Bricks Without Straw: A Novel
by Albion Winegar Tourgée · English · Gutenberg #6058 · 888,258 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Bricks Without Straw: A Novel
Author: Albion Winegar Tourgée
Release date: July 1, 2004 [eBook #6058]
Most recently updated: December 29, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6058
Credits: Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW: A NOVEL ***
Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team
BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW
_A Novel_
BY
ALBION W. TOURGEE, LL.D.,
LATE JUDGE OF THE SUPERIOR COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA
THIS VOLUME I GRATEFULLY DEDICATE TO
My Wife;
TO WHOSE UNFLINCHING COURAGE, UNFALTERING FAITH, UNFAILING CHEER,
AND STEADFAST LOVE, I OWE MORE THAN MANY VOLUMES MIGHT DECLARE.
TRANSLATION:
[_From an ancient Egyptian Papyrus-Roll, recently discovered._]
It came to pass that when Pharaoh had made an end of giving
commandment that the children of Israel should deliver the daily
tale of bricks, but should not be furnished with any straw wherewith
to make them, but should instead go into the fields and gather
such stubble as might be left therein, that Neoncapos, the king's
jester, laughed.
And when he was asked whereat he laughed, he answered, At the king's
order.
And thereupon he laughed the more.
Then was Pharaoh, the king, exceeding wroth, and he gave commandment
that an owl be given to Neoncapos, the king's jester, and that he
be set forth without the gate of the king's palace, and that he be
forbidden to return, or to speak to any in all the land, save only
unto the owl which had been given him, until such time as the bird
should answer and tell him what he should say.
Then they that stood about the king, and all who saw Neoncapos,
cried out, What a fool's errand is this! So that the saying remains
even unto this day.
Nevertheless, upon the next day came Neoncapos again into the
presence of Pharaoh, the king.
Then was Pharaoh greatly astonished, and he said, How is this? Hath
the bird spoken?
And Neoncapos, the king's jester, bowed himself unto the earth,
and said, He hath, my lord.
Then was Pharaoh, the king, filled with amazement, and said, Tell
me what he hath said unto thee.
And Neoncapos raised himself before the king, and answered him,
and said:
As I went out upon the errand whereunto thou hadst sent me forth,
I remembered thy commandment to obey it. And I spake only unto
the bird which thou gavest me, and said unto him:
There was a certain great king which held a people in bondage, and
set over them task-masters, and required of them all the bricks
that they could make, man for man, and day by day;
For the king was in great haste seeking to build a palace which
should be greater and nobler than any in the world, and should
remain to himself and his children a testimony of his glory forever.
And it came to pass, at length, that the king gave commandment that
no more straw should be given unto them that made the bricks, but
that they should still deliver the tale which had been aforetime
required of them.
And thereupon the king's jester laughed.
Because he said to himself, If the laborers have not straw wherewith
to attemper the clay, but only stubble and chaff gathered from
the fields, will not the bricks be ill-made and lack strength and
symmetry of form, so that the wall made thereof will not be true
and strong, or fitly joined together? For the lack of a little
straw it may be that the palace of the great king will fall upon
him and all his people that dwell therein. Thereupon the king was
wroth with his fool, and his countenance was changed, and he spake
harshly unto him, and--
It matters not what thou saidst unto the bird, said the king. What
did the bird say unto thee?
The bird, said Neoncapos, bowing himself low before the king, the
bird, my lord, looked at me in great amaze, and cried again and
again, in an exceeding loud voice: _Who! Who-o! Who-o-o!_
Then was Pharaoh exceeding wroth, and his anger burned within him,
and he commanded that the fool should be taken and bound with cords,
and cast into prison, while he should consider of a fit punishment
for his impudent words.
NOTE.-A script attached to this manuscript, evidently of later
date, informs us that the fool escaped the penalty of his folly by
the disaster at the Red Sea.
CONTENTS
I. TRI-NOMINATE
II. THE FONT
III. THE JUNONIAN RITE
IV. MARS MEDDLES
V. NUNC PRO TUNC
VI. THE TOGA VIRILIS
VII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS
VIII. A FRIENDLY PROLOGUE
IX. A BRUISED REED
X. AN EXPRESS TRUST
XI. RED WING
XII. ON THE WAY AY TO JERICHO
XIII. NEGOTIATING A TREATY
XIV. BORN OF THE STORM
XV. TO HIM AND HIS HEIRS FOREVER
XVI. A CHILD OF THE HILLS
XVII. GOOD-MORROW AND FAREWELL
XVIII. "PRIME WRAPPERS,"
XIX. THE SHADOW OF THE FLAG,
XX. PHANTASMAGORIA,
XXI. A CHILD-MAN
XXII. HOW THE FALLOW WAS SEEDED
XXIII. AN OFFERING OF FIRST-FRUITS
XXIV. A BLACK DBMOCRITUS
XXV. A DOUBLE-HEADED ARGUMENT
XXVI. TAKEN AT HIS WORD
XXVII. MOSES IN THE SUNSHINE
XXVIII. IN THE PATH OF THE STORM
XXIX. LIKE AND UNLIKE
XXX. AN UNBIDDEN GUEST
XXXI. A LIFE FOR A LIFE
XXXII. A VOICE FROM THE DARKNESS
XXXIII. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
XXXIV. THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW
XXXV. A PARTICULAR TENANCY LAPSES
XXXVI. THE BEACON-LIGHT OF LOVE
XXXVII. THE "BEST FRIENDS" REVEAL THEMSELVES
XXXVIII. "THE ROSE ABOVE THE MOULD,"
XXXIX. WHAT THE MIST HID
XL. DAWNING
XLI. Q. E. D.
XLII. THROUGH A CLOUD-RIFT
XLIII. A GLAD GOOD-BY
XLIV. PUTTING THIS AND THAT TOGETHER
XLV. ANOTHER OX GORED
XLVI. BACKWARD AND FORWARD
XLVII. BREASTING THE TORRENT
XLVIII. THE PRICE OF HONOR
XLIX. HIGHLY RESOLVED
L. FACE ANSWERETH UNTO FACE
LI. HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE?
LII. REDEEMED OUT OF THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE
LIII. IN THE CYCLONE
LIV. A BOLT OUT OF THE CLOUD
LV. AN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
LVI. SOME OLD LETTERS
LVII. A SWEET AND BITTER FRUITAGE
LVIII. COMING TO THE FRONT
LIX. THE SHUTTLECOCK OF FATE
LX. THE EXODIAN
LXI. WHAT SHALL THE END BE?
LXII. How?
BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW.
CHAPTER I.
TRI-NOMINATE.
"Wal, I 'clar, now, jes de quarest ting ob 'bout all dis matter
o' freedom is de way dat it sloshes roun' de names 'mong us cullud
folks. H'yer I lib ober on de Hyco twenty year er mo'--nobody but
ole Marse Potem an' de Lor', an' p'raps de Debble beside, know
'zackly how long it mout hev been--an' didn't hev but one name in
all dat yer time. An' I didn't hev no use for no mo' neither, kase
dat wuz de one ole Mahs'r gib me hisself, an' nobody on de libbin'
yairth nebber hed no sech name afo' an' nebber like to agin. Dat
wuz allers de way ub ole Mahs'r's names. Dey used ter say dat he
an' de Debble made 'em up togedder while he wuz dribin' roun' in dat
ole gig 'twixt de diff'ent plantations--on de Dan an' de Ro'noke,
an' all 'bout whar de ole cuss could fine a piece o' cheap lan",
dat would do ter raise niggers on an' pay for bringin' up, at de
same time. He was a powerful smart man in his day, wuz ole Kunnel
Potem Desmit; but he speshully did beat anythin' a findin' names
fer niggers. I reckon now, ef he'd 'a hed forty thousan' cullud
folks, men an' wimmen, dar wouldn't ha' been no two on 'em hevin'
de same name. Dat's what folks used ter say 'bout him, ennyhow.
Dey sed he used ter say ez how he wasn't gwine ter hey his niggers
mixed up wid nobody else's namin', an' he wouldn't no mo' 'low ob
one black feller callin' ob anudder by enny nickname ner nothin'
ub dat kine, on one o' his plantations, dan he would ob his takin'
a mule, nary bit. Dey du say dat when he used ter buy a boy er
gal de berry fust ting he wuz gwine ter du wuz jes ter hev 'em up
an' gib 'em a new name, out 'n out, an' a clean suit ob close ter
'member it by; an' den, jes by way ob a little 'freshment, he used
ter make de oberseer gib 'em ten er twenty good licks, jes ter make
sure ob der fergittin' de ole un dat dey'd hed afo'. Dat's what
my mammy sed, an' she allers 'clar'd dat tow'rd de las' she nebber
could 'member what she was at de fus' no more'n ef she hed'nt been
de same gal.
"All he wanted ter know 'bout a nigger wuz jes his name, an' dey
say he could tell straight away when an' whar he wuz born, whar
he'd done lived, an' all 'bout him. He war a powerful man in der
way ob names, shore. Some on 'em wuz right quare, but den agin
mos' all on 'em wuz right good, an' it war powerful handy hevin' no
two on 'em alike. I've heard tell dat a heap o' folks wuz a takin'
up wid his notion, an' I reckon dat ef de s'rrender hed only stood
off long 'nuff dar wouldn't 'a been nary two niggers in de whole
State hevin' de same names. Dat _would_ hev been handy, all
roun'!
"When dat come, though, old Mahs'r's plan warn't nowhar. Lor' bress
my soul, how de names did come a-brilin' roun'! I'd done got kinder
used ter mine, hevin' bed it so long an' nebber knowin' myself by
any udder, so't I didn't like ter change. 'Sides dat, I couldn't
see no use. I'd allers got 'long well 'nuff wid it--all on'y jes
once, an' dat ar wuz so long ago I'd nigh about forgot it. Dat
showed what a debblish cute plan dat uv ole Mahs'r's was, though.
"Lemme see, dat er wuz de fus er secon' year atter I wuz a plow-boy.
Hit wuz right in de height ob de season, an' Marse War'--dat was de
oberseer--he sent me to der Cou't House ob an ebenin' to do some
sort ob arrant for him. When I was a comin' home, jes about an hour
ob sun, I rides up wid a sort o' hard-favored man in a gig, an' he
looks at me an' at de hoss, when I goes ter ride by, mighty sharp
like; an' fust I knows he axes me my name; an' I tole him. An' den
he axes whar I lib; an' I tole him, "On de Knapp-o'-Reeds plantation."
Den he say,
"'Who you b'long to, ennyhow, boy?'
"An' I tole him 'Ole Marse Potem Desmit, sah'--jes so like.
"Den he sez 'Who's a oberseein' dar now?'
"An' I sez, 'Marse Si War', sah?'
"Den he sez, 'An' how do all de ban's on Knapp-o Reeds git 'long
wid ole Marse Potem an' Marse Si War'?'
"An' I sez, 'Oh, we gits 'long tol'able well wid Marse War', sah.'
"An' he sez, 'How yer likes old Marse Potem?'
"An' I sez, jes fool like, 'We don't like him at all, sah.'
"An' he sez, 'Why?'
"An' I sez, 'Dunno sah.'
"An' he sez, 'Don't he feed?'
"An' I sez, 'Tol'able, I spose.'
"An' he sez, 'Whip much?'
"An' I sez, 'Mighty little, sah.'
"An' he sez, 'Work hard?'
"An' I sez, 'Yes, moderate, sah.' "An' he sez, 'Eber seed him?'
"An' I sez, 'Not ez I knows on, sah.'
"An' he sez, 'What for don't yer like him, den?'
"An' I sez, 'Dunno, on'y jes' kase he's sech a gran' rascal.'
"Den he larf fit ter kill, an' say, 'Dat's so, dat's so, boy.' Den
he take out his pencil an' write a word er two on a slip o' paper
an' say,
"'H'yer, boy, yer gibs dat ter Marse Si War', soon ez yer gits
home. D'yer heah?'
"I tole him, 'Yes, sah,' an' comes on home an' gibs dat ter Marse
Si. Quick ez he look at it he say, 'Whar you git dat, boy? 'An' when
I tole him he sez, 'You know who dat is? Dat's old Potem Desmit!
What you say to him, you little fool?'
"Den I tell Marse War' all 'bout it, an' he lay down in de yard
an' larf fit ter kill. All de same he gib me twenty licks 'cordin'
ter de orders on dat little dam bit o' paper. An' I nebber tink o'
dat widout cussin', sence.
"Dat ar, now am de only time I ebber fault my name. Now what I
want ter change it fer, er what I want ob enny mo'? I don't want
'em. An' I tell 'em so, ebbery time too, but dey 'jes fo'ce em on
me like, an' what'll I do'bout it, I dunno. H'yer I'se got--lemme
see--one--two--tree! Fo' God, I don' know how many names I hez got!
I'm dod-dinged now ef I know who I be ennyhow. Ef ennybody ax me
I'd jes hev ter go back ter ole Mahs'r's name an' stop, kase I swar
I wouldn't know which ob de udders ter pick an' chuse from.
"I specs its all 'long o' freedom, though I can't see why a free
nigger needs enny mo' name dan the same one hed in ole slave times.
Mus' be, though. I mind now dat all de pore white folks hez got
some two tree names, but I allus thought dat wuz 'coz dey hedn't
nuffin' else ter call dere can. Must be a free feller needs mo'
name, somehow. Ef I keep on I reckon I'll git enuff atter a while.
H'yer it's gwine on two year only sence de s'rrender, an' I'se got
tree ob 'em sartain!"
The speaker was a colored man, standing before his log-house in
the evening of a day in June. His wife was the only listener to
the monologue. He had been examining a paper which was sealed and
stamped with official formality, and which had started him upon
the train of thought he had pursued. The question he was trying in
vain to answer was only the simplest and easiest of the thousand
strange queries which freedom had so recently propounded to him
and his race.
CHAPTER II.
THE FONT.
Knapp-of-reeds was the name of a plantation which was one of the
numerous possessions of P. Desmit, Colonel and Esquire, of the
county of Horsford, in the northernmost of those States which good
Queen Caroline was fortunate enough to have designated as memorials
of her existence. The plantation was just upon that wavy line which
separates the cotton region of the east from the tobacco belt that
sweeps down the pleasant ranges of the Piedmont region, east of
the Blue Appalachians. Or, to speak more correctly, the plantation
was in that indeterminate belt which neither of the great staples
could claim exclusively as its own--that delectable land where every
conceivable product of the temperate zone grows, if not in its
rankest luxuriance, at least in perfection and abundance. Tobacco
on the hillsides, corn upon the wide bottoms, cotton on the gray
uplands, and wheat, oats, fruits, and grasses everywhere. Five
hundred acres of hill and bottom, forest and field, with what was
termed the Island, consisting of a hundred more, which had never been
overflowed in the century of cultivation it had known, constituted
a snug and valuable plantation. It had been the seat of an old
family once, but extravagant living and neglect of its resources
had compelled its sale, and it had passed into the hands of its
present owner, of whose vast possessions it formed an insignificant
part.
Colonel Desmit was one of the men who applied purely business
principles to the opportunities which the South afforded in the
olden time, following everything to its logical conclusion, and
measuring every opportunity by its money value. He was not of an
ancient family. Indeed, the paternal line stopped short with his
own father, and the maternal one could only show one more link,
and then became lost in malodorous tradition which hung about an
old mud-daubed log-cabin on the most poverty-stricken portion of
Nubbin Ridge.
There was a rumor that the father had a left-handed kinship with
the Brutons, a family of great note in the public annals of the
State. He certainly showed qualities which tended to confirm this
tradition, and abilities which entitled him to be considered the
peer of the best of that family, whose later generations were by
no means the equals of former ones. Untiring and unscrupulous, Mr.
Peter Smith rose from the position of a nameless son of an unknown
father, to be as overseer for one of the wealthiest proprietors of
that region, and finally, by a not unusual turn of fortune's wheel,
became the owner of a large part of his employer's estates. Thrifty
in all things, he married in middle life, so well as nearly to
double the fortune then acquired, and before his death had become
one of the wealthiest men in his county. He was always hampered by
a lack of education. He could read little and write less. In his
later days he was appointed a Justice of the Peace, and was chosen
one of the County Court, or "Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions,"
as it was technically called. These honors were so pleasant to
him that he determined to give his only son a name which should
commemorate this event. The boy was, therefore, christened after the
opening words of his commission of the peace, and grew to manhood
bearing the name Potestatem Dedimus [Footnote: Potestatem dedimus:
"We give thee power, etc." The initial words of the clause conferring
jurisdiction upon officers, in the old forms of judicial commissions.
This name is fact, not fancy.] Smith. This son was educated
with care--the shrewd father feeling his own need--but was early
instilled with his father's greed for gain, and the necessity for
unusual exertion if he would achieve equal position with the old
families who were to be his rivals.
The young man proved a worthy disciple of his father. He married,
it is true, without enhancing his fortune; but he secured what was
worth almost as much for the promotion of his purposes as if he
had doubled his belongings. Aware of the ill-effects of so recent a
bar sinister in his armorial bearings, he sought in marriage Miss
Bertha Bellamy, of Belleville, in the State of Virginia, who
united in her azure veins at least a few drops of the blood of all
the first families of that fine-bred aristocracy, from Pocahontas's
days until her own. The _role_ of the gentleman had been
too much for the male line of the Bellamys to sustain. Horses and
hounds and cards and high living had gradually eaten down their
once magnificent patrimony, until pride and good blood and poverty
were the only dowry that the females could command. Miss Bertha,
having already arrived at the age of discretion, found that to match
this against the wealth of young Potestatem Dedimus Smith was as
well as she could hope to do, and accepted him upon condition that
the vulgar _Smith_ should be changed to some less democratic
name.
The one paternal and two maternal ancestors had not made the very
common surname peculiarly sacred to the young man, so the point was
yielded; and by considerable persistency on the part of the young
wife, "P. D. SMITH" was transformed without much trouble into "P.
DESMIT," before the administrator had concluded the settlement of
his father's estate.
The vigor with which the young man devoted himself to affairs and
the remarkable success which soon began to attend his exertions
diverted attention from the name, and before he had reached middle
life he was known over almost half the State as "Colonel Desmit,"
"Old Desmit," or "Potem Desmit," according to the degree of familiarity
or respect desired to be displayed. Hardly anybody remembered and
none alluded to the fact that the millionaire of Horsford was only
two removes from old Sal Smith of Nubbin Ridge. On the other hand
the rumor that he was in some mysterious manner remotely akin to
the Brutons was industriously circulated by the younger members of
that high-bred house, and even "the Judge," who was of about the
same age as Colonel Desmit, had been heard more than once to call
him "Cousin." These things affected Colonel Desmit but little. He
had set himself to improve his father's teachings and grow rich. He
seemed to have the true Midas touch. He added acre to acre, slave
to slave, business to business, until his possessions were scattered
from the mountains to the sea, and especially extended on both sides
the border line in the Piedmont region where he had been bred. It
embraced every form of business known to the community of which
he was a part, from the cattle ranges of the extreme west to the
fisheries of the farthest east. He made his possessions a sort of
self-supporting commonwealth in themselves. The cotton which he
grew on his eastern farms was manufactured at his own factory, and
distributed to his various plantations to be made into clothing
for his slaves. Wheat and corn and meat, raised upon some of his
plantations, supplied others devoted to non-edible staples. The
tobacco grown on the Hyco and other plantations in that belt was
manufactured at his own establishment, supplied his eastern laborers
and those which wrought in the pine woods to the southward at the
production of naval supplies. He had realized the dream of his own
life and the aspiration of his father, the overseer, and had become
one of the wealthiest men in the State. But he attended to all this
himself. Every overseer knew that he was liable any day or night
to receive a visit from the untiring owner of all this wealth, who
would require an instant accounting for every bit of the property
under his charge. Not only the presence and condition of every
slave, mule, horse or other piece of stock must be accounted for,
but the manner of its employment stated. He was an inflexible
disciplinarian, who gave few orders, hated instructions, and only
asked results. It was his custom to place an agent in charge of a
business without directions, except to make it pay. His only care
was to see that his property did not depreciate, and that the course
adopted by the agent was one likely to produce good results. So
long as this was the case he was satisfied. He never interfered,
made no suggestions, found no fault. As soon as he became dissatisfied
the agent was removed and another substituted. This was done without
words or controversy, and it was a well-known rule that a man once
discharged from such a trust could never enter his employ again.
