This data strongly suggests that entry into the host of potential vaccines in addition to providing a better understanding of
cells is most likely via the ACE2 receptor [20]. virus-host interactions.

3
H.A. Rothan and S.N. Byrareddy Journal of Autoimmunity xxx (xxxx) xxxx

7. Future directions to control the spread of the disease novel coronavirus causing severe pneumonia in human: a descriptive study, Chinese
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[4] A. Du Toit, Outbreak of a novel coronavirus, Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 18 (123) (2020), [29] Y.H. Jin, L. Cai, Z.S. Cheng, H. Cheng, T. Deng, Y.P. Fan, et al., A rapid advice
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4
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the dark waters of some deep lake.
“Did she ever tell you so?”
“Y-e-e-e-es,” replied she, doubtfully.
“Mr. Whacker, I assure you,” began Lucy, choking with mortification,
“I—”
“I forgive, though I can never forget—”
“But—”
“St!” whispered Alice; “it is as good as a play!”
“But, Alice, it’s a most outrageous—”
“Never mind,—listen!”
Meantime, we had lost a few sentences of the colloquy, which
seemed to be affording intense amusement to the Stranger.
“But what did she say?” were the first words we caught.
“She said,” began the little thing, gesticulating with her hands and
rolling her eyes,—speaking, in fact, with her whole body,—“sister
Lucy, she said—”
“Well.”
“Sister Lucy, she said Mr. Whacker was mighty fat, but he was right
pretty.”
Imagine the scene behind the curtains! The trouble was that Lucy,
who was as truthful as Epaminondas, could not deny having paid
me, in substance, this two-edged compliment. So she could only
bury her face in her hands. As for the Stranger, he actually laughed
aloud.
“But do ladies always love pretty men?”
“Why, yes; I love my sweetheart, and he is pretty.”
“Your sweetheart! Have you a sweetheart?”
“Yes,” replied she, with decision and complacency.
“What’s his name?”
“I can’t tell you!”
“Do, now.”
“Oh, I can’t!” And she dropped her cheek on her off shoulder and
shut her eyes.
“Say, do you like candy?”
“Yes,” said she, eagerly wheeling round; “where is it?”
“Never mind. If you will tell me, I will bring you some to-morrow.”
“What’s in that paper? I ’spec’ it’s candy, right now!”
“No,” said he, smiling; “but I will bring you some to-morrow if you
will tell me.”
She stuck a finger into her mouth and hung her head.
“Red candy,” began he, “and blue candy,” he continued, nodding his
head up and down, between the varieties, with a sort of pantomimic
punctuation, “and green candy—”
Wide-eyed delight and a half-smile of eager expectation illumined
the face of the little tempted one.
“And yellow candy, and—let me see—and striped candy, and
speckled candy—and—and—and—ALL SORTS OF CANDY!”
She clasped her hands and drew a long breath.
“Will you?”
The infant that hesitates is lost.
“And tied up in most beautiful paper—”
“You won’t tell Mr. Whacker?”
“No, never!!!”
In an instant the little creature had sprung towards him, seized his
head, pulled it down, pressed her lips against his ear, shot the
momentous name therein and bounded back.
“There! Give me the candy!”
“I said I should get it to-morrow. But I didn’t hear a word. Tell me
over again. There,—whisper it in my ear. Willie? Willie what?” said
he, drawing her towards him. “Ah, that is the name, is it?”
We did not hear the name, and I must suppose it was that of some
near neighbor of her father’s.
“Now, don’t tell Mr. Whacker!”
“No,” replied the stranger; but he had heard her with the outward
ear only. He sat, with drawn lids, gazing upon the pavement, and
softly biting his nails, as though solving some problem. His lips
seemed to move; and every now and then he looked, out of the
corners of his eyes, at his little companion. At last he slowly rose,
but stood motionless, with eyes fixed upon the ground.
“Oh, don’t go!” cried she, her fair, upturned face wearing a beautiful
expression of infantile affection.
And here our mysterious friend had another surprise in store for us.
For, when he saw that look, a startled expression came into his face;
and leaning forward, he scrutinized her features with a gaze so
searching that there was a kind of glare in his eyes,—so that the
little girl dropped her eyes and drew back, as though with a feeling
of dread. But the Unknown suddenly sat down beside her, and,
taking one of her hands in both his, patted it softly, and, in a voice
tender as that of a young mother, asked, “But what is your name,
my little cherub?”
“My name is Laura. Let’s make another house—oh, no, let’s make a
boat!”
“Not now. But Laura what? What is your other name?”
“My name is Laura Poythress.”
“Laura Poythress!”
He bowed his broad shoulders till his face was almost on a level with
hers, and scanning her features intently: “Laura Poythress, Laura
Poythress,” repeated he, to himself; “and Lucy, too! and Whacker!”
We looked at each other with wide eyes.
Again the stranger rose; this time with nervous abruptness, and took
a few rapid turns up and down the pavement, close to little Laura;
then walking quickly up to her, and stooping down, he asked her, in
an eager whisper, “Have you any mother?”
“Yeth,” replied she, with a simple little laugh, “of courth; evvybody’th
dot a muvver!”
He seemed to avert his face when she laid down this generalization;
nor could we, from our position, see his expression. “Yes,” said he;
and was silent for a while. “What is your mother’s name?”
“My mother’s name is Mumma.”
“But what is her real sure-enough name?”
“Her name is Mumma,” repeated she, with emphasis. “Oh, my
mother’s got two names. She is named Mumma and she is named
Mrs. Poythress.”
“Ah, yes; but what does your father call her?”
“My papa calls my mumma my dear; oh, and sometimes he calls her
‘honey,’—because she is so sweet.”
“Does he ever call her—let me see—does he ever call her Polly?”
“Oh, me, the idea!” cried she, raising her hands and eyes in infantile
pity of his ignorance. “Why, that’s Aunt Polly’s name!”
“So your Aunt Polly is named Polly, is she?”
“No, she ain’t! Aunt Polly is named Aunt Polly. She is our cook at our
house, she is.”
“She is your cook, is she? And what does she call your mother?”
“Mistiss.”
Just then the mulatto barber, passing by, doffed his hat to the
gentleman; and Dolly, the nurse, left alone, bethought her of her
charge. Coming up, she dropped a courtesy to the Stranger, and told
Laura it was time she were within doors.
“Good-by, Laura,” said the Unknown, taking her plump little hand in
his; “won’t you give me a kiss? Ah, that’s a good little girl! One
more! And another! Ah!” And he patted her cheek. “Good-by!”
“Dood-by!”
 CHAPTER III.

We looked at each other, and, although two-thirds of us were girls,

several seconds passed without a word being spoken.
“Oh, here comes Mary!” And, looking across the way, I saw Mary
Rolfe briskly tripping down the steps of her father’s residence. Away
scampered Alice and Lucy into the hall; not to unlock the front door
for Mary, for that, Richmond-fashion, stood wide open; but impelled
by that instinctive conviction, never entirely absent from the female
breast, that life is short. I followed with all the dignity of a fledgling
counsellor-at-law, and possible future supreme justice.
The three met on the sidewalk and it began,—Eurus, Zephyrusque
Notusque.
All nature is one. Remove the plug from a basin and see how the
water, instead of pouring straight out in a business-like way, spins
round and round, just as though it knew you were late for breakfast.
Behold, too, the planets in their courses. And as in a tornado, which
whirls along through field and forest, across mountain-chain and
valley, around its advancing storm-centre, so in one of those lesser
atmospheric disturbances set up by the conversation, or rather
contemporaneousversation, of three or four girls just met
(impossible though it be, in the present state of our knowledge, to
determine in advance the precise location of their area of lowest
barometric pressure), it is clear, even to the eye, that the movement
of the girls themselves is cyclonic. And, further, just as, in a storm,
the area of highest barometer is found to be occupied by a more or
less tranquil atmosphere, so you shall find that the centre of a
contemporancousversation always moves forward around a listener,
—some weakling of a girl, with a bronchitis, perhaps, or, in rare
cases, a stammerer. And again, just as a body of air, itself capable of
levelling houses and uprooting trees, may be forced into quiescence
by its environment of storm, so may a really worthy girl, not
otherwise inferior, be reduced to silence by despair.
This, in fact, was the case with Lucy in the present instance. As the
lovely human cyclone, whose outward sign was a world of fluttering
ribbons and waving flounces, came whirling up the steps, through
the hall, and into the parlor, it was obvious that she was the pivot
around which it revolved.
In plain English, she found it impossible to get in a word.
It appears that Mary had seen, from her window, the Unknown, and
watched his strange performances till he was gone. She had not
seen us at our window, and tripping across the street to tell her dear
Alice what a singular man she had seen sitting on her carriage-block,
and talking with Laura, she had found that Alice had seen and heard
more than she. And so, with that instinctive dread of loss of time so
characteristic of the sex, they both, when they met on the sidewalk,
began talking at once. They began talking to each other; but soon,
their words, in obedience to that law of which Mr. Herbert Spencer
makes so much (that moving bodies always follow the line of least
resistance), began flowing into Lucy’s ears. Not that Mary took
possession of one ear, Alice of the other. Rather did they, in
obedience to law, revolve around her, as the earth around the sun,
the moon round the earth, water round its exit, pouring their tidings
into either organ with impartial eagerness.
It may excite wonder among my male readers that Alice should have
told Lucy things that she knew the latter had seen with her own
eyes. But this would be hardly putting the case fairly, as her remarks
were couched rather in the form of exclamatory comments than of
pure narrative. The male reader, again (would that there were no
such dull animals in the world!), must be warned not to suppose
that Alice and Mary were rude in talking simultaneously. It is
discourteous, oh, crass mortal, for one man to interrupt another; but
where a party of girls are met together, it will be found that the
words of each, though many, are no impediment, but a stimulus,
rather, to those of the rest.
Like swallows at eventide, circling around some village chimney, the
more of them in the air at once, the more merrily do they flit.
And it will be found, too, that no matter how many have been
talking at once, each will have heard what all have said.