For an overseer to be dismissed by Colonel Desmit was to forfeit
all chance for employment in that region, since it was looked upon
as a certificate either of incapacity or untrustworthiness.
Colonel Desmit was especially careful in regard to his slaves.
His father had early shown him that no branch of business was, or
could be, half so profitable as the rearing of slaves for market.
"A healthy slave woman," the thrifty father had been accustomed
to say, "will yield a thousand per cent upon her value, while
she needs less care and involves less risk than any other species
of property." The son, with a broader knowledge, had carried his
father's instructions to more accurate and scientific results. He
found that the segregation of large numbers of slaves upon a single
plantation was not favorable either to the most rapid multiplication
or economy of sustenance. He had carefully determined the fact
that plantations of moderate extent, upon the high, well-watered
uplands of the Piedmont belt, were the most advantageous locations
that could be found for the rearing of slaves. Such plantations,
largely worked by female slaves, could be made to return a small
profit on the entire investment, without at all taking into account
the increase of the human stock. This was, therefore, so much
added profit. From careful study and observation he had deduced
a specific formulary by which he measured the rate of gain. With
a well-selected force, two thirds of which should be females, he
calculated that with proper care such plantations could be made to
pay, year by year, an interest of five per cent on the first cost,
and, in addition, double the value of the working force every eight
years. This conclusion he had arrived at from scientific study of
the rates of mortality and increase, and in settling upon it he
had cautiously left a large margin for contingencies. He was not
accustomed to talk about his business, but when questioned as to
his uniform success and remarkable prosperity, always attributed it
to a system which he had inexorably followed, and which had never
failed to return to him at least twenty per cent. per annum upon
every dollar he had invested.
So confident was he in regard to the success of this plan that he
became a large but systematic borrower of money at the legal rate
of six per cent, taking care that his maturing liabilities should,
at no time, exceed a certain proportion of his available estate.
By this means his wealth increased with marvelous rapidity.
The success of his system depended, however, entirely upon the care
bestowed upon his slaves. They were never neglected. Though he had
so many that of hundreds of them he did not know even the faces, he
gave the closest attention to their hygienic condition, especially
that of the women, who were encouraged by every means to bear children.
It was a sure passport to favor with the master and the overseer:
tasks were lightened; more abundant food provided; greater liberty
enjoyed; and on the birth of a child a present of some sort was
certain to be given the mother.
The one book which Colonel Desmit never permitted anybody else to
keep or see was the register of his slaves. He had invented for
himself an elaborate system by which in a moment he could ascertain
every element of the value of each of his more than a thousand slaves
at the date of his last visitation or report. When an overseer was
put in charge of a plantation he was given a list of the slaves
assigned to it, by name and number, and was required to report
every month the condition of each slave during the month previous,
as to health and temper, and also the labor in which the same had
been employed each day. It was only as to the condition of the slaves
that the owner gave explicit directions to his head-men. "Mighty
few people know how to take care of a nigger," he was wont to say;
and as he made the race a study and looked to them for his profits,
he was attentive to their condition.
Among the requirements of his system was one that each slave born
upon his plantations should be named only by himself; and this was
done only on personal inspection. Upon a visit to a plantation,
therefore, one of his special duties always was to inspect, name,
and register all slave children who had been born to his estate
since his previous visitation.
It was in the summer of 1840 that a traveler drove into the grove
in front of the house at Knapp-of-Reeds, in the middle of a June
afternoon, and uttered the usual halloo. He was answered after a
moment's delay by a colored woman, who came out from the kitchen
and exclaimed,
"Who's dah?"
It was evident at once that visitors were not frequent at
Knapp-of-Reeds.
"Where's Mr. Ware?" asked the stranger.
"He's done gone out in de new-ground terbacker, long wid de han's,"
answered the woman.
"Where is the new-ground this year?" repeated the questioner.
"Jes' down on the p'int 'twixt de branch an' de Hyco," she replied.
"Anybody you can send for him?"
"Wal, thar mout be some shaver dat's big enough to go, but Marse
War's dat keerful ter please Marse Desmit dat he takes 'em all
outen de field afore dey can well toddle," said the woman doubtfully.
"Well, come and take my horse," said he, as he began to descend
from his gig, "and send for Mr. Ware to come up at once."
The woman came forward doubtfully and took the horse by the bit,
while the traveler alighted. No sooner did he turn fully toward
her than her face lighted up with a smile, and she said,
"Wal, dar, ef dat a'n't Marse Desmit hisself, I do believe! How
d'ye do, Mahs'r?" and the woman dropped a courtesy.
"I'm very well, thank ye, Lorency, an' glad to see you looking so
peart," he responded pleasantly. "How's Mr. Ware and the people?
All well, I hope."
"All tol'able, Mahs'r, thank ye."
"Well, tie the horse, and get me some dinner, gal. I haven't eaten
since I left home."
"La sakes!" said the woman in a tone of commiseration, though she
had no idea whether it was twenty or forty miles he had driven
since his breakfast.
The man who sat upon the porch and waited for the coming of
Mr. Silas Ware, his overseer, was in the prime of life, of florid
complexion, rugged habit, short stubbly hair--thick and bristling,
that stood close and even on his round, heavy head from a little
way above the beetling brows well down upon the bull-like neck which
joined but hardly separated the massive head and herculean trunk.
This hair, now almost white, had been a yellowish red, a hue which
still showed in the eyebrows and in the stiff beard which was allowed
to grow beneath the angle of his massive jaw, the rest of his face
being clean shaven. The eyes were deep-sunk and of a clear, cold
blue. His mouth broad, with firm, solid lips. Dogged resolution,
unconquerable will, cold-blooded selfishness, and a keen hog-cunning
showed in his face, while his short, stout form--massive but not
fleshy--betrayed a capacity to endure fatigue which few men could
rival.
"How d'ye, Mr. Ware?" he said as that worthy came striding in from
the new-ground nervously chewing a mouthful of home-made twist,
which he had replenished several times since leaving the field,
without taking the precaution to provide stowage for the quantity
he was taking aboard.
"How d'ye, Colonel?" said Ware uneasily.
"Reckon you hardly expected me to day?" continued Desmit, watching
him closely. "No, I dare say not. They hardly ever do. Fact is, I
rarely ever know myself long enough before to send word."
He laughed heartily, for his propensity for dropping in unawares
upon his agents was so well known that he enjoyed their confusion
almost as much as he valued the surprise as a means of ascertaining
their attention to his interests. Ware was one of his most trusted
lieutenants, however, and everything that he had ever seen or
heard satisfied him of the man's faithfulness. So he made haste to
relieve him from embarrassment, for the tall, awkward, shambling
fellow was perfectly overwhelmed.
"It's a long time since I've been to see you, Mr. Ware--almost
a year. There's mighty few men I'd let run a plantation that long
without looking after them. Your reports have been very correct,
and the returns of your work very satisfactory. I hope the stock
and hands are in good condition?"
"I must say, Colonel Desmit," responded Ware, gathering confidence,
"though perhaps I oughtn't ter say it myself, that I've never seen
'em lookin' better. 'Pears like everything hez been jest about ez
favorable fer hands an' stock ez one could wish. The spring's work
didn't seem ter worry the stock a mite, an' when the new feed come
on there was plenty on't, an' the very best quality. So they shed
off ez fine ez ever you see ennything in yer life, an' hev jest
been a doin' the work in the crop without turnin' a hair."
"Glad to hear it, Mr. Ware," said Desmit encouragingly.
"And the hands," continued Ware, "have jest been in prime condition.
We lost Horion, as I reported to you in--lemme see, February, I
reckon--along o' rheumatism which he done cotch a runnin' away from
that Navigation Company that you told me to send him to work for."
"Yes, I know. You told him to come home if they took him into
Virginia, as I directed, I suppose."
"Certainly, sir," said Ware; "an' ez near ez I can learn they took
him off way down below Weldon somewheres, an' he lit out to come
home jest at the time of the February 'fresh.' He had to steal
his way afoot, and was might'ly used up when he got here, and died
some little time afterward."
"Yes. The company will have to pay a good price for him. Wasn't a
better nor sounder nigger on the river," said Desmit.
"That ther warn't," replied Ware. "The rest has all been well.
Lorency had a bad time over her baby, but she's 'round again as
peart as ever." "So I see. And the crops?"
"The best I've ever seed sence I've been here, Colonel. Never had
such a stand of terbacker, and the corn looks prime. Knapp-of-Reeds
has been doin' better 'n' better ever sence I've knowed it; but
she's jest outdoin' herself this year."
"Haven't you got anything to drink, Ware?"
"I beg your _parding_, Colonel; I was that flustered I done
forgot my manners altogether," said Ware apologetically. "I hev
got a drap of apple that they say is right good for this region,
and a trifle of corn that ain't nothing to brag on, though it does
for the country right well."
Ware set out the liquor with a bowl of sugar from his sideboard as
he spoke, and called to the kitchen for a glass and water.
"That makes me think," said Desmit. "Here, you Lorency, bring me
that portmanty from the gig."
When it was brought he unlocked it and took out a bottle, which he
first held up to the light and gazed tenderly through, then drew
the cork and smelled of its contents, shook his head knowingly,
and then handed it to Ware, who went through the same performance
very solemnly.
"Here, gal," said Desmit sharply, "bring us another tumbler. Now,
Mr. Ware," said he unctuously when it had been brought, "allow me,
sir, to offer you some brandy which is thirty-five years old--pure
French brandy, sir. Put it in my portmanty specially for you, and
like to have forgot it at the last. Just try it, man."
Ware poured himself a dram, and swallowed it with a gravity which
would have done honor to a more solemn occasion, after bowing low
to his principal and saying earnestly, "Colonel, your very good
health."
"And now," said Desmit, "have the hands and stock brought up while
I eat my dinner, if you please. I have a smart bit of travel before
me yet to-day."
The overseer's horn was at Ware's lips in a moment, and before the
master had finished his dinner every man, woman, and child on the
plantation was in the yard, and every mule and horse was in the
barn-lot ready to be brought out for his inspection.
The great man sat on the back porch, and, calling up the slaves one
by one, addressed some remark to each, gave every elder a quarter
and every youngster a dime, until he came to the women. The first
of these was Lorency, the strapping cook, who had improved the time
since her master's coming to make herself gay with her newest gown
and a flaming new turban. She came forward pertly, with a young
babe upon her arm.
"Well, Lorency, Mr. Ware says you have made me a present since I
was here?"
"Yah! yah! Marse Desmit, dat I hab! Jes' de finest little nigger
boy yer ebber sot eyes on. Jes' you look at him now," she continued,
holding up her brighteyed pickaninny. "Ebber you see de beat ub
dat? Reg'lar ten pound, an' wuff two hundred dollars dis bressed
minnit."
"Is that it, Lorency?" said Desmit, pointing to the child. "Who
ever saw such a thunder-cloud?"
There was a boisterous laugh at the master's joke from the assembled
crowd. Nothing abashed, the good-natured mother replied, with ready
wit,
"Dat so, Marse Kunnel. He's _brack_, he is. None ob yer bleached
out yaller sort of coffee-cullud nigger 'bout _him_. De rale
ole giniwine kind, dat a coal make a white mark on. Yah I yah! what
yer gwine ter name him, Mahs'r? Gib him a good name, now, none o'
yer common mean ones, but jes' der bes' one yer got in yer book;"
for Colonel Desmit was writing in a heavy clasped book which rested
on a light stand beside him.
"What is it, Mahs'r?"
"Nimbus," replied the master.
"Wh--what?" asked the mother. "Say dat agin', won't yer, Mahs'r?"
"Nimbus--_Nimbus_," repeated Desmit.
"Wal, I swan ter gracious!" exclaimed the mother. "Ef dat don't
beat! H'yer! little--what's yer name? Jes' ax yer Mahs'r fer a
silver dollar ter pay yer fer hevin' ter tote dat er name 'roun'
ez long ez yer lives."
She held the child toward its godfather and owner as she spoke, amid
a roar of laughter from her fellow-servants. Desmit good-naturedly
threw a dollar into the child's lap, for which Lorency courtesied,
and then held out her hand.
"What do you want now, gal?" asked Desmit.
"Yer a'n't a gwine ter take sech a present ez dis from a pore cullud
gal an' not so much ez giv' her someting ter remember hit by, is
yer?" she asked with arch persistency.
"There, there," said he laughing, as he gave her another dollar.
"Go on, or I shan't have a cent left."
"All right, Marse Kunnel. Thank ye, Mahs'r," she said, as she walked
off in triumph.
"Oh, hold on," said Desmit; "how old is it, Lorency?"
"Jes' sebben weeks ole dis bressed day, Mahs'r," said the proud
mother as she vanished into the kitchen to boast of her good-fortune
in getting two silver dollars out of Marse Desmit instead of the one
customarily given by him on such occasions. And so the record
was made up in the brass-clasped book of Colonel Potestatem Desmit,
the only baptismal register of the colored man who twenty-six
years afterward was wondering at the names which were seeking him
against his will.
_697--Nimbus--of Lorency--Male--April 24th, 1840--Sound--Knapp-of-Reeds._
It was a queer baptismal entry, but a slave needed no more--indeed
did not need that. It was not given for his sake, but only for the
convenience of his godfather should the chattel ever seek to run
away, or should it become desirable to exchange him for some other
form of value. There was nothing harsh or brutal or degraded about
it. Mr. Desmit was doing, in a business way, what the law not only
allowed but encouraged him to do, and doing it because it paid.
CHAPTER III.
THE JUNONIAN RITE.
"Marse Desmit?"
"Well?"
"Ef yer please, Mahs'r, I wants ter marry?"
"The devil you do!"
"Yes, sah, if you please, sah."
"What's your name?"
"Nimbus."
"So: you're the curer at Knapp-of-Reeds, I believe?"
"Yes, sah." "That last crop was well done. Mr. Ware says you're
one of the best hands he has ever known."
"Thank ye, Mahs'r," with a bow and scrape.
"What's the gal's name?"
"Lugena, sah."
"Yes, Vicey's gal--smart gal, too. Well, as I've about concluded to
keep you both--if you behave yourselves, that is, as well as you've
been doing--I don't know as there's any reason why you shouldn't
take up with her."
"Thank ye, Mahs'r," very humbly, but very joyfully.
The speakers were the black baby whom Desmit had christened Nimbus,
grown straight and strong, and just turning his first score on the
scale of life, and Colonel Desmit, grown a little older, a little
grayer, a little fuller, and a great deal richer--if only the small
cloud of war just rising on the horizon would blow over and leave
his possessions intact. He believed it would, but he was a wise
man and a cautious one, and he did not mean to be caught napping
if it did not.
Nimbus had come from Knapp-of-Reeds to a plantation twenty miles
away, upon a pass from Mr. Ware, on the errand his conversation
disclosed. He was a fine figure of a man despite his ebon hue,
and the master, looking at him, very naturally noted his straight,
strong back, square shoulders, full, round neck, and shapely,
well-balanced head. His face was rather heavy--grave, it would
have been called if he had been white--and his whole figure and
appearance showed an earnest and thoughtful temperament. He was as
far from that volatile type which, through the mimicry of burnt-cork
minstrels and the exaggerations of caricaturists, as well as the
works of less disinterested portrayers of the race, have come to
represent the negro to the unfamiliar mind, as the typical Englishman
is from the Punch-and-Judy figures which amuse him. The slave Nimbus
in a white skin would have been considered a man of great physical
power and endurance, earnest purpose, and quiet, self-reliant
character. Such, in truth, he was. Except the whipping he had
received when but a lad, by his master's orders, no blow had ever
been struck him. Indeed, blows were rarely stricken on the plantations
of Colonel Desmit; for while he required work, obedience, and
discipline, he also fed well and clothed warmly, and allowed no
overseer to use the lash for his own gratification, or except for
good cause. It was well known that nothing would more surely secure
dismissal from his service than the free use of the whip. Not that
he thought there was anything wrong or inhuman about the whipping-post,
but it was entirely contrary to his policy. To keep a slave
comfortable, healthy, and good-natured, according to Colonel Desmit's
notion, was to increase his value, and thereby add to his owner's
wealth. He knew that Nimbus was a very valuable slave. He had
always been attentive to his tasks, was a prime favorite with his
overseer, and had already acquired the reputation of being one of the
most expert and trusty men that the whole region could furnish, for
a tobacco crop. Every step in the process of growing and curing--from
the preparation of the seed-bed to the burning of the coal-pit,
and gauging the heat required in the mud-daubed barn for different
kinds of leaf and in every stage of cure--was perfectly familiar
to him, and he could always be trusted to see that it was properly
and opportunely done. This fact, together with his quiet and contented
disposition, added very greatly to his value. The master regarded
him, therefore, with great satisfaction. He was willing to gratify
him in any reasonable way, and so, after some rough jokes at his
expense, wrote out his marriage-license in these words, in pencil,
on the blank leaf of a notebook:
MR. WARE: Nimbus and Lugena want to take up with each other. You
have a pretty full force now, but I have decided to keep them and
sell some of the old ones--say Vicey and Lorency. Neither have had
any children for several years, and are yet strong, healthy women,
who will bring nearly as much as the girl Lugena. I shall make
up a gang to go South in charge of Winburn next week. You may send
them over to Louisburg on Monday. You had better give Nimbus the
empty house near the tobacco-barn. We need a trusty man there.
Respectfully, P. DESMIT.
So Nimbus went home happy, and on the Saturday night following, in
accordance with this authority, with much mirth and clamor, and with
the half-barbarous and half-Christian ceremony--which the law did
not recognize; which bound neither parties, nor master nor stranger;
which gave Nimbus no rights and Lugena no privileges; which neither
sanctified the union nor protected its offspring--the slave "boy"
and "gal" "took up with each other," and began that farce which
the victims of slavery were allowed to call "marriage." The sole
purpose of permitting it was to raise children. The offspring were
sometimes called "families," even in grave legal works; but there
was no more of the family right of protection, duty of sustenance
and care, or any other of the sacred elements which make the family
a type of heaven, than attends the propagation of any other species
of animate property. When its purpose had been served, the voice
of the master effected instant divorce. So, on the Monday morning
thereafter the mothers of the so-called bride and groom, widowed
by the inexorable demands of the master's interests, left husband
and children, and those fair fields which represented all that they
knew of the paradise which we call home, and with tears and groans
started for that living tomb, the ever-devouring and insatiable
"far South."
CHAPTER IV.
MARS MEDDLES.
LOUISBURG, January 10, 1864.
MR. SILAS WARE:
DEAR SIR: In ten days I have to furnish twenty hands to work on
fortifications for the Confederate Government. I have tried every
plan I could devise to avoid doing so, but can put it off no longer.
I anticipated this long ago, and exchanged all the men I could
possibly spare for women, thinking that would relieve me, but it
makes no difference. They apportion the levy upon the number of
slaves. I shall have to furnish more pretty soon. The trouble is
to know who to send. I am afraid every devil of them will run away,
but have concluded that if I send Nimbus as a sort of headman of the
gang, he may be able to bring them through. He is a very faithful
fellow, with none of the fool-notions niggers sometimes get, I
think. In fact, he is too dull to have such notions. At the same
time he has a good deal of influence over the others. If you agree
with this idea, send him to me at once. Respectfully, P. DESMIT.
In accordance with this order Nimbus was sent on to have another
interview with his master. The latter's wishes were explained,
and he was asked if he could fulfil them. "Dunno," he answered
stolidly.
"Are you willing to try?"
"S'pect I hev ter, ennyhow, ef yer say so."
"Now, Nimbus, haven't I always been a good master to you?"
reproachfully.
No answer.
"Haven't I been kind to you always?"
"Yer made Marse War' gib me twenty licks once."
"Well, weren't you saucy, Nimbus? Wouldn't you have done that to
a nigger that called you a 'grand rascal' to your face?"
"S'pecs I would, Mahs'r."
"Of course you would. You know that very well. You've too much
sense to remember that against me now. Besides, if you are not
willing to do this I shall have to sell you South to keep you out
of the hands of the Yanks."
Mr, Desmit knew how to manage "niggers," and full well understood
the terrors of being "sold South." He saw his advantage in the
flush of apprehension which, before he had ceased speaking, made
the jetty face before him absolutely ashen with terror.
"Don't do dat, Marse Desmit, ef _you_ please! Don't do dat er
wid Nimbus! Mind now, Mahs'r, I'se got a wife an' babies."
"So you have, and I know you don't want to leave them."
"No more I don't, Mahs'r," earnestly.