It is when I contemplate this well-known phenomenon that my
wonder daily grows that no allusion has ever been made to this
acknowledged superiority of the female over the male homo, by
what are called the woman-women, in their annual pow-wows in the
interest of their sex. Cropped-haired woman after cropped-haired
woman will arise, reinforced, here and there, by some mild-eyed
male, o’er whose sloping shoulders soft ringlets cluster, and the
burden of the plaint of she-he and he-she, alike, will be only that
woman is unjustly excluded by man from this employment or that
privilege, for which she is as well fitted as he. They seem to me to
forget that Hannibal was not overcome till Africa was invaded; and
they will never advance their cause till they find some female Seipio
to put man upon the defensive, and aggressively insist that the real
question is not whether she is capable of becoming lawyer,
physician, preacher, but whether he is, or, at any rate, will be, in the
re-fashioned world which is coming, fit for any avocation whatever.
Let us take the legal profession for an example. Excluding the male
lawyer of the period, as an interested witness, who can fail to see
how much would be gained were our judges, our counsel, and our
jurymen all women? As things actually stand, the law’s delay has
passed into a proverb. But what delay could there be in a trial
wherein all the witnesses could be examined simultaneously, without
a word being lost on the jury; where the learned (and lovely)
counsel could sum up side by side (like a pair of well-matched
trotters), neither of them getting in the first word, neither (what
fairness!) being allowed the last? Again. Instead of a drowsy Bench,
hearing nothing, seeing nothing, you would have an alert Sofa,
capable of lending one ear to the plaintiff’s counsel, one to the
defendant’s; taking in, with one eye, every convolution of the jury’s
back-hair (should such things be), while with the other, she—the
Court—estimated the relative good looks of the litigants, preparatory
to instructing the jury and laying down the law. And so of the other
professions, did space allow.
But this is not the worst of the matter. Already have advanced
thinkers begun dimly to see that, with the approaching extinction of
war, the time will come when courage will be worse than useless;
while, in the rapid multiplication of labor-saving machinery, there is
discernible the inevitable approach of an era when superior strength
will be a disadvantage. For is not strength assimilated food? And in
the Struggle for Existence will not She, requiring less food, and
being therefore Fittest, survive? So that, with Seer’s eye, I seem to
behold the day when my sex, excluded from every avocation, shall
perish from off the face of that earth over which we have so long
and so haughtily lorded.
The truth is, my dear lad (would that you were a girl!), I shudder
when I think of your fate and that of your brother males, three
hundred years from now. Preserved here and there in the zoological
gardens of the wealthy and the curious, along with rare specimens
of the bison of the prairie, skeletons of the American Indian and the
dodo; exhibited in mammoth moral shows, and meeting the stare of
the unnumbered female of the period with a once wicked, but now,
alas! futile wink, you will rue the day when your ancestors, mistaking
might for right, excluded woman from that haven of rest, the ballot-
box. Why, it was but the other day that I saw a boy with a basketful
of pups, which he was going to drown; and on my asking him why
he condemned them to this fate, he answered, in the simplest way,
“Oh, they are nothing but she’s.”
Yet we are never tired of boasting of our nineteenth century!
How the world is to be kept wagging when once the custom is
established of drowning all the boy-babies (except specimens for
menageries and preserves), is a problem for the science of the
future. It suffices that I have recorded my views upon this burning
question.
And upon this plank of my platform you, my grand-son-to-the-tenth-
power, will, I trust, be allowed to float by the womankind of your
day, in remembrance of my gallant defence of their rights in mine.
Yes, yes, you will be one of the elect and undrowned!
 CHAPTER IV.

“Oh!” cried Alice, springing up from the piano-stool. “But, Mary, I

have not told you that he was the identical man who lifted me up
the other day when I fell in the street.”
“You don’t tell me so!”
“Yes, indeed, the very man; and, strangest of all, he seemed to
know something about us, or at least about Lucy and Mr. Whacker.”
And she related the strange doings and sayings of the Unknown just
previous to the close of his interview with Laura.
“How very provoking,” cried Mary, impatiently, “that I should have
been prevented from dining with you girls by the arrival of that
stupid old cousin William, as mother will persist in calling him,
though, in my opinion, he is about as nearly related to us as the
man in the moon! Pshaw!” And she stamped her foot.
“Yes, indeed, I am too sorry. Why, Mary, it would have done”—and
her irrepressible eyes began to twinkle—“for a scene in that novel
which—”
“Now, Alice—” began Mary, reddening.
“Which I am thinking of writing,” continued Alice, innocently. “Why,
what’s the matter?”
“Oh!”
“Is Mary writing a novel?” asked Lucy, with eager interest; for she
remembered that she had been always regarded as the genius of
the school.
“I spoke of the novel which I was writing,” persisted Alice.
“Yes, but—”
“It is a maxim of the common law, Miss Lucy,” remarked the learned
counsel, with ponderous gravity, “that all shall be held innocent till
proven guilty. But should novel-writing ever be made (as seems
inevitable) a statutory offence, I hold it as probable that this ruling
will be reversed, and the presumption of the law adjudged, in the
present state of literature, to lie the other way,—in plain English,
that the onus probandi innocentiam would be held to rest upon the
prisoner at the bar.”
The two other girls laughed, but Mary rewarded my diversion in her
support with a grateful smile.