"And you need not if you'll do as I want you to. See here, Nimbus,
if you'll do this I will promise that you and your family never
shall be separated, and I'll give you fifty dollars now and a
hundred dollars when you come back, if you'll just keep those other
fool-niggers from trying--mind' I say _trying_--to run away and
so getting shot. There's no such thing as getting to the Yankees,
and it would be a heap worse for them if they did, but you know
they _are_ such fools they might try it and get killed--which
would serve them right, only I should have to bear the loss."
"All right, Mahs'r, I do the best I can," said Nimbus.
"That's right," said the master.
"Here are fifty dollars," and he handed him a Confederate bill of
that denomination (gold value at that time, $3.21).
Mr. Desmit did not feel entirely satisfied when Nimbus and his
twenty fellow-servants went off upon the train to work for the
Confederacy. However, he had done all he could except to warn the
guards to be very careful, which he did not neglect to do.
Just forty days afterward a ragged, splashed and torn young ebony
Samson lifted the flap of a Federal officer's tent upon one of the
coast islands, stole silently in, and when he saw the officer's
eyes fixed upon him. asked,
"Want ary boy, Mahs'r?"
The tone, as well as the form of speech, showed a new-comer. The
officer knew that none of the colored men who had been upon the
island any length of time would have ventured into his presence
unannounced, or have made such an inquiry.
"Where did you come from?" he asked.
"Ober to der mainlan'," was the composed answer.
"How did you get here?"
"Come in a boat."
"Run away?"
"S'pose so."
"Where did you live?"
"Up de kentry--Horsford County."
"How did you come down here?" "Ben wukkin' on de bres'wuks."
"The dickens you have!"
"Yes, sah."
"How did you get a boat, then?"
"Jes' tuk it--dry so."
"Anybody with you?"
"No, Mahs'r."
"And you came across the Sound alone in an open boat?"
"Yes, Mahs'r; an' fru' de swamp widout any boat."
"I should say so," laughed the officer, glancing at his clothes.
"What did you come here for?"
"Jes'--_kase_."
"Didn't they tell you you'd be worse off with the Yankees than you
were with them?"
"Yes, sah."
"Didn't you believe them?"
"Dunno, sah."
"What do you want to do?"
"Anything."
"Fight the rebs?"
"Wal, I kin du it."
"What's your name?"
"Nimbus."
"Nimbus? Good name--ha! ha: what else?"
"Nuffin' else."
"Nothing else? What was your old master's name?"
"Desmit--Potem Desmit."
"Well, then, that's yours, ain't it--your surname--Nimbus Desmit?"
"Reckon not, Mahs'r."
"No? Why not?"
"Same reason his name ain't Nimbus, I s'pose."
"Well," said the officer, laughing, "there may be something in
that; but a soldier must have two names. Suppose I call you George
Nimbus?"
"Yer kin call me jes' what yer choose, sah; but my name's Nimbus
all the same. No Gawge Nimbus, nor ennything Nimbus, nor Nimbus
ennything--jes' Nimbus; so. Nigger got no use fer two names, nohow."
The officer, perceiving that it was useless to argue the matter
further, added his name to the muster-roll of a regiment, and
he was duly sworn into the service of the United States as George
Nimbus, of Company C, of the---Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry,
and was counted one of the quota which the town of Great Barringham,
in the valley of the Housatuck, was required to furnish to complete
the pending call for troops to put down rebellion. By virtue of
this fact, the said George Nimbus became entitled to the sum of
four hundred dollars bounty money offered by said town to such as
should give themselves to complete its quota of "the boys in blue,"
in addition to his pay and bounty from the Government. So, if it
forced on him a new name, the service of freedom was not altogether
without compensatory advantages.
Thus the slave Nimbus was transformed into the "contraband" George
Nimbus, and became not only a soldier of fortune, but also the
representative of a patriotic citizen of Great Barringham, who served
his country by proxy, in the person of said contraband, faithfully
and well until the end of the war, when the South fell--stricken
at last most fatally by the dark hands which she had manacled,
and overcome by their aid whose manhood she had refused to
acknowledge.
CHAPTER V.
NUNC PRO TUNC.
The first step in the progress from the prison-house of bondage
to the citadel of liberty was a strange one. The war was over. The
struggle for autonomy and the inviolability of slavery, on the part
of the South, was ended, and fate had decided against them. With
this arbitrament of war fell also the institution which had been
its cause. Slavery was abolished--by proclamation, by national
enactment, by constitutional amendment--ay, by the sterner logic
which forbade a nation to place shackles again upon hands which
had been raised in her defence, which had fought for her life and
at her request. So the slave was a slave no more. No other man
could claim his service or restrain his volition. He might go or
come, work or play, so far as his late master was concerned.
But that was all. He could not contract, testify, marry or give
in marriage. He had neither property, knowledge, right, or power.
The whole four millions did not possess that number of dollars
or of dollars' worth. Whatever they had acquired in slavery was
the master's, unless he had expressly made himself a trustee for
their benefit. Regarded from the legal standpoint it was, indeed,
a strange position in which they were. A race despised, degraded,
penniless, ignorant, houseless, homeless, fatherless, childless,
nameless. Husband or wife there was not one in four millions.
Not a child might call upon a father for aid, and no man of them
all might lift his hand in a daughter's defence. Uncle and aunt
and cousin, home, family--none of these words had any place in
the freedman's vocabulary. Right he had, in the abstract; in the
concrete, none. Justice would not hear his voice. The law was still
color-blinded by the past.
The fruit of slavery--its first ripe harvest, gathered with swords
and bloody bayonets, was before the nation which looked ignorantly
on the fruits of the deliverance it had wrought. The North did not
comprehend its work; the South could not comprehend its fate. The
unbound slave looked to the future in dull, wondering hope.
The first step in advance was taken neither by the nation nor by the
freedmen. It was prompted by the voice of conscience, long hushed
and hidden in the master's breast. It was the protest of Christianity
and morality against that which it had witnessed with complacency
for many a generation. All at once it was perceived to be a great
enormity that four millions of Christian people, in a Christian
land, should dwell together without marriage rite or family tie.
While they were slaves, the fact that they might be bought and sold
had hidden this evil from the eye of morality, which had looked
unabashed upon the unlicensed freedom of the quarters and the
enormities of the barracoon. Now all at once it was shocked beyond
expression at the domestic relations of the freedmen.
So they made haste in the first legislative assemblies that met in
the various States, after the turmoil of war had ceased, to provide
and enact:
I. That all those who had sustained to each other the relation of
husband and wife in the days of slavery, might, upon application
to an officer named in each county, be registered as such husband
and wife.
2. That all who did not so register within a certain time should
be liable to indictment, if the relation continued thereafter.
3. That the effect of such registration should be to constitute such
parties husband and wife, as of the date of their first assumption
of marital relations.
4. That for every such couple registered the officer should be
entitled to receive the sum of one half-dollar from the parties
registered.
There was a grim humor about this marriage of a race by wholesale,
millions at a time, and _nunc pro tunc;_ but especially quaint
was the idea of requiring each freed-man, who had just been torn,
as it were naked, from the master's arms, to pay a snug fee for
the simple privilege of entering upon that relation which the law
had rigorously withheld from him until that moment. It was a strange
remedy for a long-hidden and stubbornly denied disease, and many
strange scenes were enacted in accordance with the provisions of
this statute. Many an aged couple, whose children had been lost in
the obscure abysses of slavery, or had gone before them into the
spirit land, old and feeble and gray-haired, wrought with patience
day after day to earn at once their living and the money for this
fee, and when they had procured it walked a score of miles in order
that they might be "registered," and, for the brief period that
remained to them of life, know that the law had sanctioned the
relation which years of love and suffering had sanctified. It was
the first act of freedom, the first step of legal recognition or
manly responsibility! It was a proud hour and a proud fact for the
race which had so long been bowed in thralldom and forbidden even
the most common though the holiest of God's ordinances. What the
law had taken little by little, as the science of Christian slavery
grew up under the brutality of our legal progress, the law returned
in bulk. It was the first seal which was put on the slave's
manhood--the first step upward from the brutishness of another's
possession to the glory of independence. The race felt its importance
as did no one else at that time. By hundreds and thousands they
crowded the places appointed, to accept the honor offered to their
posterity, and thereby unwittingly conferred undying honor upon
themselves. Few indeed were the unworthy ones who evaded the sacred
responsibility thus laid upon them, and left their offspring to
remain under the badge of shame. When carefully looked at it was
but a scant cure, and threw the responsibility of illegitimacy
where it did not belong, but it was a mighty step nevertheless.
The distance from zero to unity is always infinity.
The county clerk in and for the county of Horsford sat behind
the low wooden railing which he had been compelled to put across
his office to protect him from the too near approach of those who
crowded to this fountain of rehabilitating honor that had recently
been opened therein. Unused to anything beyond the plantation on
which they had been reared, the temple of justice was as strange
to their feet, and the ways and forms of ordinary business as
marvelous to their minds as the etiquette of the king's palace to
a peasant who has only looked from afar upon its pinnacled roof.
The recent statute had imposed upon the clerk a labor of no little
difficulty because of this very ignorance on the part of those whom
he was required to serve; but he was well rewarded. The clerk was
a man of portly presence, given to his ease, who smoked a long-stemmed
pipe as he sat beside a table which, in addition to his papers and
writing materials, held a bucket of water on which floated a clean
gourd, in easy reach of his hand.
"Be you the clerk, sail?" said a straight young colored man, whose
clothing had a hint of the soldier in it, as well as his respectful
but unusually collected bearing.
"Yes," said the clerk, just glancing up, but not intermitting his
work; "what do you want?"
"If you please, sah, we wants to be married, Lugena and me."
"_Registered_, you mean, I suppose?"
"No, we don't, sah; we means _married_."
"I can't marry you. You'll have to get a license and be married by
a magistrate or a minister."
"But I heard der was a law---"
"Have you been living together as man and wife?"
"Oh, yes, sah; dat we hab, dis smart while."
"Then you want to be registered. This is the place. Got a
half-dollar?"
"Yes, sah?"
"Let's have it."
The colored man took out some bills, and with much difficulty
endeavored to make a selection; finally, handing one doubtfully
toward the clerk, he asked,
"Is dat a one-dollah, sah?"
"No, that is a five, but I can change it."
"No, I'se got it h'yer," said the other hastily, as he dove again
into his pockets, brought out some pieces of fractional currency and
handed them one by one to the officer until he said he had enough.
"Well," said the clerk as he took up his pen and prepared to fill
out the blank, "what is your name?"
"My name's Nimbus, sah."
"Nimbus what?"
"Nimbus nuffin', sah; jes' Nimbus." "But you must have another
name?"
"No I hain't. Jes' wore dat fer twenty-odd years, an' nebber hed
no udder."
"Who do you work for?"
"Wuk for myself, sah."
"Well, on whose land do you work?"
"Wuks on my own, sah. Oh, I libs at home an' boa'ds at de same
place, I does. An' my name's Nimbus, jes' straight along, widout
any tail ner handle."
"What was your old master's name?"
"Desmit--Colonel Potem Desmit."
"I might have known that," said the clerk laughingly, "from the
durned outlandish name. Well, Desmit is your surname, then, ain't
it?"
"No'taint, Mister. What right I got ter his name? He nebber gib
it ter me no more'n he did ter you er Lugena h'yer."
"Pshaw, I can't stop to argue with you. Here's your certificate."
"Will you please read it, sah? I hain't got no larnin'. Ef you
please, sah."
The clerk, knowing it to be the quickest way to get rid of them,
read rapidly over the certificate that Nimbus and Lugena Desmit had
been duly registered as husband and wife, under the provisions of
an ordinance of the Convention ratified on the---day of---, 1865.
"So you's done put in dat name--Desmit?"
"Oh, I just had to, Nimbus. The fact is, a man can't be married
according to law without two names."
"So hit appears; but ain't it quare dat I should hev ole Mahs'r's
name widout his gibbin' it ter me, ner my axin' fer it, Mister?"
"It may be, but that's the way, you see."
"So hit seems. 'Pears like I'm boun' ter hev mo' names 'n I knows
what ter do wid, jes' kase I's free. But de chillen--yer hain't
sed nary word about dem, Mister."
"Oh, I've nothing to do with them."
"But, see h'yer, Mister, ain't de law a doin dis ter make dem lawful
chillen?"
"Certainly."
"An' how's de law ter know which is de lawful chillen ef hit ain't
on dat ar paper?"
"Sure enough," said the clerk, with amusement. "That would have
been a good idea, but, you see, Nimbus, the law didn't go that
far."
"Wal, hit ought ter hev gone dat fur. Now, Mister Clerk, couldn't
you jes' put dat on dis yer paper, jes' ter "commodate me, yer
know."
"Perhaps so," good-naturedly, taking back the certificate; "what
do you want me to write?"
"Wal, yer see, dese yer is our chillen. Dis yer boy Lone--Axylone,
Marse Desmit called him, but we calls him Lone for short--he's
gwine on fo'; dis yer gal Wicey, she's two past; and dis little
brack cuss Lugena's a-holdin' on, we call Cap'n, kase he bosses
all on us--he's nigh 'bout a year; an' dat's all."
The clerk entered the names and ages of the children on the back
of the paper, with a short certificate that they were present,
and were acknowledged as the children, and the only ones, of the
parties named in the instrument.
And so the slave Nimbus was transformed, first into the "contraband"
and mercenary soldier _George Nimbus_, and then by marriage
into _Nimbus Desmit_.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TOGA VIRILIS.
But the transformations of the slave were not yet ended. The time
came when he was permitted to become a citizen. For two years he
had led an inchoate, nondescript sort of existence: free without
power or right; neither slave nor freeman; neither property nor
citizen. He had been, meanwhile, a bone of contention between the
Provisional Governments of the States and the military power which
controlled them. The so-called State Governments dragged him toward
the whipping-post and the Black Codes and serfdom. They denied
him his oath, fastened him to the land, compelled him to hire by
the year, required the respectfulness of the old slave "Mahs'r"
and "Missus," made his employer liable for his taxes, and allowed
recoupment therefor; limited his avocations and restricted his
opportunities. These would substitute serfdom for chattelism.
On the other hand the Freedman's Bureau acted as his guardian and
friend, looked after his interests in contracts, prohibited the
law's barbarity, and insisted stubbornly that the freedman was
a man, and must be treated as such. It needed only the robe of
citizenship, it was thought, to enable him safely to dispense with
the one of these agencies and defy the other. So the negro was
transformed into a citizen, a voter, a political factor, by act of
Congress, with the aid and assistance of the military power.
A great crowd had gathered at the little town of Melton, which was
one of the chief places of the county of Horsford, for the people
had been duly notified by official advertisement that on this day
the board of registration appointed by the commander of the military
district in which Horsford County was situated would convene there,
to take and record the names, and pass upon the qualifications,
of all who desired to become voters of the new body politic which
was to be erected therein, or of the old one which was to be
reconstructed and rehabilitated out of the ruins which war had
left.
The first provision of the law was that every member of such board
of registration should be able to take what was known in those
days as the "iron-clad oath," that is, an oath that he had never
engaged in, aided, or abetted any rebellion against the Government
of the United States. Men who could do this were exceedingly
difficult to find in some sections. Of course there were abundance
of colored men who could take this oath, but not one in a thousand
of them could read or write. The military commander determined,
however, to select in every registration district one of the most
intelligent of this class, in order that he might look after the
interests of his race, now for the first time to take part in any
public or political movement. This would greatly increase the
labors of the other members of the board, yet was thought not only
just but necessary. As the labor of recording the voters of a county
was no light one, especially as the lists had to be made out in
triplicate, it was necessary to have some clerical ability on the
board. These facts often made the composition of these boards
somewhat heterogeneous and peculiar. The one which was to register
the voters of Horsford consisted of a little old white man, who had
not enough of stamina or character to have done or said anything
in aid of rebellion, and who, if he had done the very best he knew,
ought yet to have been held guiltless of evil accomplished. In his
younger days he had been an overseer, but in his later years had
risen to the dignity of a landowner and the possession of one or
two slaves. He wrestled with the mysteries of the printed page with
a sad seriousness which made one regret his inability to remember
what was at the top until he had arrived at the bottom. Writing
was a still more solemn business with him, but he was a brave man
and would cheerfully undertake to transcribe a list of names, which
he well knew that anything less than eternity would be too short
to allow him to complete. He was a small, thin-haired, squeaky-voiced
bachelor of fifty, and as full of good intentions as the road to
perdition. If Tommy Glass ever did any evil it would not only be
without intent but from sheer accident.
With Tommy was associated an old colored man, one of those known
in that region as "old-issue free-niggers." Old Pharaoh Ray was a
venerable man. He had learned to read before the Constitution of
1835 deprived the free-negro of his vote, and had read a little
since. He wore an amazing pair of brass-mounted spectacles. His
head was surmounted by a mass of snowy hair, and he was of erect
and powerful figure despite the fact that he boasted a life of more
than eighty years. He read about as fast and committed to memory
more easily than his white associate, Glass. In writing they were
about a match; Pharaoh wrote his name much more legibly than Glass
could, but Glass accomplished the task in about three fourths of
the time required by Pharaoh.
The third member of the board was Captain Theron Pardee, a young
man who had served in the Federal army and afterward settled
in an adjoining county. He was the chairman. He did the writing,
questioning, and deciding, and as each voter had to be sworn he
utilized his two associates by requiring them to administer the
oaths and--look wise. The colored man in about two weeks learned
these oaths so that he could repeat them. The white man did not
commit the brief formulas in the four weeks they were on duty.
The good people of Melton were greatly outraged that this composite
board should presume to come and pass upon the qualifications of
its people as voters under the act of Congress, and indeed it was
a most ludicrous affair. The more they contemplated the outrage
that was being done to them, by decreeing that none should vote
who had once taken an oath to support the Government of the United
States and afterward aided the rebellion, the angrier they grew,
until finally they declared that the registration should not
be held. Then there were some sharp words between the ex-Federal
soldier and the objectors. As no house could be procured for the
purpose, he proposed to hold the registration on the porch of the
hotel where he stopped, but the landlord objected. Then he proposed to
hold it on the sidewalk under a big tree, but the town authorities
declared against it. However, he was proceeding there, when
an influential citizen kindly came forward and offered the use
of certain property under his control. There was some clamor, but
the gentleman did not flinch. Thither they adjourned, and the work
went busily on. Among others who came to be enrolled as citizens
was our old friend Nimbus.
"Where do you live?" asked the late Northern soldier sharply, as
Nimbus came up in. his turn in the long line of those waiting for
the same purpose.
"Down ter Red Wing, sah?"
"Where's that?"
"Oh, right down h'yer on Hyco, sah."
"In this county?"
"Oh, bless yer, yes, Mister, should tink hit was. Hit's not above
five or six miles out from h'yer."
"How old are you?"
"Wal, now, I don't know dat, not edzactly."
"How old do you think--twenty-one?"
"Oh, la, yes; more nor dat, Cap'."
"Born where?"
"Right h'yer in Horsford, sah."
"What is your name?"
"Nimbus."
"Nimbus what?" asked the officer, looking up.
"Nimbus nothin', sah; jes' straight along Nimbus."
"Well, but--" said the officer, looking puzzled, "you must have
some sort of surname."
"No, sah, jes' one; nigger no use for two names."
"Yah! yah! yah!" echoed the dusky crowd behind him. "You's jes'
right dah, you is! Niggah mighty little use fer heap o' names. Jes'
like a mule--one name does him, an' mighty well off ef he's 'lowed
ter keep dat."
"His name's Desmit," said a white man, the sheriff of the county,
who stood leaning over the railing; "used to belong to old Potem
Desmit, over to Louisburg. Mighty good nigger, too. I s'pec' ole
man Desmit felt about as bad at losing him as ary one he had."
"Powerful good hand in terbacker," said Mr. Glass, who was himself an
expert in "yaller leaf." "Ther' wasn't no better ennywhar' round."
"I knows all about him," said another. "Seed a man offer old Desmit
eighteen hundred dollars for him afore the war--State money--but
he wouldn't tech it. Reckon he wishes he had now."
"Yes," said the sheriff, "he's the best curer in the county. Commands
almost any price in the season, but is powerful independent, and
gittin' right sassy. Listen at him now?"
"They say your name is Desmit--Nimbus Desmit," said the officer;
"is that so?"
"No, tain't."
"Wasn't that your old master's name?" asked the sheriff roughly.
"Co'se it war," was the reply.
"Well, then, ain't it yours too?"
"No, it ain't."
"Well, you just ask the gentleman if that ain't so," said the
sheriff, motioning to the chairman of the board.
"Well," said that officer, with a peculiar smile, "I do not know
that there is any law compelling a freedman to adopt his former
master's name. He is without name in the law, a pure _nullius
filius_--nobody's son. As a slave he had but one name.
He _could_ have no surname, because he had no family. He
was arraigned, tried, and executed as 'Jim' or 'Bill' or 'Tom.'
The volumes of the reports are full of such cases, as The State
_vs._ 'Dick' or 'Sam.' The Roman custom was for the freedman
to take the name of some friend, benefactor, or patron. I do not
see why the American freedman has not a right to choose his own
surname."
"That is not the custom here," said the sheriff, with some chagrin,
he having begun the controversy.
"Very true," replied the chairman; "the custom--and a very proper
and almost necessary one it seems--is to call the freedman by a
former master's name. This distinguishes individuals. But when the
freedman refuses to acknowledge the master's name as his, who can
impose it on him? We are directed to register the names of parties,
and while we might have the right to refuse one whom we found
attempting to register under a false name, yet we have no power
to make names for those applying. Indeed, if this man insists that
he has but one name, we must, for what I can see, register him by
that alone."
His associates looked wise, and nodded acquiescence in the views
thus expressed.
"Den dat's what I chuse," said the would-be voter. "My name's
Nimbus--noffin' mo'."
"But I should advise you to take another name to save trouble
when you come to vote," said the chairman. His associates nodded
solemnly again.
"Wal, now, Marse Cap'n, you jes' see h'yer. I don't want ter carry
nobody's name widout his leave. S'pose I take ole Marse War's name
ober dar?"
"You can take any one you choose. I shall write down the one you
give me."
"Is you willin', Marse War'?"
"I've nothing to do with it, Nimbus," said Ware; "fix your own
name."
"Wal sah," said Nimbus, "I reckon I'll take dat ef I must hev enny
mo' name. Yer see he wuz my ole oberseer, Mahs'r, an' wuz powerful
good ter me, tu. I'd a heap ruther hev his name than Marse Desmit's;
but I don't _want_ no name but Nimbus, nohow.
"All right," said the chairman, as he made the entry. "Ware it is
then."
As there might be a poll held at Red Wing, where Nimbus lived, he
was given a certificate showing that _Nimbus Ware_ had been
duly registered as an elector of the county of Horsford and for
the precinct of Red Wing.
Then the newly-named Nimbus was solemnly sworn by the patriarchal
Pharaoh to bear true faith and allegiance to the government of the
United States, and to uphold its constitution and the laws passed
in conformity therewith; and thereby the recent slave became a
component factor of the national life, a full-fledged citizen of
the American Republic.
As he passed out, the sheriff said to those about him, in a low
tone,
"There'll be trouble with that nigger yet. He's too sassy. You'll
see."
"How so?" asked the chairman. "I thought you said he was industrious,
thrifty, and honest."
"Oh, yes," was the reply, "there ain't a nigger in the county got
a better character for honesty and hard work than he, but he's too
important--has got the big head, as we call it."
"I don't understand what you mean," said the chairman.
"Why he ain't respectful," said the other. "Talks as independent
as if he was a white man."
"Well, he has as much right to talk independently as a white man.
He is just as free," said the chairman sharply.
"Yes; but he ain't white," said the sheriff doggedly, "and our
people won't stand a nigger's puttin' on such airs. Why, Captain,"
he continued in a tone which showed that he felt that the fact he
was about to announce must carry conviction even to the incredulous
heart of the Yankee officer. "You just ought to see his place down
at Red Wing. Damned if he ain't better fixed up than lots of white
men in the county. He's got a good house, and a terbacker-barn,
and a church, and a nigger school-house, and stock, and one of
the finest crops of terbacker in the county. Oh, I tell you, he's
cutting a wide swath, he is." "You don't tell me," said the
chairman with interest. "I am glad to hear it. There appears to
be good stuff in the fellow. He seems to have his own ideas about
things, too."
"Yes, that's the trouble," responded the sheriff. "Our people
ain't used to that and won't stand it. He's putting on altogether
too much style for a nigger."
"Pshaw," said the chairman, "if there were more like him it would
be better for everybody. A man like him is worth something for
an example. If all the race were of his stamp there would be more
hope."
"The devil!" returned the sheriff, with a sneering laugh, "if they
were all like him, a white man couldn't live in the country. They'd
be so damned sassy and important that we'd have to kill the last
one of 'em to have any peace."
"Fie, sheriff," laughed the chairman good-naturedly; "you seem to
be vexed at the poor fellow for his thrift, and because he is doing
well."
"I am a white man, sir; and I don't like to see niggers gittin'
above us. Them's my sentiments," was the reply. "And that's the
way our people feel."
There was a half-suppressed murmur of applause among the group of
white men at this. The chairman responded,
"No doubt, and yet I believe you are wrong. Now, I can't help
liking the fellow for his sturdy manhood. He may be a trifle too
positive, but it is a good fault. I think he has the elements of
a good citizen, and I can't understand why you feel so toward him."
There were some appreciative and good-natured cries of "Dar now,"
"Listen at him," "Now you're talkin'," from the colored men at this
reply.
"Oh, that's because you're a Yankee," said the sheriff, with
commiserating scorn. "You don't think, now, that it's any harm to
talk that way before niggers and set them against the white people
either, I suppose?"
The chairman burst into a hearty laugh, as he replied,
"No, indeed, I don't. If you call that setting the blacks against
the whites, the sooner they are by the ears the better. If you
are so thin-skinned that you can't allow a colored man to think,
talk, act, and prosper like a man, the sooner you get over your
squeamishness the better. For me, I am interested in this Nimbus.
We have to go to Red Wing and report on it as a place for holding
a poll and I am bound to see more of him."
"Oh, you'll see enough of him if you go there, never fear," was
the reply.
There was a laugh from the white men about the sheriff, a sort
of cheer from the colored men in waiting, and the business of the
board went on without further reference to the new-made citizen.
The slave who had been transformed into a "contraband" and
mustered as a soldier under one name, married under another, and
now enfranchised under a third, returned to his home to meditate
upon his transformations--as we found him doing in our first chapter.
The reason for these metamorphoses, and their consequences, might
well puzzle a wiser head than that of the many-named but unlettered
Nimbus.
CHAPTER VII.
DAMON AND PYTHIAS.
After his soliloquy in regard to his numerous names, as given in our
first chapter, Nimbus turned away from the gate near which he had
been standing, crossed the yard in front of his house, and entered
a small cabin which stood near it.
"Dar! 'Liab," he said, as he entered and handed the paper which he
had been examining to the person addressed, "I reckon I'se free
now. I feel ez ef I wuz 'bout half free, ennyhow. I wuz a sojer,
an' fought fer freedom. I've got my house an' bit o' lan', wife,
chillen, crap, an' stock, an' it's all mine. An' now I'se done been
registered, an' when de 'lection comes off, kin vote jes' ez hard
an' ez well an' ez often ez ole Marse Desmit. I hain't felt free
afore--leastways I hain't felt right certain on't; but now I reckon
I'se all right, fact an' truth. What you tinks on't, 'Liab?"
The person addressed was sitting on a low seat under the one window
which was cut into the west side of the snugly-built log cabin. The
heavy wooden shutter swung back over the bench. On the other side
of the room was a low cot, and a single splint-bottomed chair stood
against the open door. The house contained no other furniture.
The bench which he occupied was a queer compound of table, desk,
and work-bench. It had the leathern seat of a shoemaker's bench,
except that it was larger and wider. As the occupant sat with his
back to the window, on his left were the shallow boxes of a shoemaker's
bench, and along its edge the awls and other tools of that craft
were stuck in leather loops secured by tacks, as is the custom of
the crispin the world over. On the right was a table whose edge
was several inches above the seat, and on which were some books,
writing materials, a slate, a bundle of letters tied together with
a piece of shoe-thread, and some newspapers and pamphlets scattered
about in a manner which showed at a glance that the owner was
unaccustomed to their care, but which is yet quite indescribable.
On the wall above this table, but within easy reach of the sitter's
hand, hung a couple of narrow hanging shelves, on which a few books
were neatly arranged. One lay open on the table, with a shoemaker's
last placed across it to prevent its closing.
Eliab was already busily engaged in reading the certificate which
Nimbus had given him. The sun, now near its setting, shone in at
the open door and fell upon him as he read. He was a man apparently
about the age of Nimbus--younger rather than older--having a fine
countenance, almost white, but with just enough of brown in its
sallow paleness to suggest the idea of colored blood, in a region
where all degrees of admixture were by no means rare. A splendid
head of black hair waved above his broad, full forehead, and an
intensely black silky beard and mustache framed the lower portion
of his face most fittingly. His eyes were soft and womanly, though
there was a patient boldness about their great brown pupils and a
directness of gaze which suited well the bearded face beneath. The
lines of suffering were deeply cut upon the thoughtful brow and
around the liquid eyes, and showed in the mobile workings of the
broad mouth, half shaded by the dark mustache. The face was not
a handsome one, but there was a serious and earnest calmness about
it which gave it an unmistakable nobility of expression and prompted
one to look more closely at the man and his surroundings.
The shoulders were broad and square, the chest was full, the figure
erect, and the head finely poised. He was dressed with unusual
neatness for one of his race and surroundings, at the time of which
we write. One comprehended at a glance that this worker and learner
was also deformed. There was that in his surroundings which showed
that he was not as other men. The individuality of weakness and
suffering had left its indelible stamp upon the habitation which
he occupied. Yet so erect and self-helping in appearance was the
figure on the cobbler's bench that one for a moment failed to note
in what the affliction consisted. Upon closer observation he saw
that the lower limbs were sharply flexed and drawn to the leftward,
so that the right foot rested on its side under the left thigh.
This inclined the body somewhat to the right, so that the right
arm rested naturally upon the table for support when not employed.
These limbs, especially below the knees, were shrunken and distorted.
The shoe of the right foot whose upturned sole rested on the left
leg just above the ankle, was many sizes too small for a development
harmonious with the trunk.
Nimbus sat down in the splint-bottomed chair by the door and fanned
himself with his dingy hat while the other read.
"How is dis, Nimbus? What does dis mean? _Nimbus Ware?_
Where did you get dat name?" he asked at length, raising his eyes
and looking in pained surprise toward the new voter.
"Now, Bre'er 'Liab, don't talk dat 'ere way ter Nimbus, ef
yo please. Don't do it now. Yer knows I can't help it. Ebberybody
want ter call me by ole Mahs'r's name, an' dat I can't abide nohow;
an' when I kicks 'bout it, dey jes gib me some odder one, Dey all
seems ter tink I'se boun' ter hev two names, though I hain't got
no manner o' right ter but one."
"But how did you come to have dis one--Ware?" persisted Eliab.
"Wal, you see, Bre'er 'Liab, de boss man at der registerin' he
ax me fer my las' name, an' I tell him I hadn't got none, jes so.
Den Sheriff Gleason, he put in his oar, jes ez he allus does, an'
he say my name wuz _Desmit,_ atter ole Mahs'r. Dat made me
mad, an' I 'spute him, an' sez I, 'I won't hev no sech name'. Den
de boss man, he shet up Marse Gleason purty smart like, and _he_
sed I'd a right ter enny name I chose ter carry, kase nobody hadn't
enny sort o' right ter fasten enny name at all on ter me 'cept
myself. But he sed I'd better hev two, kase most other folks hed
'em. So I axed Marse Si War' ef he'd lend me his name jes fer de
'casion, yer know, an' he sed he hadn't no 'jection ter it. So I
tole der boss man ter put it down, an' I reckon dar 'tis."
"Yes, here it is, sure 'nough, Nimbus; but didn't you promise me
you wouldn't have so many names?"
"Co'se I did; an' I did try, but they all 'llowed I got ter have
two names whe'er er no."
"Then why didn't you take your old mahs'r's name, like de rest,
and not have all dis trouble?"
"Now, 'Liab, yer knows thet I won't nebber do dat."
"But why not, Nimbus?"
"Kase I ain't a-gwine ter brand my chillen wid no sech slave-mark!
Nebber! You hear dat, 'Liab? I hain't got no ill-will gin Marse
Desmit, not a mite--only 'bout dat ar lickin, an' dat ain't nuffin
now; but I ain't gwine ter war his name ner giv it ter my chillen
ter mind 'em dat der daddy wuz jes anudder man's critter one time.
I tell you I can't do hit, nohow; an' I _won't,_ Bre'er 'Liab.
I don't hate Marse Desmit, but I does hate slavery--dat what made
me his--worse'n a pilot hates a rattlesnake; an' I hate everyting
dat 'minds me on't, I do!"
The black Samson had risen in his excitement and now sat down upon
the bench by the other.
"I don't blame you for dat, Nimbus, but--"
"I don't want to heah no 'buts' 'bout it, an' I won't."
"But the chillen, Nimbus. You don't want dem to be different from
others and have no surname?"
"Dat's a fac', 'Liab," said Nimbus, springing to his feet. "I
nebber t'ought o' dat. Dey must hev a name, an' I mus' hev one ter
gib 'em, but how's I gwine ter git one? Dar's nobody's got enny right
ter gib me one, an' ef I choose one dis week what's ter hender my
takin' ob anudder nex week?"
"Perhaps nothing," answered 'Liab, "but yourself. You must not do
it."
"Pshaw, now," said Nimbus, "' what sort o' way is dat ter hev
things? I tell ye what orter been done, 'Liab; when de law married
us all, jes out of han' like, it orter hev named us too. Hit mout
hev been done, jes ez well's not. Dar's old Mahs'r now, he'd hev
named all de niggas in de county in a week, easy. An' dey'd been
good names, too."
"But you'd have bucked at it ef he had," said 'Liab, good-naturedly.
"No I wouldn't, 'Liab. I hain't got nuffin 'gin ole Mahrs'r. He
war good enough ter me--good 'nuff. I only hate what _made_
him 'Old Mahs'r,' an' dat I does hate. Oh, my God, how I does hate
it, Liab! I hates de berry groun' dat a slave's wukked on! I do,
I swar! When I wuz a-comin' home to-day an' seed de gullies 'long
der way, hit jes made me cuss, kase dey wuz dar a-testifyin' ob de
ole time when a man war a critter--a dog--a nuffin!"
"Now you oughtn't to say dat, Nimbus. Just think of me. Warn't you
better off as a slave than I am free?"
"No, I warn't. I'd ruther be a hundred times wuss off ner you, an'
free, than ez strong as I am an' a slave."
"But think how much more freedom is worth to you. Here you are a
voter, and I--"
"Bre'er 'Liab," exclaimed Nimbus, starting suddenly up, "what for
you no speak 'bout dat afore. Swar to God I nebber tink on't--not
a word, till dis bressed minit. Why didn't yer say nuffin' 'bout
bein' registered yo'self, eh? Yer knowed I'd a tuk yer ef I hed
ter tote ye on my back, which I wouldn't. I wouldn't gone a step
widout yer ef I'd only a t'ought. Yer knows I wouldn't."
"Course I does, Nimbus, but I didn't want ter make ye no trouble,
nor take the mule out of the crap," answered 'Liab apologetically.
"Damn de crap!" said Nimbus impetuously.
"Don't; don't swear, Nimbus, if you please."
"Can't help it, 'Liab, when you turn fool an' treat me dat 'ere
way. I'd swar at ye ef yer wuz in de pulpit an' dat come ober me,
jes at de fust. Yer knows Nimbus better ner dat. Now see heah, 'Liab
Hill, yer's gwine ter go an' be registered termorrer, jes ez sure
ez termorrer comes. Here we thick-headed dunces hez been up dar
to-day a-takin' de oath an' makin' bleve we's full grown men, an'
here's you, dat knows more nor a ten-acre lot full on us, a lyin'
here an' habin' no chance at all."
"But you want to get de barn full, and can't afford to spend any
more time," protested 'Liab.
"Nebber you min' 'bout de barn. Dat's Nimbus' business, an" he'll
take keer on't. Let him alone fer dat. Yis, honey, I'se comin'
d'reckly!" he shouted, as his wife called him from his own cabin.
"Now Bre'er 'Liab, yer comes ter supper wid us. Lugena's jes' a
callin' on't."
"Oh, don't, Nimbus," said the other, shrinking away. "I can't! You
jes send one of the chillen in with it, as usual."
"No yer don't," said Nimbus; "yer's been a scoldin' an' abusin' me
all dis yer time, an' now I'se gwine ter hab my way fer a little
while."
He went to the door and called:
"Gena! _Oh,_ Gena!" and as his wife did not answer, he said to
one of his children, "_Oh,_ Axylone, jes run inter de kitchen,
son, an' tell yer ma ter put on anudder plate, fer Bre'er 'Liab's
comin' ober ter take a bite wid us."
Eliab kept on protesting, but it was in vain. Nimbus bent over him
as tenderly as a mother over the cradle of her first-born, clasped
his arms about him, and lifting him from the bench bore him away
to his own house.
With an unconscious movement, which was evidently acquired by long
experience, the afflicted man cast one arm over Nimbus' shoulder,
put the other around him, and leaning across the stalwart breast
of his friend so evenly distributed his weight that the other bore
him with ease. Entering his own house, Nimbus placed his burden in
the chair at the head of the table, while he himself took his seat
on one of the wooden benches at the side.
"I jes brought Bre'er 'Liab in ter supper, honey," said he to
his wife; "kase I see'd he war gettin' inter de dumps like, an' I
'llowed yer'd chirk him up a bit ef yer jes hed him over h'yer a
while."
"Shan't do it," said the bright-eyed woman saucily.
"Kase why?" queried her husband.
"Kase Bre'er 'Liab don't come oftener. Dat's why."
"Dar, now, jes see what yer done git fer being so contrary-like,
will yer?" said the master to his guest. H'yer, you Axylone,"
he continued to his eldest born, " fo'd up yer han's while Bre'er
'Liab ax de blessin'. You, too, Capting," shaking his finger at
a roll of animated blackness on the end of the seat opposite.
"Now, Bre'er 'Liab."
The little black fingers were interlocked, the close-clipped, kinky
heads were bowed upon them; the master of the house bent reverently
over his plate; the plump young wife crossed her hands demurely
on the bright handle of the big coffee-pot by which she stood, and
"Bre'er 'Liab," clasping his slender fingers, uplifted his eyes
and hands to heaven, and uttered a grace which grew into a prayer.
His voice was full of thankfulness, and tears crept from under his
trembling lids.
The setting sun, which looked in upon the peaceful scene, no doubt
flickered and giggled with laughter as he sank to his evening couch
with the thought, "How quick these 'sassy' free-niggers do put on
airs like white folks!"
In the tobacco-field on the hillside back of his house, Nimbus and
his wife, Lugena, wrought in the light of the full moon nearly all
the night which followed, and early on the morrow Nimbus harnessed
his mule into his canvas-covered wagon, in which, upon a bed
of straw, reclined his friend Eliab Hill, and drove again to the
place of registration. On arriving there he took his friend in his
arms, carried him in and sat him on the railing before the Board.
Clasping the blanket close about his deformed extremities the
cripple leaned upon his friend's shoulder and answered the necessary
questions with calmness and precision.
"There's a pair for you, captain," said Gleason, nodding good-naturedly
toward Nimbus as he bore his helpless charge again to the wagon.
"Is he white?" asked the officer, with a puzzled look.
"White?" exclaimed Sheriff Gleason, with a laugh. "No, indeed! He's
a nigger preacher who lives with Nimbus down at Red Wing. They're
great cronies--always together. I expect he's at the bottom of all
the black nigger's perversity, though he always seems as smooth
and respectful as you please. He's a deep one. I 'llow he does
all the scheming, and just makes Nimbus a cat's-paw to do his work.
I don't know much about him, though. He hardly ever talks with
anybody."
"He seems a very remarkable man," said the officer.
"Oh, he is," said the sheriff. "Even in slave times he was a very
influential man among the niggers, and since freedom he and Nimbus
together rule the whole settlement. I don't suppose there are ten
white men in the county who could control, square out and out, as
many votes as these two will have in hand when they once get to
voting."
"Was he a slave? What is his history?"