“To think I should have missed it!”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Come over and dine with us to-morrow, and
you will have a chance of seeing him.”
“How is that?” asked Mary, with dancing eyes.
“Why, he has promised to bring Laura some candy to-morrow
evening, and we can all have another look at him.”
“Oh, I wonder if he will come?” cried Mary, despondingly.
“I have no doubt of it, for he seems in some strange way as much
interested in us as we in him. At any rate, you will dine with us. Mr.
Whacker will of course do likewise.”
The reader will please imagine the dinner in question over, the three
young ladies eagerly watching, up and down the street, through the
slats of the closed Venetian blinds, while Mrs. Carter and myself, too
dignified to manifest our curiosity so clearly, held ourselves in the
rear as a sort of reserve. Laura, our little decoy, was trotting,
meanwhile, from room to room, singing and babbling; having, in
fact, entirely forgotten the Stranger and his promise. It had been
decided in a council of war not to remind her of it till our man was
seen approaching, when she was to be sent out in a casual way to
intercept him.
“Gracious, here he is!” exclaimed all three of the girls at once.
“Where is Laura?”
“Laura! Laura! Laura!” cried Alice, in a suppressed voice. “Mother!
Mr. Whacker! somebody bring Laura, please.”
It appears that the Unknown, instead of making his approach by
way of Leigh Street, as we somehow expected, had suddenly turned
into that thoroughfare from the cross-street. The girls from their
position commanded a view of this cross-street for some distance,
looking towards the south, as the Carters’ residence was but one
remove from the corner. Strange to say, however, the gentleman
emerged into Leigh Street from the north, as though returning from
a walk in the country, and thus came upon the girls without warning.
The reserves, forgetting their dignity, scampered off in their search
for Laura. She, meanwhile, ignorant of her importance, was sitting in
the back yard, building mounds upon a pile of sand that lay there,
and before she could be found the stranger had passed. He turned
and looked back several times, and when he reached the end of the
block he stopped, and, turning, looked for some time in our
direction. Meanwhile, I, having secured the little truant, was hurrying
to the front, while Mrs. Carter, plump and jovial soul, was not far
behind me.
“Make haste! make haste!” cried Alice, who, with Mary, had in her
impatience found her way into the hall. “Make haste, or he will be
gone. Come, Laura, the gentleman with the candy is out there.
There, quick!” she added, with a little push; and Laura trotted out
with pleased alacrity.
“Too late!” sighed Lucy from behind the shutters, where she had
been placed for purposes of safe observation. “Too late! he has
moved on.”
 CHAPTER V.

That evening, as I bade the family good-night, after with some

difficulty escaping from Mrs. Carter’s urgent invitation to dine with
them again next day, I agreed to call immediately after dinner, so as
to be on hand should the Stranger, as we thought likely, return in
search of Laura. Nor were we disappointed; and this time, warned
by the failure of the preceding day, we had kept Laura well in hand;
so that she was ready on the front steps as he was passing.
The two friends smiled as their eyes met.
“Where is it?” asked she, a sudden cloud of anxiety veiling her
young face,—for, with those of her age, not seeing is not believing.
“Never mind!” said he, tapping his breast-pocket with a knowing air;
and she hurried down the steps as best she could.
He unbuttoned his coat and slowly inserted his hand into his breast-
pocket.
“Pull it out!” cried she.
“I feel something!” said he, with mystery in his tones.
“Yes!” answered she, skipping about with clasped hands.
“What is it?” And there was a rattling, as of stiff paper, down in the
depths of his pocket.
“Candy!” cried she, with a shout, capering higher than ever.
He withdrew the package from his pocket with a slowness which
made her dance with impatience; opened one end, peeped into it
cautiously, and gave her a beaming look of delighted surprise.
“Let me look, too!” cried she; and he held it down. She, peeping in,
returned his look of surprised delight.
What would life be without its fictions!
“It’s candy!” cried she; and seizing the package, and putting a piece
into her mouth, she made for the steps.
“Why, where are you going?”
“I am going to show my candy to sister Lucy,” replied she,
munching.
“Won’t you give me a piece?”
“Yes,” replied she, toddling back with alacrity. “Don’t take a big
piece,” cautioned she, when she saw him examining the contents of
the precious package. “Take a little piece.”
The stranger smiled. “Laura,” said he, “there is a good deal of
human nature in man; don’t you think so?”
“Yeth, ma’am,” replied she, abstractedly; with one hand thrusting
into her mouth a second piece, while with the other she reached
down into the bag for a third. “You seem to like candy?”
“Yeth, I doeth,” without looking up.
“Come,” said he, taking the package and closing it; “if you eat it all,
you won’t have any to show your sister Lucy; besides, it will make
you sick.”
“Candy don’t never make me sick. I can show sister Lucy the booful
bag what the candy came in. Where is the speckled candy?”
“Oh, the man didn’t have any.”
“If he has any, another to-morrow, will you make him send me
some?”
“Oh, yes; but let’s talk a little.”
“May I have another little piece?”
“There! So you are the little girl who doesn’t know what her
mother’s name is?”
“Yes, I does; my mother’s name is named Laura. My mother is
named the same as me. My name is Laura, too.”