"I don't exactly know," answered the sheriff. "He is quite a young
man, and somehow I never happened to hear of him till some time
during the war. Then he was a sort of prophet among them, and while
he did a power of praying for you Yanks, he always counselled the
colored people to be civil and patient, and not try to run away or
go to cutting up, but just to wait till the end came. He was just
right, too, and his course quieted the white folks down here on the
river, where there was a big slave population, more than a little."
"I should like to know more of him," said the chairman.
"All right," said Gleason, looking around. "If Hesden Le Moyne
is here, I'll get him to tell you all about him, at noon. If he is
not here then, he will come in before night, I'm certain."
CHAPTER VIII.
A FRIENDLY PROLOGUE.
As they went from the place of registration to their dinner at the
hotel, the sheriff, walking beside the chairman, said: "I spoke
to Le Moyne about that negro fellow, Eliab Hill, and he says he's
very willing to tell you all he knows about him; but, as there are
some private matters connected with the story, he prefers to come
to your room after dinner, rather than speak of it more publicly."
"I am sure I shall be much obliged to him if he will do so," said
Pardee.
"You will find him one of the very finest men you ever met, I'm
thinking," continued Gleason. "His father, Casaubon Le Moyne, was
very much of a gentleman. He came from Virginia, and was akin
to the Le Moynes of South Carolina, one of the best of those old
French families that brag so much of their Huguenot blood. I never
believed in it myself, but they are a mighty elegant family; no
doubt of that. I've got the notion that they were not as well off
as they might be. Perhaps the family got too big for the estate.
That would happen with these old families, you know; but they were
as high-toned and honorable as if their fore-bears had been kings.
Not proud, I don't mean--not a bit of that--but high-spirited and
hot-tempered.
"His mother was a Richards--Hester Richards--the daughter of old
man Jeems Richards. The family was a mighty rich one; used to own
all up and down the river on both sides, from Red Wing to Mulberry
Hill, where Hesden now lives. Richards had a big family of boys and
only one gal, who was the youngest. The boys was all rather tough
customers, I've heard say, taking after their father, who was about
as hard a man to get along with as was ever in this country. He
came from up North somewhere about 1790, when everybody thought this
pea-vine country was a sort of new Garden of Eden. He was a well
educated and capable man, but had a terrible temper. He let the
boys go to the devil their own way, just selling off a plantation
now and then and paying their debts. He had so much land that
it was a good thing for him to get rid of it. But he doted on the
gal, and sent her off to school and travelled with her and give her
every sort of advantage. She was a beauty, and as sweet and good
as she was pretty. How she come to marry Casaubon Le Moyne nobody
ever knew; but it's just my opinion that it was because they loved
each other, and nothing else. They certainly were the best matched
couple that I ever saw. They had but one child--this young man
Hesden. His mother was always an invalid after his birth; in fact
hasn't walked a step since that time. She was a very remarkable
woman. though, and in spite of her sickness took charge of her
son's education and fitted him for college all by herself. The
boy grew up sorter quiet like, probably on account of being in his
mother's sick room so much; but there wasn't anything soft about
him, after all.
"The old man Casaubon was a Unioner--the strongest kind. Mighty few
of them in this county, which was one of the largest slave-holding
counties in the State. It never had anything but a big Democratic
majority in it, in the old times. I think the old man Le Moyne, run
for the Legislature here some seven times befo're he was elected,
and then it was only on his personal popularity. That was the only
time the county ever had a Whig representative even. When the war
came on, the old man was right down sick. I do believe he saw
the end from the beginning. I've heard him tell things almost to
a fraction jest as they came out afterward. Well, the young man
Hesden, he had his father's notions, of course, but he was pluck.
He couldn't have been a Le Moyne, or a Richards either, without
that. I remember, not long after the war begun--perhaps in the
second year, before the conscription came on, anyhow--he came into
town riding of a black colt that he had raised. I don't think it
had been backed more than a few times, and it was just as fine as
a fiddle. I've had some fine horses myself, and believe I know what
goes to make up a good nag, but I've never seen one that suited my
notion as well as that black. Le Moyne had taken a heap of pains
with him. A lot of folks gathered 'round and was admiring the
beast, and asking questions about his pedigree and the like, when
all at once a big, lubberly fellow named Timlow--Jay Timlow--said
it was a great pity that such a fine nag should belong to a Union
man an' a traitor to his country. You know, captain, that's what
we called Union men in them days. He hadn't more'n got the words
out of his mouth afore Hesden hit him. I'd no idea he could
strike such a blow. Timlow was forty pounds heavier than he, but
it staggered him back four or five steps, and Le Moyne follered
him up, hitting just about as fast as he could straighten his arm,
till he dropped. The queerest thing about it was that the horse
follered right along, and when Timlow come down with his face all
battered up, and Le Moyne wheeled about and started over to the
Court House, the horse kept on follerin' him up to the very steps.
Le Moyne went into the Court House and stayed about ten minutes.
Then he came out and walked straight across the square to where
the crowd was around Timlow, who had been washing the blood off
his face at the pump. Le Moyne was as white as a sheet, and Timlow
was jest a-cussing his level best about what he would do when he
sot eyes on him again. I thought there might be more trouble, and
I told Timlow to hush his mouth--I was a deputy then--and then I
told Le Moyne he mustn't come any nearer. He was only a few yards
away, with a paper in his hand, and that horse just behind him. He
stopped when I called him, and said:
"'You needn't fear my coming for any further difficulty, gentlemen.
I merely want to say'--and he held up the paper--' that I have
enlisted in the army of the Confederate States, and taken this horse
to ride--given him to the Government. And I want to say further,
that if Jay Timlow wants to do any fighting, and will go and enlist,
I'll furnish him a horse, too.'
"With that he jumped on his horse and rode away, followed by a
big cheer, while Jay Timlow stood on the pump platform sopping his
head with his handkerchief, his eyes as big as saucers, as they say,
from surprise. We were all surprised, for that matter. As soon as
we got over that a little we began to rally Timlow over the outcome of
his little fracas. There wasn't no such timber in him as in young
Le Moyne, of course--a big beefy fellow--but he couldn't stand
that, and almost before we had got well started he put on his hat,
looked round at the crowd a minute, and said, 'Damned if I don't do
it!' He marched straight over to the Court House and did it, too.
"Le Moyne stood up to his bargain, and they both went out in the
same company a few days afterward. They became great friends, and
they do say the Confederacy had mighty few better soldiers than
those two boys. Le Moyne was offered promotion time and again, but
he wouldn't take it. He said he didn't like war, didn't believe
in it, and didn't want no responsibility only for himself. Just
about the last fighting they had over about Appomattox--perhaps
the very day before the Surrender--he lost that horse and his
left arm a-fighting over that same Jay Timlow, who had got a ball
in the leg, and Le Moyne was trying to keep him out of the hands
of you Yanks.
"He got back after a while, and has been living with his mother on
the old plantation ever since. He married a cousin just before he
went into the service--more to have somebody to leave with his ma
than because he wanted a wife, folks said. The old man, Colonel
Casaubon, died during the war. He never seemed like himself after
the boy went into the army. I saw him once or twice, and I never
did see such a change in any man. Le Moyne's wife died, too. She
left a little boy, who with Le Moyne and his ma are all that's left
of the family. I don't reckon there ever was a man thought more
of his mother, or had a mother more worth setting store by, than
Hesden Le Moyne." They had reached the hotel when this account
was concluded, and after dinner the sheriff came to the captain's
room and introduced a slender young man in neatly fitting jeans,
with blue eyes, a dark brown beard, and an empty coat-sleeve, as
Mr. Hesden Le Moyne.
He put his felt hat under the stump of his left arm and extended
his right hand as he said simply:
"The sheriff said you wished to see me about Eliab Hill."
"I did," was the response; "but after what he has told me, I desired
to see you much more for yourself."
The sheriff withdrew, leaving them alone together, and they fell
to talking of army life at once, as old soldiers always will, each
trying to locate the other in the strife which they had passed
through on opposite sides.
CHAPTER IX.
A BRUISED REED.
"Eliab Hill," said Le Moyne, when they came at length to the subject
in relation to which the interview had been solicited, "was born
the slave of Potem Desmit, on his plantation Knapp-of-Reeds, in
the lower part of the county. His mother was a very likely woman,
considerable darker than he, but still not more than a quadroon, I
should say. She was brought from Colonel Desmit's home plantation
to Knapp-of-Reeds some little time before her child was born. It
was her first child, I believe, and her last one. She was a very
slender woman, and though not especially unhealthy, yet never
strong, being inclined to consumption, of which she finally died.
Of course his paternity is unknown, though rumor has not been silent
in regard to it. It is said that a stubborn refusal on his mother's
part to reveal it led Colonel Desmit, in one of his whimsical
moods, to give the boy the name he bears. However, he was as bright
a child as ever frolicked about a plantation till he was some
five or six years old. His mother had been a house-servant before
she was sent to Knapp-of-Reeds, and being really a supernumerary
there, my father hired her a year or two afterward as a nurse for
my mother, who has long been an invalid, as you may be aware."
His listener nodded assent, and he went on:
"Her child was left at Knapp-of-Reeds, but Saturday nights it
was brought over to stay the Sunday with her, usually by this boy
Nimbus, who was two or three years older than he. The first I remember
of his misfortune was one Saturday, when Nimbus brought him over
in a gunny-sack, on his back. It was not a great way, hardly half
a mile, but I remember thinking that it was a pretty smart tug for
the little black rascal. I was not more than a year or two older
than he, myself, and not nearly so strong.
"It seems that something had happened to the boy, I never knew
exactly what--seems to me it was a cold resulting from some exposure,
which settled in his legs, as they say, producing rheumatism or
something of that kind--so that he could not walk or hardly stand
up. The boy Nimbus had almost the sole charge of him during the
week, and of course he lacked for intelligent treatment. In fact,
I doubt if Desmit's overseer knew anything about it until it
was too late to do any good. He was a bright, cheerful child, and
Nimbus was the same dogged, quiet thing he is now. So it went on,
until his mother, Moniloe, found that he had lost all use of his
legs. They were curled up at one side, as you saw them, and while
his body has developed well they have grown but little in comparison.
"Moniloe made a great outcry over the child, to whom she was much
attached, and finally wrought upon my father and mother to buy
herself and her crippled boy. Colonel Desmit, on whom the burden
of his maintenance would fall, and who saw no method of making him
self-supporting, was willing to sell the mother on very moderate
terms if my father would take the child and guarantee his support.
This was done, and they both became my father's property. Neither
forgot to be grateful. The woman was my mother's faithful nurse
until after the war, when she died, and I have never been able to
fill her place completely, since. I think Eliab learned his letters,
and perhaps to read a little, from me. He was almost always in my
mother's room, being brought in and set down upon a sheepskin on
one side the fireplace in the morning by his mammy. My mother had
great sympathy with his misfortune, the more, I suppose, because
of her own very similar affliction. She used to teach him to sew
and knit, and finally, despite the law, began to encourage him to
read. The neighbors, coming in and finding him with a book in his
hands, began to complain of it, and my father, in order to silence
all such murmurs, manumitted him square out and gave bonds for his
support, as the law required.
"As he grew older he remained more and more in his mother's cabin,
in one corner of which she had a little elevated platform made for
him. He could crawl around the room by means of his hands, and had
great skill in clambering about by their aid. When he was about
fifteen a shoemaker came to the house to do our plantation work.
Eliab watched him closely all the first day; on the second desired
to help, and before the month had passed was as good a shoemaker
as his teacher. From that time he worked steadily at the trade,
and managed very greatly to reduce the cost of his support.
"He was a strange boy, and he and this fellow Nimbus were always
together except when prevented by the latter's tasks. A thousand
times I have known Nimbus to come over long after dark and leave
before daylight, in order to stay with his friend over night. Not
unfrequently he would carry him home upon his back and keep him for
several days at Knapp-of-Reeds, where both were prime favorites, as
they were with us also. As they grew older this attachment became
stronger. Many's the time I have passed there and seen Nimbus working
in the tobacco and Eliab with his hammers and lasts pounding away
under a tree near by. Having learned to read, the man was anxious
to know more. For a time he was indulged, but as the hot times just
preceding the war came on, it became indiscreet for him to be seen
with a book.
"While he was still very young he began to preach, and his
ministrations were peculiarly prudent and sensible. His influence
with his people, even before emancipation, was very great, and
has been increased by his correct and manly conduct since. I regard
him, sir, as one of the most useful men in the community.
"For some reason, I have never known exactly what, he became anxious
to leave my house soon after Nimbus' return from the army, although
I had offered him the free use of the little shop where he and his
mother had lived, as long as he desired. He and Nimbus, by some hook
or crook, managed to buy the place at Red Wing. It was a perfectly
barren piney old-field then, and not thought of any account except
for the timber there was on it. It happened to be at the crossing
of two roads, and upon a high sandy ridge, which was thought to be
too poor to raise peas on. The man who sold it to them--their old
master Potem Desmit--no doubt thought he was getting two or three
prices for it; but it has turned out one of the best tobacco
farms in the county. It is between two very rich sections, and in
a country having a very large colored population, perhaps the largest
in the county, working the river plantations on one side and the
creek bottoms on the other. I have heard that Nimbus takes great
credit to himself for his sagacity in foreseeing the capabilities
of Red Wing. If he really did detect its value at that time, it
shows a very fine judgment and accounts for his prosperity since.
Eliab Hill affirms this to be true, but most people think he does
the planning for the whole settlement. Nimbus has done extremely
well, however. He has sold off, I should judge, nearly half his
land, in small parcels, has worked hard, and had excellent crops.
I should not wonder, if his present crop comes off well and the
market holds on, if before Christmas he were worth as many thousands
as he had hundreds the day he bought that piney old-field. It
don't take much tobacco at a dollar a pound, which his last crop
brought, lugs and all, to make a man that does his own work and
works his own land right well off. He's had good luck, has worked
hard, and has either managed well or been well advised; it don't
matter which.
"He has gathered a good crowd around him too, sober, hard-working
men; and most of them have done well too. So that it has become
quite a flourishing little settlement. I suppose there are some
fifty or sixty families live there. They have a church, which
they use for a school-house, and it is by a great deal the best
school-house in the county too. Of course they got' outside help,
some from the Bureau, I reckon, and more perhaps from some charitable
association. I should think the church or school-house must have
cost fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars. They have a splendid
school. Two ladies from the North are teaching there--real ladies,
I should judge, too."
The listener smiled at this indorsement.
"I see," said Le Moyne, "it amuses you that I should qualify my
words in that manner. It seems unneccessary to you."
"Entirely so."
"Well, it may be; but I assure you, sir, we find it hard to believe
that any one who will come down here and teach niggers is of very
much account at home."
"They are generally of the very cream of our Northern life,"
said the other. "I know at this very time the daughters of several
prominent clergymen, of two college professors, of a wealthy merchant,
of a leading manufacturer, and of several wealthy farmers, who are
teaching in these schools. It is missionary work, you see--just
as much as going to Siam or China. I have never known a more
accomplished, devoted, or thoroughly worthy class of ladies, and
do not doubt that these you speak of, well deserve your praise
without qualification."
"Well, it may be," said the other dubiously; "but it is hard for
us to understand, you know. Now, they live in a little old house,
which they have fixed up with flowers and one thing and another
till it is very attractive--on the outside, at least. I know nothing
about the inside since their occupancy. It was a notable place in
the old time, but had quite run down before they came. I don't
suppose they see a white person once a month to speak to them, unless
indeed some of the officers come over from the post at Boyleston,
now and then. I am sure that no lady would think of visiting them
or admitting them to her house. I know a few gentlemen who have
visited the school just out of curiosity. Indeed, I have ridden
over once myself, and I must say it is well worth seeing. I should
say there were three or four hundred scholars, of all ages, sizes,
and colors--black, brown, white apparently, and all shades of what
we used to call 'ginger-cake.' These two ladies and the man Eliab
teach them. It is perfectly wonderful how they do get on. You ought
to see it."
"I certainly shall," said Pardee, "as a special duty calls me there.
How would it do for a polling-place?"
"There ought to be one there, but I should be afraid of trouble,"
answered Le Moyne seriously.
"Name me one or two good men for poll-holders, and I will risk any
disorder."
"Well, there is Eliab. He's a good man if there ever was one, and
capable too."
"How about Nimbus?"
"He's a good man too, honest as the day is long, hard-headed and
determined, but he can't read or write."
"That is strange."
"It _is_ strange, but one of the teachers was telling me so
when I was there. I think he has got so that he can sign his first
name--his only one, he insists--but that is all, and he cannot read
a word."
"I should have thought he would have been one of the first to learn
that much at least."
"So should I. He is the best man of affairs among them all--has
good judgment and sense, and is always trying to do something to
get on. He says he is 'too busy to get larnin', an' leaves that
and preachin' to Bre'er' 'Liab.'" "Do they keep up their former
intimacy?"
"Keep it up? 'Liab lives in Nimbus' lot, has his meals from his
table, and is toted about by Nimbus just the same as if they were
still boys. Nimbus seems to think more of him than he would of a
brother--than he does of his brothers, for he has two whom he seems
to care nothing about. His wife and children are just as devoted
to the cripple as Nimbus, and 'Liab, on his part, seems to think as
much of them as if they were his own. They get along first-rate,
and are prospering finely, but I am afraid they will have trouble
yet."
"Why so?"
"Oh, well, I don't know; they are niggers, you see, and our people
are not used to such things."
"I hope your apprehensions are groundless."
"Well, I hope so too."
The officer looked at his watch and remarked that he must return
to his duty, and after thanking his companion for a pleasant hour,
and being invited to call at Mulberry Hill whenever occasion might
serve, the two men parted, each with pleasant impressions of the
other.
CHAPTER X.
AN EXPRESS TRUST.
Fortunately for Nimbus, he had received scarcely anything of his
pay while in the service, and none of the bounty-money due him,
until some months after the surrender, when he was discharged at
a post near his old home. On the next day it happened that there
was a sale of some of the transportation at this post, and through
the co-operation of one of his officers he was enabled to buy a
good mule with saddle and bridle for a song, and by means of these
reached home on the day after. He was so proud of his new acquisition
that he could not be induced to remain a single day with his former
comrades. He had hardly more than assured himself of the safety of
his wife and children before he went to visit his old friend and
playmate, Eliab Hill. He found that worthy in a state of great
depression.
"You see," he explained to his friend, "Mister Le Moyne" (with a
slight emphasis on the title) "bery kindly offered me de use ob dis
cabin's long as I might want it, and has furnished me with nearly
all I have had since the S'rrender. While my mother lived and he
had her services and a well-stocked plantation and plenty ob hands,
I didn't hab no fear o' being a burden to him. I knew he would get
good pay fer my support, fer I did de shoemakin' fer his people,
and made a good many clo'es fer dem too. Thanks to Miss Hester's
care, I had learned to use my needle, as you know, an' could do
common tailorin' as well as shoemakin'. I got very little fer my
wuk but Confederate money and provisions, which my mother always
insisted that Mr. Le Moyne should have the benefit on, as he had
given me my freedom and was under bond for my support.
"Since de S'rrender, t'ough dere is plenty ob wuk nobody has any
money. Mr. Le Moyne is just as bad off as anybody, an' has', to go
in debt fer his supplies. His slaves was freed, his wife is dead,
he has nobody to wait on Miss Hester, only as he hires a nuss; his
little boy is to take keer on, an' he with only one arm an' jest a
bare plantation with scarcely any stock left to him. It comes hard
fer me to eat his bread and owe him so much when I can't do nothin'
fer him in return. I know he don't mind it, an' b'lieve he would
feel hurt if he knew how I feel about it; but I can't help it,
Nimbus--I can't, no way."
"Oh, yer mustn't feel that 'ere way, Bre'er 'Liab," said his friend.
"Co'se it's hard fer you jes now, an' may be a little rough on Marse
Moyne. But yer mus' member dat atter a little our folks 'll hev
money. White folks got ter have wuk done; nebber do it theirselves;
you know dat; an' ef we does it now we's boun' ter hev pay fer it.
An' when we gits money, you gits wuk. Jes' let Marse Moyne wait
till de crap comes off, an' den yer'll make it all squar wid him.
I tell yer what, 'Liab, it's gwine ter be great times fer us niggers,
now we's free. Yer sees dat mule out dar?" he asked, pointing to
a sleek bay animal which he had tied to the rack in front of the
house when he rode up.
"Yes, o' course I do," said the other, with very little interest
in his voice.
"Likely critter, ain't it?" asked Nimbus, with a peculiar tone.
"Certain. Whose is it?"
"Wal, now, dat's jes edzackly de question I wuz gwine ter ax of
you. Whose yer spose 'tis?"
"I'm sure I don't know. One o' Mr. Ware's?"
"I should tink not, honey; not edzackly now. Dat ar mule b'longs
ter _me_--Nimbus! D'yer h'yer dat, 'Liab?"
"No! Yer don't tell me? Bless de Lord, Nimbus, yer's a fortunit
man. Yer fortin's made, Nimbus. All yer's got ter do is ter wuk fer
a livin' de rest of this year, an' then put in a crap of terbacker
next year, an' keep gwine on a wukkin' an' savin', an' yer fortin's
made. Ther ain't no reason why yer shouldn't be rich afore yer's
fifty. Bless the Lord, Nimbus, I'se that glad for you dat I can't
find no words fer it."
The cripple stretched out both hands to his stalwart friend, and
the tears which ran down his cheeks attested the sincerity of his
words. Nimbus took his outstretched hands, held them in his own a
moment, then went to the door, looked carefully about, came back
again, and with some embarrassment said,
"An' dat ain't all, Bre'er 'Liab. Jes' you look dar."
As he spoke Nimbus took an envelope from the inside pocket of his
soldier jacket and laid it on the bench where the other sat. 'Liab
looked up in surprise, but in obedience to a gesture from Nimbus
opened it and counted the contents.
"Mos' five hundred dollars!" he said at length, in amazement. "Dis
yours too, Bre'er Nimbus?"
"Co'se it is. Didn't I tell yer dar wuz a good time comin'?"
"Bre'er Nimbus," said Eliab solemnly, "you gib me your word you
git all dis money honestly?"
"Co'se I did. Yer don't s'pose Nimbus am a-gwine ter turn thief at
dis day, does yer?"
"How you get it?" asked Eliab sternly.
"How I git it?" answered the other indignantly. "You see dem
clo'es? Hain't I been a-sojerin' nigh onter two year now? Hain't
I hed pay an' bounty, an' rations too? One time I wuz cut off from
de regiment, an' 'ported missin' nigh bout fo' months afo' I managed
ter git over ter Port R'yal an' 'port fer duty, an' dey gib me money
fer rations all dat time. Tell yer, 'Liab, it all counts up. I'se
spent a heap 'sides dat."
Still Eliab looked incredulous.
"You see dat _dis_charge?" said Nimbus, pulling the document
from his pocket. "You jes look at what de paymaster writ on dat,
ef yer don't b'lieve Nimbus hez hed any luck. 'Sides dat, I'se got
de dockyments h'yer ter show jes whar an' how I got dat mule."
The care which had been exercised by his officer in providing
Nimbus with the written evidence of his ownership of the mule was
by no means needless. According to the common law, the possession
of personal property is _prima facie_ evidence of its ownership;
but in those early days, before the nation undertook to spread
the aegis of equality over him, such was not the rule in the case
of the freedman. Those first legislatures, elected only by the
high-minded land-owners of the South, who knew the African, his
needs and wants, as no one else could know them, and who have always
proclaimed themselves his truest friends, enacted with especial
care that he should not "hold nor own nor have any rights of property
in any horse, mule, hog, cow, steer, or other stock," unless the
same was attested by a bill of sale or other instrument of writing
executed by the former owner. It was well for Nimbus that he was
armed with his "dockyments."
Eliab Hill took the papers handed him by Nimbus, and read, slowly
and with evident difficulty; but as he mastered line after line
the look of incredulity vanished, and a glow of solemn joy spread
over his face. It was the first positive testimony of actual
freedom--the first fruits of self-seeking, self-helping manhood
on the part of his race which had come into the secluded country
region and gladdened the heart of the stricken prophet and adviser.
With a sudden jerk he threw himself off his low bench, and burying
his head upon it poured forth a prayer of gratitude for this evidence
of prayer fulfilled. His voice was full of tears, and when he said
"Amen," and Nimbus rose from his knees and put forth his hand to
help him as he scrambled upon his bench, the cripple caught the
hand and pressed it close, as he said:
"Bress God, Nimbus, I'se seen de time often an' often 'nough when
I'se hed ter ax de Lor' ter keep me from a-envyin' an' grudgin' de
white folks all de good chances dey hed in dis world; but now I'se
got ter fight agin' covetin' anudder nigga's luck. Bress de Lor',
Nimbus, I'se gladder, I do b'lieve, fer what's come ter you dan yer
be yerself. It'll do you a power of good--you an' yours--but what
good wud it do if a poor crippled feller like me hed it? Not a
bit. Jes' git him bread an' meat, Nimbus, dat's all. Oh, de Lord
knows what he's 'bout, Nimbus. Mind you dat. He didn't give you
all dat money fer nothing, an' yer'll hev ter 'count fer it, dat
you will; mighty close too, 'kase he keeps his books right. Yer must
see ter dat, Bre'er Nimbus." The exhortation was earnestly given,
and was enforced with tears and soft strokings of the dark strong
hand which he still clasped in his soft and slender ones.
"Now don't you go ter sayin' nuffin' o' dat kind, ole feller. I'se
been a-tinkin' ebber sence I got dat money dat it's jes ez much
'Liab's ez'tis mine. Ef it hadn't been fer you I'd nebber knowed
'nough ter go ober to de Yanks, when ole Mahs'r send me down ter
wuk on de fo'tifications, an' so I neber git it at all. So now,
yer see, Bre'er 'Liab, _you's_ gwine ter keep dat 'ere money.
I don't feel half safe wid it nohow, till we find out jes what
we wants ter do wid it. I 'lows dat we'd better buy a plantation
somewheres. Den I kin wuk it, yer know, an' you kin hev a shop,
an' so we kin go cahoots, an' git along right smart. Yer see, ef
we do dat, we allers hez a livin', anyhow, an' der ain't no such
thing ez spendin' an' losin' what we've got."
There was great demurrer on the part of the afflicted friend, but
he finally consented to become his old crony's banker. He insisted,
however, on giving him a very formal and peculiarly worded receipt
for the money and papers which he received from him. Considering
that they had to learn the very rudiments of business, Eliab Hill
was altogether right in insisting upon a scrupulous observance of
what he deemed "the form of sound words."
In speaking of the son of his former owner as "Mister," Eliab Hill
meant to display nothing of arrogance or disrespect. The titles
"Master" and "Missus," were the badges of slavery and inferiority.
Against their use the mind of the freedman rebelled as instinctively
as the dominant race insisted on its continuance. The "Black
Codes" of 1865, the only legislative acts of the South since the
war which were not affected in any way by national power or Northern
sentiment, made it incumbent on the freedman, whom it sought to
continue in serfdom, to use this form of address, and denounced
its neglect as disrespectful to the "Master" or "Mistress." When
these laws ceased to be operative, the custom of the white race
generally was still to demand the observance of the form, and this
demand tended to embitter the dislike of the freedmen for it. At
first, almost the entire race refused. After a while the habit of
generations began to assert itself. While the more intelligent and
better educated of the original stock discarded its use entirely,
the others, and the children who had grown up since emancipation,
came to use it almost interchangeably with the ordinary form of
address. Thus Eliab Hill, always nervously alive to the fact of
freedom, never allowed the words to pass his lips after the Surrender,
except when talking with Mrs. Le Moyne, to whose kindness he owed
so much-in early years. On the other hand, Nimbus, with an equal
aversion to everything connected with slavery, but without the
same mental activity, sometimes dropped into the old familiar habit.
He would have died rather than use the word at another's dictation
or as a badge of inferiority, but the habit was too strong for one
of his grade of intellect to break away from at once. Since the
success of the old slaveholding element of the South in subverting
the governments based on the equality of political right and power,
this form of address has become again almost universal except in
the cities and large towns.
CHAPTER XI.
RED WING.
Situated on the sandy, undulating chain of low, wooded hills
which separated the waters of two tributaries of the Roanoke, at
the point where the "big road" from the West crossed the country
road which ran northward along the crest of the ridge, as if in
search of dry footing between the rich valleys on either hand, was
the place known as Red Wing. The "big road" had been a thoroughfare
from the West in the old days before steam diverted the ways of
traffic from the trails which the wild beasts had pursued. It led
through the mountain gaps, by devious ways but by easy grades,
along the banks of the water-courses and across the shallowest
fords down to the rich lowlands of the East. It was said that the
buffalo, in forgotten ages, had marked out this way to the ever-verdant
reed-pastures of the then unwooded East; that afterward the Indians
had followed his lead, and, as the season served, had fished upon
the waters of Currituck or hunted amid the romantic ruggedness
of the Blue Appalachians. It was known that the earlier settlers
along the Smoky Range and on the Piedmont foot-hills had used this
thoroughfare to take the stock and produce of their farms down to
the great plantations of the East, where cotton was king, and to
the turpentine orchards of the South Atlantic shore line.
At the crossing of these roads was situated a single house, which
had been known for generations, far and near, as the Red Wing
Ordinary. In the old colonial days it had no doubt been a house
of entertainment for man and beast. Tradition, very well based and
universally accepted, declared that along these roads had marched
and countermarched the hostile forces of the Revolutionary period.
Greene and Cornwallis had dragged their weary columns over the
tenacious clay of this region, past the very door of the low-eaved
house, built up of heavy logs at first and covered afterward with
fat-pine siding, which had itself grown brown and dark with age.
It was said that the British regulars had stacked their arms around
the trunk of the monster white-oak that stretched its great arms
out over the low dark house, which seemed to be creeping nearer
and nearer to its mighty trunk for protection, until of late years
the spreading branches had dropped their store of glossy acorns and
embossed cups even on the farther slope of its mossy roof, a good
twenty yards away from the scarred and rugged bole. "Two decks
and a passage"--two moderate-sized rooms with a wide open pass-way
between, and a low dark porch running along the front--constituted
all that was left of a once well-known place of public refreshment.
At each end a stone chimney, yellowish gray and of a massiveness
now wonderful to behold, rose above the gable like a shattered tower
above the salient of some old fortress. The windows still retained
the little square panes and curious glazing of a century ago. Below
it, fifty yards away to the eastward, a bold spring burst out of
the granite rock, spread deep and still and cool over its white
sandy bottom, in the stone-walled inclosure where it was confined
(over half of which stood the ample milk-house), and then gurgling
along the stony outlet ran away over the ripple-marked sands of
its worn channel, to join the waters of the creek a mile away.
It was said that in the olden time there had been sheds and out-buildings,
and perhaps some tributary houses for the use of lodgers, all of
which belonged to and constituted a part of the Ordinary. Two things
had deprived it of its former glory. The mart-way had changed even
before the iron horse charged across the old routes, scorning their
pretty curves and dashing in an almost direct line from mountain
to sea. Increasing population had opened new routes, which diverted
the traffic and were preferred to the old way by travelers. Besides
this, there had been a feud between the owner of the Ordinary and
the rich proprietor whose outspread acres encircled on every side
the few thin roods which were attached to the hostel, and when the
owner thereof died and the property, in the course of administration,
was put upon the market, the rich neighbor bought it, despoiled
it of all its accessories, and left only the one building of two
rooms below and two above, a kitchen and a log stable, with crib
attached, upon the site of the Ordinary which had vexed him so
long. The others were all cleared away, and even the little opening
around the Ordinary was turned out to grow up in pines and black-jacks,
all but an acre or two of garden-plot behind the house. The sign
was removed, and the overseer of Colonel Walter Greer, the new
owner, was installed in the house, which thenceforth lost entirely
its character as an inn.
In the old days, before the use of artificial heat in the curing
of tobacco, the heavy, coarse fibre which grew upon rich, loamy
bottom lands or on dark clayey hillsides was chiefly prized by the
grower and purchaser of that staple. The light sandy uplands, thin
and gray, bearing only stunted pines or a light growth of chestnut
and clustering chinquapins, interspersed with sour-wood, while
here and there a dogwood or a white-coated, white-hearted hickory
grew, stubborn and lone, were not at all valued as tobacco lands.
The light silky variety of that staple was entirely unknown, and
even after its discovery was for a longtime unprized, and its habitat
and peculiar characteristics little understood. It is only since
the war of Rebellion that its excellence has been fully appreciated
and its superiority established. The timber on this land was of no
value except as wood and for house-logs. Of the standard timber
tree of the region, the oak, there was barely enough to fence it,
should that ever be thought desirable. Corn, the great staple of
the region next to tobacco, could hardly be "hired" to grow upon
the "droughty" soil of the ridge, and its yield of the smaller
grains, though much better, was not sufficient to tempt the owner
of the rich lands adjacent to undertake its cultivation. This land
itself, he thought, was only good "to hold the world together" or
make a "wet-weather road" between the rich tracts on either hand.
Indeed, it was a common saying in that region that it was "too poor
even to raise a disturbance upon."
To the westward of the road running north and south there had once
been an open field of some thirty or forty acres, where the wagoners
were wont to camp and the drovers to picket their stock in the
halcyon days of the old hostelry. It had been the muster-ground
of the militia too, and there were men yet alive, at the time of
which we write, whose fathers had mustered with the county forces
on that ground. When it was "turned out," however, and the Ordinary
ceased to be a place of entertainment, the pines shot up, almost
as thick as grass-blades in a meadow, over its whole expanse. It
is strange how they came there. Only black-jacks and the lighter
decidua which cover such sandy ridges had grown there before, but
after these were cleared away by the hand of man and the plow for
a few years had tickled the thin soil, when nature again resumed
her sway, she sent a countless army of evergreens, of mysterious
origin, to take and hold this desecrated portion of her domain. They
sprang up between the corn-rows before the stalks had disappeared
from sight; they shot through the charred embers of the deserted
camp-fire; everywhere, under the shade of each deciduous bush,
protected by the shadow of the rank weeds which sprang up where
the stock had fed, the young pines grew, and protected others, and
shot slimly up, until their dense growth shut out the sunlight and
choked the lately protecting shrubbery. Then they grew larger, and
the weaker ones were overtopped by the stronger and shut out from
the sunlight and starved to death, and their mouldering fragments
mingled with the carpet of cones and needles which became thicker
and thicker under their shade, until at the beginning of the war a
solid, dark mass of pines fit for house-logs, and many even larger,
stood upon the old muster-field, and constituted the chief value
of the tract of two hundred acres which lay along the west side
of the plantation of which it formed a part. It was this tract
that Nimbus selected as the most advantageous location for himself
and his friend which he could find in that region. He rightly
judged that the general estimate of its poverty would incline the
owner to part with a considerable tract at a very moderate price,
especially if he were in need of ready money, as Colonel Desmit
was then reputed to be, on account of the losses he had sustained
by the results of the war. His own idea of its value differed
materially from this, and he was thoroughly convinced that, in the
near future, it would be justified. He was cautious about stating
the grounds of this belief even to Eliab, having the natural fear
of one unaccustomed to business that some other person would get
wind of his idea and step into his Bethesda while he, himself,
waited for the troubling of the waters.
He felt himself quite incompetent to conduct the purchase, even
with Eliab's assistance, and in casting about for some white man
whom they could trust to act as their agent, they could think of
no one but Hesden Le Moyne. It was agreed, therefore, that Eliab
should broach the matter to him, but he was expressly cautioned
by Nimbus to give him no hint of the particular reasons which led
them to prefer this particular tract or of their means of payment,
until he had thoroughly sounded him in regard to the plan itself.
This Eliab did, and that gentleman, while approving the plan of
buying a plantation, if they were able, utterly condemned the idea
of purchasing a tract so notoriously worthless, and refused to have
anything to do with so wild a scheme. Eliab, greatly discouraged,
reported this fact to his friend and urged the abandonment of the
plan. Nimbus, however, was stubborn and declared that "if Marse
Hesden would not act for him he would go to Louisburg and buy it
of Marse Desmit himself."
"Dar ain't no use o' talkin', 'Liab," said he. "You an' Marse
Hesden knows a heap more'n I does 'bout most things; dar ain't no
doubt 'bout dat 'an nobody knows it better'n I does. But what Nimbus
knows, he _knows_, an' dat's de eend on't. Nobody don't know
it any better. Now, I don't know nuffin' 'bout books an' de scripter
an' sech-like, only what I gits second-hand--no more'n you does
'bout sojerin', fer instance. But I tell ye what, 'Liab, I does
know 'bout terbacker, an' I knows _all_ about it, too. I kin
jes' gib you an' Marse Hesden, an' aheap mo' jes like you uns,
odds on dat, an' beat ye all holler ebbery time. What I don't know
'bout dat ar' crap dar ain't no sort ob use a tryin' to tell me.
I got what I knows de reg'lar ole-fashioned way, like small-pox,
jes by 'sposure, an' I tell yer 'Liab, hit beats any sort ob
'noculation all ter rags. Now, I tell _you_, 'Liab Hill, dat
ar' trac' ob lan' 'bout dat ole Or'nery is jes' de berry place we
wants, an' I'm boun' ter hev it, ef it takes a leg. Now you heah
dat, don't yer?"
Eliab saw that it was useless for him to combat this determination.
He knew the ruggedness of his friend's character and had long ago
learned, that he could only be turned from a course, once fixed
upon in his own mind, by presenting some view of the matter which
had not occurred to him before. He had great confidence in Mr.
Le Moyne's judgment--almost as much as in Nimbus', despite his
admiration for his herculean comrade--so he induced his friend to
promise that nothing more should be done about the matter until he
could have an opportunity to examine the premises, with which he
was not as familiar as he would like to be, before it was altogether
decided. To this Nimbus readily consented, and soon afterwards
he borrowed a wagon and took Eliab, one pleasant day in the early
fall, to spy out their new Canaan. When they had driven around
and seen as much of it as they could well examine from the vehicle,
Nimbus drove to a point on the east-and-west road just opposite
the western part of the pine growth, where a sandy hill sloped
gradually to the northward and a little spring burst out of it and
trickled across the road.
"Dar," he said, waving his hand toward the slope; "dar is whar
I wants my house, right 'longside ob dat ar spring, wid a good
terbacker barn up on de hill dar."
"Why, what do yer want ter lib dar fer?" asked the other in
surprise, as he peered over the side of the wagon, in which he sat
upon a thick bed of fodder which Nimbus had spread over the bottom
for his comfort.
"Kase dat ar side-hill am twenty-five acres ob de best terbacker
groun' in Ho'sford County."
"Yer don't say so, Nimbus?"
"Dat's jes what I do say, 'Liab, an' dat's de main reason what's
made me so stubborn 'bout buyin' dis berry track of lan'. Pears ter
me it's jes made fer us. It's all good terbacker lan', most on't
de berry best. It's easy clar'd off an' easy wukked. De 'backer
growed on dis yer lan' an' cured wid coal made outen dem ar pines
will be jes es yaller ez gold an' as fine ez silk, 'Liab. I knows;
I'se been a watchin' right smart, an' long ago, when I used ter
pass by here, when dey fust begun ter vally de yaller terbacker, I
used ter wonder dat some pore white man like Marse War', dat knowed
how ter raise an' cure terbacker, didn't buy de ole place an' wuk
for demselves, 'stead ob overseein' fer somebody else. It's quar
dey nebber t'ought on't. It allers seemed ter me dat I wouldn't ax
fer nothin' better."
"But what yer gwine ter do wid de ole house?" asked Eliab.
"Wal, Bre'er Liab," said Nimbus with a queer grimace, "I kinder
'llowed dat I'd ler you hab dat ar ter do wid jes 'bout ez yer
like."
"Oh, Bre'er Nimbus, yer don't mean dat now?"
"Don't I? wal, you jes see ef I don't. I'se gwine ter lib right
h'yer, an' ef yer don't occupy dat ole Red Wing Or'nery I'm durned
ef it don't rot down. Yer heah dat man? Dar don't nobody else lib
in it, shuah."
Eliab was very thoughtful and silent, listening to Nimbus' comments
and plans until finally, as they sat on the porch of the old house
eating their "snack," he said,
"Nimbus, dar's a heap ob cullud folks libbin' jes one way an'
anudder from dis yer Red Wing cross-roads."
"Co'se dey is, an' dat's de berry reason I'se sot my heart on yer
habbin' a shop right h'yer. Yer shore ter git de wuk ob de whole
country roun', an' der's mo' cullud folks right up an' down de
creek an' de ribber h'yer dan ennywhar hereabouts dat I knows on."
"But, Nimbus--" said he, hesitatingly.