Our coaching had told.
“So your mother’s name is Laura, is it?” And the stranger nodded his
head slowly up and down. “And where is your mother now?”
“She is at our house.”
“And where is your house?”
“Our house is where my mother is. There is a river where our house
is. Don’t you like to sail in a boat on a river? I’m going to take
another piece.” And with a roguish, though hesitating smile, she
began to insert her dimpled hand into the bag.
The stranger was looking upon the ground, and heeded neither the
smile nor the movement against the bag.
“Where do you go in your boat?”
She mentioned the name of a neighbor of my grandfather’s, across
the river from her home.
“And where else?”
Another of our neighbors. The stranger repeated the two names
with satisfaction.
“And where else?”
He never once lifted his eyes from the pavement; and there was a
sort of suppressed eagerness in his voice that thrilled us all with a
strange excitement, we knew not why.
“We sail in our boat to see Uncle Tom.” [Many of the young people in
our neighborhood called my grandfather by this name.]
“Oh, you mean your Uncle Tom—let me see,”—and a faint smile
illumined his face,—“you mean your Uncle Tom—Mulligins?”
“No-o-o-o! Minty-pepper ain’t dood. It stings my mouf.”
“Ah, yes, I know,—you sail in your boat to—see—your—Uncle Tom—
Higginbotham.”
Perhaps she dimly perceived that he was drolling; at any rate, she
doubled herself up with an affected little laugh.
“No, I will tell you,” said he, raising his eyes to her face,—“it is your
Uncle Tom Whacker.”
The audience half rose from their seats. “Why, who can he be?”
exclaimed Mrs. Carter.
“Yes, that’s his right name,—Uncle Mr. Whacker. I calls him Uncle
Tom. He is a hundred years old, I reckon. My sister loves Mr. Uncle
Whacker some, but she loves Mr.—Mr.—Mr. Fat Whacker the most.”
[Sensation!]
As this is the second remark of this character on Laura’s part that I
have recorded, it is high time that I explained that the idea had
naturally enough arisen in her mind from hearing Mary and Alice
rally her sister upon the increased frequency of my visits to the
Carters’ since her arrival in town.
“Do you love me some?”
“Yes, I loves you a heap!”
“And I loves you a heap, too,” said he; and stooping, he kissed her
several times. “And now I suppose you had better run in and show
your candy to your sister Lucy.”
“All wight!” said she; and she toddled off.
 CHAPTER VI.

The morning following these occurrences, and for several days

thereafter, I had occasion to be absent from town. Calling at the
Carters’ on the evening of my return, I found that the daily visits of
the mysterious stranger had not been interrupted. There was,
however, nothing of special interest to report. The interviews with
Laura had been short, and marked only by the invariable production
of the package of candy. When I expressed fears for that young
lady’s digestion, I learned that, owing to a like solicitude, the girls
had shared the danger with Laura so magnanimously that her health
was in no immediate peril.
“Here are still some of the remains of to-day’s spoil,” said Alice,
handing me a collapsed package.
“Well,” said I, “now that you have seen him so often, what do you
think of him? What are your theories?”
“There are as many opinions as there are girls,” said Mrs. Carter.
“What is mine? Well, I should suppose that I was too old to express
an opinion upon such romantic affairs. But one thing I will say, he is
undoubtedly a gentleman.”
“Oh, thank you, mamma!” cried Alice, running up to her mother and
kissing her on the check with what the French call effusion,—“thank
you!”
“And what are you up to now, Rattle-brain?” asked her mother,
looking at her daughter with a smile full of affectionate admiration.
“You see, Mr. Whacker,” said Alice, turning to me with earnest gravity
in her eyes, under which their irrepressible twinkle could have been
discernible only to those who knew her well,—“you see I have been
in love with him ever since I first saw him, and I infer from mamma’s
remark that should anything ever come of it, I should find in her an
ally.”
“Well, we shall see,” said her mother, laughing. “And what does Miss
Mary think of him?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you,” promptly began Alice. “Mary, who is, you know, of
a very romant—”
“Suppose, Miss Chatterbox, you will be so good,” interrupted her
mother, “as to let Mary speak for herself.”
“’Tis ever thus,” sighed Alice, pouting, “never allowed to open my
poor little mouth!”
“I give you permission now,” said Mary. “Tell Mr. Whacker, if you
know, what I think of the Don.”
“The who?”
“The Don; that’s what we call him.”
“What! is he a Spaniard?”
“Not at all. You must know, we put Laura up to asking him his name,
and she brought back the drollest one imaginable,—‘Don Miff.’ Think
of it! But of course Laura got it all wrong; that could not be any
human being’s name,—of course not.”
“The Don part of it,” broke in Alice, “has confirmed Mary in her
previously entertained opinion that he was a nobleman of some sort
travelling incog.; it would be so novelly, you know; though what
good it could do her I cannot conceive, even were it so, for it was I
who ‘sighted’ him first; it was I to whom he first offered his hand;
mark that! it was I who first fell in love with him; and I wish it
distinctly understood that as against the present company”—and she
made a sweeping courtesy—“he—is—MINE!”
“I waive all my rights,” said I.