"Yis, 'Liab, I hears ye."
"Couldn't we hab a church here?"
"Now yer's _talkin'_," exclaimed Nimbus. "Swar ter God, it's
quare I nebber tink ob dat, now. An' you de minister? Now yer
_is_ talkin', shuah! Why de debble I nebber tink ob dat afo'?
Yer see dem big pines dar, straight ez a arrer an' nigh 'bout
de same size from top ter bottom? What yer s'pose dem fer, 'Liab?
Dunno? I should tink not. House logs fer de church, 'Liab. Make
it jes ez big ez yer wants. Dar 'tis. Only gib me some few shingles
an' a flo', an' dar yer hev jes ez good a church ez de 'postles
ebber hed ter preach in."
"An' de school, Nimbus?" timidly.
"Shuah 'nough. Why I nebber tink ob dat afo'? An' you de teacher!
Now you is talkin', 'Liab, _certain_ shuah! Dat's jes de
ting, jes what we wants an' hez got ter hev. Plenty o' scholars
h'yer-abouts, an' de church fer a school-house an' Bre'er 'Liab
fer de teacher! 'Clar fer it, Bre'er'Liab, you hez got ahead-piece,
dat's a fac'. Now I nebber tink of all dat togedder. Mout hev
come bimeby, little to a time, but not all to wonst like, as 'tis
wid you. Lord, how plain I sees it all now! De church an' school-house
up dar on de knoll; Nimbus' house jes about a hundred yards furder
on, 'cross de road; an' on de side ob de hill de 'backer-barn; you
a teachin' an' a preachin' an' Nimbus makin' terbacker, an' Gena
a-takin' comfort on de porch, an' de young uns gittin' larnin'!
Wh-o-o-p! Bre'er 'Liab, yer's a great man, shuah!"
Nimbus caught him in his strong arms and whirled him about in a
frenzy of joy. When he sat him down Eliab said quietly:
"We must get somebody else to teach for a while. 'Liab don't know
'nough ter do dat ar. I'll go to school wid de chillen an' learn
'nough ter do it bimeby. P'raps dis what dey call de 'Bureau' mout
start a school here ef you should ax 'em, Nimbus. Yer know dey'd
be mighty willin' ter 'blige a soldier, who'd been a fightin' fer
'em, ez you hev."
"I don't a know about dat ar, Bre'er'Liab, but leastaways we can't
do no more'n make de trial, anyhow."
After this visit, Eliab withdrew all opposition, not without doubt,
but hoping for the best, and trusting, prayerfully, that his friend's
sanguine expectations might be justified by the result. So it was
determined that Nimbus should make the purchase, if possible, and
that the old Ordinary, which had been abandoned as a hostel on
the highway to the Eastern market, be made a New Inn upon the road
which the Freedman must now take, and which should lead to liberty
and light.
CHAPTER XII.
ON THE WAY TO JERICHO.
Colonel Desmit's devotion to the idea that slave property was more
profitable than any other, and the system by which he had counted
on almost limitless gain thereby, was not only overthrown by the
universal emancipation which attended the issue of the war, but
certain unlocked for contingencies placed him upon the very verge
of bankruptcy. The location of his interests in different places,
which he had been accustomed, during the struggle, to look upon
as a most fortunate prevision, resulted most disastrously. As the
war progressed, it came about that those regions which were at
first generally regarded as the most secure from hostile invasion
became the scene of the most devastating operations.
The military foresight of the Confederate leaders long before led
them to believe that the struggle would be concluded, or would
at least reach its climax, in the Piedmont region. From the coast
to the mountains the Confederacy spanned, at this point, only two
hundred miles. The country was open, accessible from three points
upon the coast, at which lodgment was early made or might have been
obtained, and only one flank of the forces marching thence toward
the heart of the Confederacy could be assailed. It was early
apprehended by them that armies marching from the coast of North
Carolina, one column along the course of the Cape Fear and another
from Newberne, within fair supporting distance and converging
toward the center of the State, would constitute the most dangerous
movement that could be made against the Confederacy, since it would
cut it in twain if successful; and, in order to defeat it, the Army
of Virginia would have to be withdrawn from its field of operations
and a force advancing in its track from the James would be enabled
to co-operate with the columns previously mentioned. It is
instructive to note that, upon the other side, the untrained instinct
of President Lincoln was always turning in the same direction.
In perusing the field of operations his finger would always stray
to the eastern coast of North Carolina as the vital point, and
no persuasions could induce him to give up the apparently useless
foothold which we kept there for more than three years without
material advantage. It was a matter of constant surprise to the
Confederate military authorities that this course was not adopted,
and the final result showed the wisdom of their premonition.
Among others, Colonel Desmit had obtained an inkling of this idea,
and instead of concentrating all his destructible property in
the region of his home, where, as it resulted, it would have been
comparatively secure, he pitched upon the "piney-woods" region to
the south-eastward, as the place of greatest safety.
He had rightly estimated that cotton and naval stores would, on
account of the rigorous blockade and their limited production in
other countries, be the most valuable products to hold when the
period of war should end. With these ideas he had invested largely
in both, and in and about a great factory at the falls of a chief
tributary of the Pedee, he had stored his cotton; and in the heart
of that sombre-shadowed stretch of soughing pines which lies between
the Cape Fear and the Yadkin he had hidden his vast accumulation
of pitch, turpentine, and resin. Both were in the very track of
Sherman's ruthless legions. First the factory and the thousands of
bales carefully placed in store near by were given to the flames.
Potestatem Desmit had heard of their danger, and had ridden post-haste
across the rugged region to the northward in the vain hope that
his presence might somehow avert disaster. From the top of a rocky
mountain twenty miles away he had witnessed the conflagration, and
needed not to be told of his loss. Turning his horse's head to the
eastward, at a country-crossing near at hand, he struck out with
unabated resolution to reach the depot of his naval stores before
the arrival of the troops, in order that he might interpose for their
preservation. He had quite determined to risk the consequences of
capture in their behalf, being now fully convinced of the downfall
of the Confederacy.
During the ensuing night he arrived at his destination, where he
found everything in confusion and affright. It was a vast collection
of most valuable stores. For two years they had been accumulating.
It was one of the sheet-anchors which the prudent and far-seeing
Potestatem Desmit had thrown out to windward in anticipation of a
coming storm. For half a mile along the bank of the little stream
which was just wide enough to float a loaded batteau, the barrels
of resin and pitch and turpentine were piled, tier upon tier,
hundreds and thousands upon thousands of them. Potestatem Desmit
looked at them and shuddered at the desolation which a single
torch would produce in an instant. He felt that the chances were
desperate, and he had half a mind to apply the torch himself and
at least deprive the approaching horde of the savage pleasure of
destroying his substance. But he had great confidence in himself,
his own powers of persuasion and diplomacy. He would try them once
more, and would not fail to make them serve for all they might be
worth, to save this hoarded treasure.
It was barely daylight the next morning when he was awakened by the
cry, "The Yanks are coming!" He had but a moment to question the
frightened messenger, who pressed on, terror-stricken, in the very
road which he might have known would be the path of the advancing
enemy, instead of riding two miles into the heart of the boundless
pine forest which stretched on either hand, where he would have
been as safe from capture as if he had been in the center of the
pyramid of Cheops.
Potestatem Desmit had his carriage geared up, and went coolly forth
to meet the invaders. He had heard much of their savage ferocity,
and was by no means ignorant of the danger which he ran in thus going
voluntarily into their clutches. Nevertheless he did not falter.
He had great reliance in his personal presence. So he dressed with
care, and arrayed in clean linen and a suit of the finest broadcloth,
then exceedingly rare in the Confederacy, and with his snowy hair
and beard, his high hat, his hands crossed over a gold-headed
cane, and gold-mounted glasses upon his nose, he set out upon his
mission. The night before he had prudently removed from the place
every drop of spirits except a small demi-john of old peach-brandy,
which he put under the seat of his carriage, intending therewith to
regale the highest official whom he should succeed in approaching,
even though it should be the dreaded Sherman himself.
He had proceeded perhaps half a mile, when his carriage was all at
once surrounded by a motley crew of curiously dressed but well-armed
ruffians, whose very appearance disgusted and alarmed him. With oaths
and threats the lumbering chariot, which represented in itself no
little of respectability, was stopped. The appearance of such a
vehicle upon the sandy road of the pine woods coming directly toward
the advancing column struck the "bummers" with surprise. They made
a thousand inquiries of the frightened driver, and were about to
remove and appropriate the sleek span of carriage-horses when the
occupant of the carriage, opening the window, thrust out his head,
and with a face flaming with indignation ordered them to desist,
bestowing upon them a volley of epithets, beginning with "rascals"
and running as far into the language of abuse as his somewhat heated
imagination could carry him.
"Hello, Bill," said the bummer who was unfastening the right-wheeler,
as he looked back and saw the red face framed in a circlet of
white hair and beard. "Just look at this old sunflower, will you?
I guess the old bird must think he commands this brigade. Ha! ha!
ha! I say, old fellow, when did you leave the ark?"
"And was Noah and his family well when you bid 'em good-by?" queried
another.
This levity and ridicule were too much for Colonel P. Desmit
to endure. He leaned out of the carriage window, and shaking his
gold-headed cane at the mirthful marauders denounced them in language
fearful in its impotent wrath.
"Take me to General Sherman, you rascals! I want to see the general!"
he yelled over and over again.
"The hell you do! Well, now, mister, don't you know that the General
is too nervous to see company to-day? He's just sent us on ahead
a bit to say to strangers that he's compelled to refuse all visitors
to-day. He gits that way sometimes, does 'Old Bill,' so ye mustn't
think hard of him, at all."
"Take me to the general, you plundering pirates!" vociferated the
enraged Colonel. "I'll see if a country gentleman travelling in his
own carriage along the highway is to be robbed and abused in this
manner!" "Robbed, did he say?" queried one, with the unmistakable
brogue of an Irishman. "Faith, it must be the gintleman has somethin'
very important along wid him in the carriage, that he's gittin' so
excited about; and its meself that'll not see the gintleman imposed
upon, sure." This with a wink at his comrades. Then to the occupant
of the carriage: "What did yer honor say might be yer name, now?
It's very partickler the General is about insthructin' us ter ax
the names of thim that's wantin' an' inthroduction to him, ye know?"
The solemnity of this address half deceived the irate Southron,
and he answered with dignity, "Desmit--Colonel Potestatem Desmit,
of Horsford County, sir."
"Ah, d'ye hear that, b'ys? Faith, it's a kurnel it is ye've been
a shtoppin' here upon the highway! Shure it may be he's a goin' to
the Gineral wid a flag of thruce, belike."
"I do wish to treat with the General," said Desmit, thinking he
saw a chance to put in a favorable word.
"An' d'ye hear that, b'ys? Shure the gintleman wants to thrate the
Gineral. Faith it'll be right glad the auld b'y'll be of a dhrap
of somethin' good down here in the pine woods."
"Can I see the General, gentlemen?" asked Desmit, with a growing
feeling that he had taken the wrong course to accomplish his end.
The crowd of "bummers" constantly grew larger. They were mounted
upon horses and mules, jacks and jennets, and one of them had put
a "McClellan saddle" and a gag-bit upon one of the black polled cattle
which abound in that region, and which ambled easily and briskly
along with his rider's feet just brushing the low "poverty-pines"
which grew by the roadside. They wore all sorts of clothing. The
blue and the gray were already peacefully intermixed in the garments
of most of them. The most grotesque variety prevailed especially
in their head-gear, which culminated in the case of one who wore a
long, barrel-shaped, slatted sun-bonnet made out of spotted calico.
They were boisterous and even amusing, had they not been well
armed and apparently without fear or reverence for any authority or
individual. For the present, the Irishman was evidently in command,
by virtue of his witty tongue.
"Can ye see the Gineral, Kurnel?" said he, with the utmost apparent
deference; "av coorse ye can, sir, only it'll be necessary for you
to lave your carriage an' the horses and the nagur here in the care
of these gintlemen, while I takes ye to the Gineral mesilf."
"Why can I not drive on?"
"Why can't ye dhrive? Is it a Kurnel ye is, an' don't know that?
Shure the cavalry an' the arthillery an' the caysons an' one thing
an' another of that kind would soon crush a chayriot like that to
flinders, ye know."
"I cannot leave my carriage," said Desmit.
"Mein Gott, shust hear him now I" said a voice on the other side,
which caused Desmit to turn with a start. A bearded German, with a
pair of myoptic glasses adding their glare to the peculiar intensity
of the short-sighted gaze, had climbed upon the opposite wheel
during his conversation with Pat, and leaning half through the
window was scanning carefully the inside of the carriage. He had
already one hand on the demijohn of peach-brandy upon which the
owner's hopes so much depended. Potetsatem Desmit was no coward,
and his gold-headed cane made the acquaintance of the Dutchman's
poll before he had time to utter a word of protestation.
It was all over in a minute, then. There was a rush and a scramble.
The old man was dragged out of his carriage, fighting manfully
but vainly. Twenty hands laid hold upon him. The gold-headed cane
vanished; the gold-mounted glasses disappeared; his watch leaped
from his pocket, and the chain was soon dangling at the fob of one
of the still laughing marauders. Then one insisted that his hat
was unbecoming for a colonel, and a battered and dirty infantry
cap with a half-obliterated corps badge and regimental number was
jammed down on his gray hairs; he was required to remove his coat,
and then another took a fancy to his vest. The one who took his
coat gave him in exchange a very ragged, greasy, and altogether
disgusting cavalry jacket, much too short, and not large enough to
button. The carriage was almost torn in pieces in the search for
treasure. Swords and bayonets were thrust through the panelling; the
cushions were ripped open, the cover torn off, and every possible
hiding-place examined. Then thinking it must be about his person,
they compelled him to take off his boots and stockings. In their
stead a pair of almost soleless shoes were thrown him by one who
appropriated the boots.
Meantime the Irishman had distributed the contents of the demijohn,
after having filled his own canteen. Then there was great hilarity.
The taste of the "colonel" was loudly applauded; his health was
drunk, and it was finally decided to move on with him in charge.
The "bummer" who rode the polled ox had, in the mean time, shifted
his saddle to one of the carriage-horses, and kindly offered the
steer to the "colonel." One who had come upon foot had already
mounted the other horse. The driver performed a last service for
his master, now pale, trembling, and tearful at the insults and
atrocities he was called on to undergo, by spreading one of the carriage
cushions over the animal's back and helping the queerly-habited
potentate to mount his insignificant steed. It was better than
marching through the hot sand on foot, however.
When they reached the little hamlet which had grown up around his
collection of turpentine distilleries they saw a strange sight.
The road which bore still further to the southward was full of
blue-coated soldiers, who marched along with the peculiar swinging
gait which marked the army that "went down to the sea." Beyond the
low bridge, under a clump of pines which had been spared for shade,
stood a group of horsemen, one of whom read a slip of paper, or
rather shouted its contents to the soldiery as they passed, while
he flourished the paper above his head. Instantly the column was
in an uproar. Caps were thrown into the air, voices grew hoarse
with shouting; frantic gesticulation, tearful eyes and laughter,
yells, inane antics, queer combinations of sacrilegious oaths and
absurd embraces were everywhere to be seen and heard.
"Who is that?" asked Desmit of the Irishman, near whom he had kept,
pointing to the leading man of the group under the tree.
"Faith, Kurnel, that is Gineral-----. Would ye like an inthroduction,
Kurnel?"
"Yes, yes," said Desmit impatiently.
"Thin come wid me. Shure I'll give ye one, an' tell him ye sint
him a dhrink of auld pache to cilebrate the good news with. Come
along, thin!"
Just as they stepped upon the bridge Desmit heard a lank Hoosier
ask,
"What is in them bar'ls?"
And some one answered,
"Turpentine."
"Hooray!" said the first. "A bonfire!" "Hurry! hurry!" Desmit
cried to his guide.
"Come on thin, auld gintleman. It's mesilf that'll not go back on
a man that furnishes a good dhram for so joyful an occasion."
They dismounted, and, pressing their way through the surging mass
on the bridge, approached the group under the pines.
"Gineral," said the Irishman, taking off the silk hat which Desmit
had worn and waving it in the air; "Gineral, I have the honor
to inthroduce to ye anl auld gintleman--one av the vera furst
families--that's come out to mate ye, an' begs that ye'll taste jest
a dhrap av the finest auld pache that ivver ran over yer tongue,
jist ter cilebrate this vera joyful occasion,"
He waved his hat toward Desmit, and handed up his canteen at once.
The act was full of the audacity of his race, but the news had
overthrown all sense of discipline. The officer even lifted the
canteen to his lips, and no doubt finding Pat's assertion as to its
quality to be true allowed a reasonable quantity of its aromatic
contents to glide down his throat, and then handed it to one of
his companions.
"General! General!" shrieked Desmit in desperation, as he rushed
forward.
"What do you want, sir?" said the officer sternly.
There was a rush, a crackle, and a still louder shout.
Both turned and saw a tongue of red flame with a black, sooty tip
leap suddenly skyward. The great mass of naval stores was fired,
and no power on earth could save a barrel of them now. Desmit
staggered to the nearest tree, and faint and trembling watched the
flame. How it raged! How the barrels burst and the liquid flame
poured over the ground and into the river! Still it burned! The whole
earth seemed aflame! How the black billows of heavy smoke poured
upward, hiding the day! The wind shifted and swept the smoke-wave
over above the crowding, hustling, shouting column. It began to rain,
but under the mass of heavy smoke the group at the pines stood dry.
And still, out of the two openings in the dark pines upon the
other side of the stream, poured the two blue-clad, steel-crowned
columns! Still the staff officer shouted the glad tidings,
"_Lee--surrendered--unconditionally_.'" Still waved aloft the
dispatch! Still the boundless forests rang with shouts! Still the
fierce flame raged, and from the column which had gone into the
forest beyond came back the solemn chant, which sounded at that
moment like the fateful voice of an avenging angel;
"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave; His soul is
marching on!"
One who looked upon the scene thinks of it always when he reads of
the last great day--the boundless flame--the fervent heat--the
shouts--the thousands like the sands of the sea--all are not to be
forgotten until the likeness merges into the dread reality!
The Irishman touched Desmit as he leaned against the pine.
"War that yours, misther?" he asked, not unkindly.
Desmit nodded affirmatively.
"Here," said the other, extending his canteen. "There's a drink
left. Take it."
Desmit took it with a trembling hand, and drained it to the last
drop.
"That's right," said the Irishman sympathetically. "I'm right
sorry for ye, misther, that I am; but don't ye nivver give up heart.
There's more turpentine where that come from, and this thing's over
now. I couldn't find yer bull for ye, mister, but here's a mule.
Ye'd better jest take him and git away from here before this row's
over. Nobody'll miss ye now."
Two weeks afterward a queerly clad figure rode up to the elegant
mansion of Colonel Potestatem Desmit, overlooking the pleasant
town of Louisburg in the county of Horsford, and found a party of
Federal officers lounging upon his wide porches and making merry
after war's alarums!
CHAPTER XIII.
NEGOTIATING A TREATY.
Not only did Colonel Desmit lose his cotton and naval stores; but
the funds which he had invested, with cautious foresight, in the
bonds of the State and the issues of its banks, were also made
worthless by the result of the war. Contrary to the expectations
of the most prudent and far-seeing, the bonds issued by the States
in rebellion during the period of war, were declared to be attaint
with treason, and by the supreme power of the land were forbidden
to be paid. In addition to this he found himself what was properly
termed "land-poor." The numerous small plantations which he had
acquired in different parts of the country, in pursuance of his
original and inherited design of acquiring wealth by slave-culture,
though intrinsically very valuable, were just at this time
in the highest degree unavailable. All lands had depreciated to a
considerable extent, but the high price of cotton had tempted many
Northern settlers and capitalists into that belt of country where
this staple had been most successfully raised, and their purchases,
as well as the continued high price of the staple, had kept up the
prices of cotton-lands far beyond all others.
Then, too, the lack of ready money throughout the country and the
general indebtedness made an absolute dearth of buyers. In the four
years of war there had been no collections. The courts had been
debarred from judgment and execution. The sheriff had been without
process, the lawyer without fees, the creditor without his money.
Few indeed had taken advantage of this state of affairs to pay
debts. Money had been as plenty as the forest leaves in autumn,
and almost as valueless. The creditor had not desired to realize
on his securities, and few debtors had cared to relieve themselves.