“Yes; but I don’t know how it will be with these girls, particularly
Mary; for Mary is, in my opinion, already infatuated,—yes, infatuated
with this Don Miff, as he calls himself.”
“Why, Alice, how can you say so?” But an explosion all around the
circle aroused Mary to the consciousness that once more and for the
thousand and first time she had failed to detect the banter that lay
in ambush behind her friend’s assumed earnestness. “Oh, I knew
you couldn’t mean it,” said she, with a faint smile. “The truth is, Mr.
Whacker,” continued she, “I am not sure that I altogether like this
mysterious Don. Do you know, Alice, I should be afraid of him?”
“Afraid of him! Why, pray?”
“Well, perhaps I am jumping at conclusions, as they say we women
all do; but, unless I am greatly mistaken, that man, while he might
be a very staunch friend, is certainly capable of proving a most
unrelenting foe.”
“Oh, I am sure you do him injustice,” said Lucy.
This young woman was not a great talker; but whenever the absent
needed a defender, the suffering a friend, or the down-trodden a
champion, that gentle voice was not wanting.
“I am sure nothing could surpass the gentleness of his manner
towards little Laura.”
“Very true,” rejoined Mary; “but have you not noticed the expression
of his eyes at times, when he is pacing to and fro, as he did for
some time yesterday, reviewing in his mind, I should judge, some
event in his past life? Every now and then there would come into
them a look so stern and bitter as to give his countenance an
expression which might almost be called ferocious.”
“Oh, Mr. Whacker, I think Mary’s imagination must be running away
with her,” broke in Lucy. “Now let me tell you of an incident which all
of us witnessed one day while you were absent. The day had been
damp and raw; and just as Mr. Don Miff—I don’t wonder at your
laughing,—was there ever such a name before? What was I saying?
Ah! there came on one of those cold October rains just as the Don
was going away. He had taken but a few steps when his attention
was arrested by the whining of a little dog across the street. What
kind of a dog did you say it was, Mrs. Carter?”
“It was a Mexican dog, a wretched little thing, of a breed which is
almost entirely destitute of hair. Our volunteers brought home some
of them, as curiosities, on their return from the Mexican war. The
one Lucy is speaking of is very old, and is, likely enough, the last
representative of his species in the city.”
“Well,” resumed Lucy, “the poor, little, naked creature was whining
piteously in the rain, and pawing against that alley-gate over yonder
by that large tree; and when this ferocious man, whom Mary thinks
so terrible, saw him, he stopped, then moved on, then stopped
again, and at last, seeing that the little thing had been shut out, he
actually walked across the street and opened the gate for him!”
“That was very sweet of my Don!” chimed in Alice.
“Yes,” urged Lucy, with gentle warmth, “you girls may laugh, and
you, Mr. Whacker, may smile—”
“Upon my word—”
“Oh, I saw you—but the ferocity of a man who is tender with
children and kind to brutes is ferocity of a very mild form, and I—”
“Speech! speech!” cried Alice, clapping her hands. And Lucy sank
back in her chair, blushing at her own eloquence.
“Order! order! ladies and gentlemen,” cried Alice, gravely tapping on
the table with a spool. “Sister Rolfe, the convention would be
pleased to hear from you, at this stage of the proceedings, a
continuation of your very edifying observations touching the lord
Don Miff’s exceedingly alarming eyes. Sister Rolfe has the floor—
order! The chair must insist that the fat lady on the sofa come to
order!”
The last remark was levelled at her mother, who had a singular way
of laughing; to wit, shaking all over, without emitting the slightest
sound, while big tears rolled down her cheeks. Alice was the idol of
her heart, and her queer freaks of vivacious drollery often set her
mother off, as at present, into uncontrollable undulations of entirely
inaudible laughter.
“The fat lady on the sofa, I am happy to be able to announce to the
audience, is coming to.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Carter, wiping her eyes, “and do you cease your
crazy pranks till the fat lady gets her breath. What were you going to
say, Mary?”
“I was going to say that I am glad I said what I did, if for no other
reason than that it afforded us all another opportunity of seeing how
kind and charitable is Lucy’s heart.”
“Yes,” said Alice, “you elicited from Lucy her maiden speech; which I
had never expected to hear in this life.”
“But really,” continued Mary, “the Don’s eyes are peculiar. Do you
know what I have thought of, more than once, when I have seen
their rapidly changing expression? I was reminded of certain stars
which—”
“Reminiscences of our late astronomy class,” broke in Alice, in a
stage whisper.
Mary smiled, but continued: “of certain stars which seem first to
shrink and then to dilate,—now growing dark, at the next moment
shooting forth bickering flames,—at one time—”
Mary here caught Alice’s eye, and could get no farther.
Alice rose slowly to her feet and said, gravely waving her closed fan
as though it had been the wand of a showman, “This, ladies and
gentlemen, is not a speech, but poetry and romance. I would simply
observe that when a young woman begins by stating that she does
not like a certain man, and ends by comparing his eyes to stars, the
last state of that young woman shall be worse than the first. But I
am somehow reminded of the Moonlight Sonata. Mr. Whacker, I beg
you will conduct Miss Lucy to the piano.”
 CHAPTER VII.

“What do you think?” said I, the next afternoon, as I entered the

parlor. The young ladies were all there; Lucy, with whom I had an
engagement to walk, with her bonnet on.
“Oh, what is it?”
“What do you suppose? Guess?”
“You have found out who he is!”
“Not exactly.”
“You have seen him!”
“Well, yes.”
“Have you met him,—spoken with him?”
I nodded.
“Oh, do tell us all about it!”
“There is not much to tell. Just this moment, on my way here, I
came upon Laura and her nurse and the Don standing at the corner.
Laura did not observe me till I was close to her, but, as soon as she
did, she ran up and took hold of my hand, and said, pointing straight
at the Don, ‘He’s the one what gives me the candy;’ and,
immediately releasing my hand, she ran up and seized that of the
so-called Don Miff, and, looking up into his face, said, ‘That ain’t
Uncle Mr. Whacker. That’s Mr. Fat Whacker. He’s the one what’—”
And I paused.
“Oh, please go on!” cried Alice and Mary; while Lucy colored slightly.
“I think I shall have to leave that as a riddle to be worked out at our
leisure.”
“Oh, the terrible infant! What did you say? what could you say?”
“I scarcely know what I did or did not say. He spoke first, saying
something about the originality of Laura’s mode of introducing
people, and I made some confused, meaningless reply, and then,
after we had exchanged a few commonplaces—”
“Miss Lucy!” broke in a voice; and, looking up, we saw, thrust in at
the partly-open parlor-door, the face of Molly, the nurse. “Miss Lucy,
won’t you please, ma’am, step here a minute?”
The broad grin on her face excited curiosity, while it allayed alarm.
“Why, what’s the matter, Molly?”
“Dat gent’mun say—” And Molly was straightway overcome by an
acute attack of the giggles.
“What?”
“Dat ’ere gent’mun he axed me to ax de lady o’ de house ef he
mought’n take Laura round to Pizzini’s for some ice-cream.”[1]
This was before the days of the Charley Ross horror; but the
proposition threw all the young ladies into a ferment, and ejaculation
followed ejaculation in rapid succession. At last Alice rose, flew up-
stairs, and presently returned with her mother.
“What’s all this?” began Mrs. Carter.
“Yes, ma’am, dis is adzactly how ’twas. Laura and me, we was a-
standin’ on the cornder a-lookin’, and here comes de gent’mun dat’s
always a-bringin’ her de candy, and, says he, ‘Good-evenin’, little
Rosebud,’ says jess so, and ‘Howdy do, my gal,’ says he, polite-like,
and says I, ‘Sarvant, mahster,’ says I, ‘I’m about,’ says I; and den
Marse Jack he comed up, and Laura, she called Marse Jack out o’ he
name. ‘Lor’ me,’ says I, ‘chill’un don’t know no better.’ Howsomdever,
I told her, I did, ‘Heish!’ says I, easy-like, and ‘Mind your raisin,’ says
I, jess as I tell you, and Marse Jack will say de same; and Marse
Jack he comed on here to de house, and we was a-standin’ on de
cornder, and de gent’mun says, ‘Laura,’ says he, ‘I ain’t got no candy
for you to-day, but I want you to go wid me to Pizzini’s to get some
ice-cream and cake; and won’t you go, my gal,’ says he, ‘an’ ax de
lady of the house, down yonder, ef I mought’n take little Laura to
Pizzini’s?’ Dat’s jess what he said, he did, jess as I tell you, mum;
and Laura she clap her hands, she did, and ‘Come on, less go,’ says
she, widout waitin’ for nothin’ nor nobody, she did.”
A brisk discussion, with opinions about equally divided, now sprang
up as to the propriety of acceding to the request of the stranger; but
upon Molly’s stating that the gentleman expected her to accompany
Laura, a strong majority voted in the affirmative; and when the little
lady herself, unable to control her impatience, came bustling into the
parlor, her curls dancing, her cheeks glowing, her eyes sparkling with
expectancy, the proposition was carried unanimously; to the obvious
satisfaction of Molly, who lost no time in sallying forth with her little
charge.
“There they go!” said Lucy, who was peeping through the blinds;
“the Don and Laura hand in hand, and Molly bringing up the rear.
Ah, how the little thing is capering with delight! Ah, girls, run here
and see how the little woman is strutting! Now he is pointing out to
her a cow and calf.”
And so, as long as they remained in sight, she chronicled their
doings.
As Lucy and I were leaving the house for our walk, some one
suggested—it was Mary, I believe—that it would be as well to
shadow, in detective phrase, the Don; but she firmly refused to do
so, saying that she knew she could trust him. Still, the suggestion
left its trail upon her mind; and she exhibited an eager delight when
we, on our return, saw, at the distance of a couple of blocks, the
Don taking leave of Laura in front of the Carters’.
“I knew it,” said she, with modest triumph. “Mary has read so many
novels and poems that she lives in constant expectation of
adventures; as though an adventure could happen to any one in
steady-going Richmond! Mr. Whacker!” she suddenly exclaimed,
starting.
“What’s the matter?”
“He is coming this way! What shall we do?” And she stood as though
rooted to the pavement, helplessly looking about her for some
avenue of escape.
“Why, what do you fear?” said I, laughing.
“That’s true,” said she; and she moved forward again, though with
very uncertain tread.
“Mr. Whacker,” said she, presently, “would you mind giving me your
arm?”
Meanwhile, the Don was coming up the street, and, as he
approached us, I could see that his features were softened by a half
smile. We met, face to face, at the corner above the Carters’. His
eyes chancing to fall upon my face, it was obvious that he
recognized me. Indeed, I am sure he gave me something like a bow,
then glancing casually at Lucy. Just at this juncture she, for the first
time, looked up, and their eyes met. It was then that I understood
what Mary had said about his eyes. For a second his steps seemed
almost arrested, and his eyes, filled with a strange mixture of
curiosity and intense interest, seemed to dilate and to shoot forth
actual gleams of light. Lucy, who was leaning heavily upon my arm,
shivered throughout her entire frame.
“Why, what can be the matter?”
“I am sure I don’t know,” replied she, in a hollow voice. “Let us hurry
home,—I can hardly breathe!”
Arrived in front of the house, within which was to be heard the busy
chattering of Laura and our other friends, Lucy hurried in at the
gate, and, without attempting to enter the house, dropped down
upon the first step she reached, and leaning back, drew a long
breath.
“Mr. Whacker,” said she, after a few moments’ silence, “you must
really excuse me. I cannot conceive what made me so silly. What is
he to me? But do you know, sometimes the strangest ideas come
into my head, and I often wonder whether other people have the
same. Sometimes I will visit some place for the first time, and
suddenly it will seem to me that I have been there before, although
I know all the time that it is not so. And again I will be listening to
some one relating an incident just happened, and it will seem such
an old story to me; and it will seem as though I had heard just the
same story ages and ages ago. Do you know, I sometimes think that
the ancients—however, it is all nonsense, of course. But oh, I would
not feel again as I did just now for worlds! Do you know, when he
passed me, I felt a sort of subtle, aerial force, a kind of magnetic
influence, as it is called, drawing me towards him, and so strongly,
that nothing but the firm grasp I had on your arm saved me from
rushing up to him and taking him by the hand. And then, when I
passed him, without speaking to him, suddenly there came over me
the strangest feeling. Will you think me crazy if I tell you what it
was?”
“By no means,” said I, much interested.
“Well,—will you believe me?—a sudden pang of remorse.”
“Remorse!”
“Yes; I cannot think of a better word. It seemed to me as though I
had known him ages ago, in some other world, such as the
Pythagoreans imagined, and that I, bright and young and happy,
meeting him again, I, though I saw he was unhappy, cruelly passed
him by! Oh, Mr. Whacker, I do pity him so!”
Her lower lip trembled, and her soft brown eyes glistened with rising
tears. For a while neither of us spoke,—she, perhaps, afraid to trust
her voice, I respecting her emotion by silence.
“Yes,” said I, at length, “it is an old story. ‘What’s Hecuba to him, or
he to Hecuba?’ We cannot help, though we would, feeling the
sorrows of others. But, Miss Lucy, aren’t you letting your imagination
—no, your tender-heartedness—run away with your judgment? Here
is a great, strapping, fine-looking fellow, whom you have seen
passing along the street a few times, with a rather serious
expression of countenance, and you straightway jump to the
conclusion that he is profoundly miserable, and even shed tears over
his fate.”
“Yes, it is all very silly, of course,” said she, smiling, and brushing
away her tears.
“And you must admit that you have not a particle of evidence, not a
scintilla, as we lawyers say, that the Don is any more to be pitied
than I, or any other person of your acquaintance.”
“Oh, a woman’s rules of evidence are very different from what you
lawyers find in your great, dusty, dull volumes. See how I should
state the case. I see a great, strapping, fine-looking fellow, to
borrow your language, coming here, day after day, from I know not
how far, or at how great inconvenience to himself, with no other
object, so far as I can divine, save that of enjoying the affectionate
greetings of a little child of less than four years of age, whom he
met by chance, and who, though nothing to him, in one sense
seems everything to him, in that her childish love has gone out to
him. What kind of a home must this man have, do you think? He can
have no home. And yet you wonder that I am sorry for him!”
“No,” said I, gladly seizing the opportunity of changing the current of
her thoughts; “it is true that the views you hold of evidence do not
coincide with those of Greenleaf; but I have long since ceased to
wonder at your feeling sorry for anybody or anything. The number of
kettles that, of my certain knowledge, have, through your
intercession, not been tied to stray dogs’ tails, and the hosts of cats
that have escaped twine cravats—”
“How cruel you boys used to be!”
“Why, Lucy, how long have you been there?” cried Alice, leaning out
of the window. “Come here, Mary, and look at them,—it is a clear
case. Laura,” added she, looking back into the parlor, but speaking
loud enough for us to hear,—“Laura, for one so juvenile, your
diagnosis is singularly accurate.”
“H’m? Whose noses?” asked Laura, looking up from the doll she was
dressing.
[1] In my occasional attempts at representing the
negro dialect I shall (as I have already done in the
case of Laura’s prattle) hold a middle course
between the true and the intelligible.