There had come to be a sort of general belief that when the war
ended there would be a jubilee for all debtors--that each one would
hold what he had, and that a promise to pay would no more trouble
or make afraid even the most timid soul. So that when the courts
came to be unchained and the torrent of judgments and executions
poured forth under their seals, the whole country was flooded with
bankruptcy. Almost nobody could pay. A few, by deft use of present
advantages, gathered means to discharge their own liabilities and
take advantage of the failure of others to do so. Yet they were
few indeed. On every court-house the advertisements of sale covered
the panels of the door and overflowed upon the walls. Thousands
of homesteads, aye, hundreds of thousands of homes--millions of
acres--were sold almost for a song--frequently less than a shilling
an acre, generally less than a dollar.
Colonel Desmit had not been an exception to these rules. He had
not paid the obligations maturing during the war simply because he
knew he could not be compelled to do so. Instead of that, he had
invested his surplus in lands, cotton, and naval stores. Now the
evil day was not far off, as he knew, and he had little to meet it.
Nevertheless he made a brave effort. The ruggedness of the disowned
family of Smiths and the chicanery inherited from the gnarly-headed
and subtle-minded old judge came to his rescue, and he determined
not to fail without a fight. He shingled himself with deeds of
trust and sales under fraudulent judgments or friendly liens, to
delay if they did not avert calamity. Then he set himself at work
to effect sales. He soon swallowed his wrath and appealed to the
North--the enemy to whom he owed all his calamities, as he thought.
He sent flaming circulars to bleak New England health-exhibits to
the smitten of consumption, painting the advantages of climate,
soil, and society--did all in his power to induce immigrants to
come and buy, in order that he might beat off poverty and failure
and open disgrace. He made a brave fight, but it had never occurred
to him to sell an acre to a colored man when he was accosted by
Nimbus, who, still wearing some part of his uniform, came, over to
negotiate with him for the purchase of Red Wing.
All these untoward events had not made the master of Knapp-of-Reeds
peculiarly amiable, or kindly disposed toward any whom he deemed
in the remotest manner responsible for his loss. For two classes
he could not find words sufficient to express his loathing--namely,
Yankees and Secessionists. To the former directly and to the latter
indirectly he attributed all his ills. The colored man he hated as
a man, as bitterly as he had before highly prized him as a slave.
At the outset of the war he had been openly blamed for his coolness
toward the cause of the Confederacy. Then, for a time, he had
acquiesced in what was done--had "gone with his State," as it was
then expressed--and still later, when convinced of the hopelessness of
the struggle, he had advocated peace measures; to save his property
at all hazards, some said; because he was at heart a Unionist,
others declared So, he had come to regard himself as well disposed
toward the Union, and even had convinced himself that he had
suffered persecution for righteousness' sake, when, in truth, his
"Unionism" was only an investment made to avoid loss.
These things, however, tended to embitter him all the more against
all those persons and events in any manner connected with his
misfortunes. It was in such a mood and under such circumstances,
that word was brought to Mr. Desmit in his private library, that "a
nigger" wanted to see him. The servant did not know his name, what
he wanted, or where he came from. She could only say that he had
ridden there on a "right peart mule" and was a "right smart-looking
boy." She was ordered to bring him in, and Nimbus stood before his
master for the first time since he had been sent down the country
to work on fortifications intended to prevent the realization of
his race's long-delayed vision of freedom. He came with his hat
in his hand, saying respectfully,
"How d'ye, Marse Desmit?"
"Is that you, Nimbus? Get right out of here! I don't want any such
grand rascal nigger in my house."
"But, Marse Desrnit," began the colored man, greatly flurried by
this rude greeting.
"I don't want any 'buts.' Damn you, I've had enough of all such
cattle. What are you here for, anyhow? Why don't you go back to
the Yankees that you ran away to? I suppose you want I should feed
you, clothe you, support you, as I've been doing for your lazy
wife and children ever since the surrender. I shan't do it a day
longer--not a day! D'ye hear? Get off from my land before the sun
goes down to-morrow or I'll have the overseer set his dogs on you."
"All right," said Nimbus coolly; "jes yer pay my wife what's due
her and we'll leave ez soon ez yer please."
"Due her? You damned black rascal, do you stand there and tell me
I owe her anything?"
Strangely enough, the colored man did not quail. His army life had
taught him to stand his ground, even against a white man, and he
had not yet learned how necessary it was to unlearn the lesson of
liberty and assume again the role of the slave. The white man was
astounded. Here was a "sassy nigger" indeed! This was what freedom
did for them!
"Her papers dat you gib her at de hirin', Marse Potem," said Nimbus,
"says dat yer shall pay her fo' dollars a month an' rations. She's
hed de rations all reg'lar, Marse Desrnit; dat's all right, but
not a dollar ob de money."
"You lie, you black rascal!" said Desmit excitedly; "she's drawn
every cent of it!"
"Wal," said Nimbus, "ef dat's what yer say, we'll hev ter let de
'Bureau' settle it."
"What, sir? You rascal, do you threaten me with the 'Bureau'?"
shouted Desmit, starting toward him in a rage, and aiming a blow
at him with the heavy walking-stick he carried.
"Don't do dat, Marse Desmit," cried the colored man; "don't do
dat!"
There was a dangerous gleam in his eye, but the white man did not
heed the warning. His blow fell not on the colored man's head, but
on his upraised arm, and the next moment the cane was wrested from
his hands, and the recent slave stood over his former master as he
lay upon the floor, where he had fallen or been thrown, and said:
"Don't yer try dat, Marse Desmit; I won't bar it--dat I won't, from
no man, black ner white. I'se been a sojer sence I was a slave, an'
ther don't no man hit me a lick jes cos I'm black enny mo'. Yer's
an' ole man, Marse Desmit, an' yer wuz a good 'nough marster ter
me in the ole times, but yer mustn't try ter beat a free man. I
don't want ter hurt yer, but yer mustn't do dat!"
"Then get out of here instantly," said Desmit, rising and pointing
toward the door.
"All right, Marse," said Nimbus, stooping for his hat; "'tain't
no use fer ye to be so mad, though. I jes come fer to make a trade
wid ye."
"Get out of here, you damned, treacherous, ungrateful, black rascal.
I wish every one of your whole race had the small-pox! Get out!"
As Nimbus turned to go, he continued:
"And get your damned lazy tribe off from my plantation before
to-morrow night, if you don't want the dogs put on them, too!"
"I ain't afeard o' yer dogs," said Nimbus, as he went down the
hall, and, mounting his mule, rode away.
With every step his wrath increased. It was well for Potestatem
Desmit that he was not present to feel the anger of the black giant
whom he had enraged. Once or twice he turned back, gesticulating
fiercely and trembling with rage. Then he seemed to think better
of it, and, turning his mule into the town a mile off his road,
he lodged a complaint against his old master, with the officer of
the "Bureau," and then rode quietly home, satisfied to "let de law
take its course," as he said. He was glad that there was a law for
him--a law that put him on the level with his old master--and
meditated gratefully, as he rode home, on what the nation had
wrought in his behalf since the time when "Marse Desmit" had sent
him along that very road with an order to "Marse Ware" to give
him "twenty lashes well laid on." The silly fellow thought that
thenceforth he was going to have a "white man's chance in life."
He did not know that in our free American Government, while the
Federal power can lawfully and properly ordain and establish the
theoretical rights of its citizens, it has no legal power to support
and maintain those rights against the encroachment of any of the
States, since in those matters the State is sovereign, and the part
is greater than the whole.
CHAPTER XIV.
BORN OF THE STORM.
Perhaps there was never any more galling and hated badge of defeat
imposed upon a conquered people than the "Bureau of Freedmen,
Refugees, and Abandoned Lands," a branch of the Federal executive
power which grew out of the necessities of the struggle to put
down rebellion, and to which, little by little, came to be referred
very many of those matters which could by no means be neglected,
but which did not properly fall within the purview of any other
branch of military administration. It is known, in these latter
days, simply as the Freedmen's Bureau, and thought to have been
a terrible engine of oppression and terror and infamy, because of
the denunciations which the former slave-owners heaped upon it,
and the usually accepted idea that the mismanaged and malodorous
Freedmen's Savings Bank was, somehow or other, an outgrowth and
exponent of this institution. The poor thing is dead now, and, like
dead humanity, the good it did has been interred with its bones.
It has been buried, with curses deep and bitter for its funeral
obsequies. Its officers have been loaded with infamy. Even its
wonderful results have been hidden from the sight of man, and its
history blackened with shame and hate. It is one of the curious
indices of public feeling that the North listened, at first, with
good-natured indifference to the virulent diatribes of the recently
conquered people in regard to this institution; after a time wonder
succeeded to indifference; until finally, while it was still an
active branch of the public service, wondering credulity succeeded,
and its name became synonymous with disgrace; so that now there
is hardly a corner of the land in which a man can be found brave
enough to confess that he wore the uniform and performed the duties
of an agent of the "Freedmen's Bureau." The thorough subserviency
of Northern sentiment to the domination of that masterly will
which characterized "the South" of the old regime was never better
illustrated. "Curse me this people!" said the Southern Balak--of
the Abolitionist first, of the Bureau-Officer next, and then of
the Carpet-Bagger. The Northern Balaam hemmed and paltered, and
then--_cursed the children of his loins_!
Of the freedmen, our recent allies in war, the grateful and devoted
friends, of the nation which had opened for them the gateway of the
future, not one of the whole four millions had a word to utter in
reproach of this branch of the service, in which they were particularly
interested. Strangely enough, too, none of those Union men of
the South, who had been refugees during the war or friends of that
Union after its close, joined in the complaints and denunciations
which were visited on this institution and its agents. Neither did
the teachers of colored schools, nor the officers and agents of
those charitable and missionary associations of the North, whose
especial work and purpose was the elevation and enlightenment of
the colored man, see fit to unite in that torrent of detraction
which swept over the country in regard to the "Bureau" and its
agents. But then, it may be that none of these classes were able
to judge truly and impartially of its character and works! They may
have been prepossessed in its favor to an extent which prevented
a fair and honest determination in regard to it.
Certain it is that those who stood upon the other side--those who
instituted and carried on rebellion, or the greater part of them,
and every one of those who opposed reconstruction, who fought to
the last moment the enfranchisement of the black; every one who
denied the right of the nation to emancipate the slave; every one
who clamored for the payment of the State debts contracted during
the war; all of those who proposed and imposed the famous "black
codes,"--every one of these classes and every man of each class avowed
himself unable to find words to express the infamy, corruption, and
oppression which characterized the administration of that climacteric
outrage upon a brave, generous, overwhelmed but unconquered
--forgiving but not to be forgiven, people.
They felt themselves to have been in all things utterly innocent
and guileless. The luck of war had been terribly against them, they
considered, but the right remained with them. They were virtuous.
Their opponents had not only been the aggressors at the outset,
but had shown themselves little better than savages by the manner
in which they had conducted the war; and, to crown the infamy of
their character, had imposed upon "the South" at its close that
most nefarious of all detestable forms of oppressive degradation,
"the Bureau." Their orators grew magniloquent over its tyrannical
oppression; the Southern press overflowed with that marvellous
exuberance of diatribe of which they are the acknowledged masters--to
all of which the complaisant North gave a ready and subservient
concurrence, until the very name reeked in the public mind with
infamous associations and degrading ideas.
A few men tried to stem the torrent. Some who had been in its service
even dared to insist that they had not thereby rendered themselves
infamous and unworthy. The nation listened for a time with kindly
pity to their indignant protests, and then buried the troublesome
and persistent clamorers in the silence of calm but considerate
disbelief. They were quietly allowed to sink into the charitable
grave of unquestioning oblivion. It was not any personal attaint
which befouled their names and blasted their public prospects, but
simply the fact that they had obeyed the nation's behest and done
a work assigned to them by the country's rulers. Thus it came to
pass that in one third of the country it was an ineffaceable brand
of shame to have been at any time an agent or officer of this
Bureau, and throughout the rest of the country it was accounted a
fair ground for suspicion. In it all, the conquering element was
simply the obedient indicator which recorded and proclaimed the
sentiment and wish of the conquered. The words of the enemy were
always regarded as being stamped with the mint-mark of truth and
verity, while the declarations of our allies accounted so apparently
false and spurious as to be unworthy of consideration, even when
attested by svvorn witnesses and written in blood upon a page of
history tear blotted and stained with savage deeds. All this was
perfectly natural, however, and arose, almost unavoidably, from
the circumstances under which the institution was created and the
duties which it was called upon to discharge. It may not be amiss
to consider again the circumstances under which it came to exist.
This is how this institution had its origin: As the war to put down
rebellion progressed and our armies advanced farther and farther
into the heart of the Confederacy, the most devoted and malignant
adherents of the Confederate cause abandoned their homes and
all that they could not easily take with them, and fled within
the Confederate lines. Those white people who were adverse to the
Confederate cause, or at least lukewarm in its support, spurred
by the rigors of conscription and the dangers of proscription and
imprisonment, took their lives in their hands, left their homes,
and fled by every available road to the shelter of the Federal
forces. Those who had no homes--the slaves--either deserted by their
owners or fancying they saw in that direction a glimmer of possible
freedom, swarmed in flank and rear of every blue-clad column which
invaded the Confederacy, by thousands and tens of thousands. They
fled as the Israelites did from the bondage of Egypt, with that
sort of instinctive terror which has in all ages led individuals,
peoples, and races to flee from the scene of oppression. The whites
who came to us were called "refugees," and the blacks at first
"contrabands," and after January 1, 1863, "freedmen." Of course
they had to be taken care of. The "refugee" brought nothing with
him; the freedrnan had nothing to bring. The abandoned lands of
the Confederates were, in many cases, susceptible of being used
to employ and supply these needy classes who came to us for aid
and sustenance. It was to do this that the Freedmen's Bureau was
created.
Its mission was twofold--to extend the helping hand to the needy
who without such aid must have perished by disease and want,
and to reduce the expenses of such charity by the cultivation and
utilization of abandoned lands. It was both a business and a missionary
enterprise. This was its work and mission until the war ended. Its
"agents" were chosen from among the wounded veteran officers of
our army, or were detached from active service by reason of their
supposed fitness on account of character or attainments. Almost
every one of them had won honor with the loss of limb or of health;
all had the indorsement and earnest approval of men high in command
of our armies, who had personal knowledge of their character and
believed in their fitness. This renders it all the more remarkable
that these men should so soon and so universally, as was stoutly
alleged and weakly believed, have become thieves and vagabonds
--corrupters of the blacks and oppressors of the whites. It only
shows how altogether impossible it is to foresee the consequences
of any important social or political movement upon the lives and
characters of those exposed to its influences.
When the war ended there were four millions of men, women, and
children without homes, houses, lands, money, food, knowledge, law,
right, family, friends, or possibility for self-support. All these
the Bureau adopted. They constituted a vast family of foundlings,
whose care was a most difficult and delicate matter, but there was
not one among them all who complained of the treatment they received.
It is somewhat strange, too, that the officers of this Branch of
the service should have all misbehaved in exactly the same manner.
Their acts of oppression and outrage were always perpetrated
in defence of some supposed right of a defenceless and friendless
race, overwhelmed with poverty--the bondmen of ignorance--who had
no money with which to corrupt, no art with which to beguile, and
no power with which to overawe these representatives of authority.
For the first time in the history of mankind, the corrupt and
unprincipled agents of undefined power became the servants, friends,
protectors, agents, and promoters of the poor and weak and the
oppressors of the rich, the strong, the learned, and the astute.
It may be said that this view cannot be true; that thousands
of men selected from the officers of our citizen-soldiery by the
unanswerable certificate of disabling wounds and the added prestige
of their commander's recommendation, a class of men in physical,
intellectual and moral power and attainments far superior to the
average of the American people--it may be said that such could not
have become all at once infamously bad; and, if they did suffer such
transformation, would have oppressed the blacks at the instigation
of the whites, who were willing and able to pay well for such
subversion of authority, and not the reverse. This would seem to
be true, but we are not now dealing with speculations, but with
facts! We know that they did become such a pest because at the South
they were likened to the plagues of Egypt, and the North reiterated
and affirmed this cry and condoled with the victims of the oppression
with much show of penitence, and an unappeasable wrath toward the
instruments of the iniquity. Thus the voice of the people--that
voice which is but another form of the voice of God--proclaimed
these facts to the world, so that they must thenceforth be held
indisputable and true beyond the utmost temerity of scepticism.
The _facts_ remain. The puzzling _why_, let whosoever will endeavor
to elucidate.
Perhaps the most outrageous and debasing of all the acts of the
Bureau, in the eyes of those who love to term themselves "the South,"
was the fact that its officers and agents, first of all, allowed
the colored man to be sworn in opposition to and in contradiction
of the word of a white man.
That this should be exasperating and degrading to the Southern
white man was most natural and reasonable. The very corner-stone
of Southern legislation and jurisprudence for more than a hundred
years was based upon this idea: the negro can have no rights, and
can testify as to no rights or wrongs, as against a white man. So
that the master might take his slave with him when he committed
murder or did any other act in contravention of law or right,
and that slave was like the mute eunuch of the seraglio, silent
and voiceless before the law. Indeed, the law had done for the
slave-owner, with infinitely more of mercy and kindness, what the
mutilators of the upper Nile were wont to do for the keepers of
the harems of Cairo and Constantinople--provided them with slaves
who should see and hear and serve, but should never testify of
what they saw and knew. To reverse this rule, grown ancient and
venerable by the practice of generations, to open the mouths which
had so long been sealed, was only less infamous and dangerous than
to accord credence to the words they might utter. To do both was
to "turn back the tide of time," indeed, and it passed the power
of language to portray the anger, disgust, and degradation which
it produced in the Southern mind. To be summoned before the officer
of the Bureau, confronted with a negro who denied his most solemn
averments, and was protected in doing so by the officer who,
perhaps, showed the bias of the oppressor by believing the negro
instead of the gentleman, was unquestionably, to the Southerner,
the most degrading ordeal he could by any possibility be called
upon to pass through.
From this it will be understood that Colonel Desmit passed a most
uneasy night after Nimbus had left his house. He had been summoned
before the Bureau! He had expected it. Hardly had he given way
to his petulant anger when he recognized the folly of his course.
The demeanor of the colored man had been so "sassy" and aggravating,
however, that no one could have resisted his wrath, he was sure.
Indeed, now that he came to look back at it, he wondered that
he had been so considerate. He was amazed that he had not shot
the impudent rascal on the spot instead of striking him with his
walking-stick, which he was very confident was the worst that could
be urged against him. However, that was enough, for he remembered
with horror that, not long before, this same Bureau officer had
actually imprisoned a most respectable and correct man for having
whipped a "nigger" at work in his crop, who had been "too sassy"
to be tolerated by any gentleman.
So it was with much trepidation that the old man went into the town
the next morning, secured the services of a lawyer, and prepared
for his trial before the "Bureau." Nimbus was intercepted as he
came into town with his wife, and an attempt made to induce him to
withdraw the prosecution, but that high-minded litigant would hear
nothing of the proposed compromise. He had put his hand to the plow
and would not look back. He had appealed to the law--"the Bureau"
and only "the Bureau" should decide it. So Colonel Desmit and his
lawyer asked a few hours' delay and prepared themselves to resist
and disprove the charge of assault upon Nimbus. The lawyer once
proposed to examine the papers in the case, but Desmit said that
was useless--the boy was no liar, though they must make him out
one if they could. So, at the time appointed, with his lawyer
and train of witnesses, he went before "the Bureau," and there met
Nimbus and his wife, Lugena.
"The Bureau" wore the uniform of a captain of United States infantry,
and was a man about forty-five years of age, grave and serious of
look, with an empty sleeve folded decorously over his breast. His
calm blue eyes, pale, refined face, and serious air gave him the
appearance of a minister rather than a ruthless oppressor, but his
reputation for cruelty among certain people was as well established
as that of Jeffreys. He greeted Mr. Desmit and his attorney with
somewhat constrained politeness, and when they were seated proceeded
to read the complaint, which simply recited that Colonel Desmit,
having employed Lugena, the wife of complainant, at a given rate
per month, had failed to make payment, and had finally, without
cause, ordered her off his premises.
"Is that all?" asked the lawyer.
"That is all," answered the officer.
"Has no other complaint been lodged against Colonel Desmit?"
"None."
"We cannot--that is--we did not expect this," said the attorney,
and then after a whispered consultation with his client, he added,
"We are quite willing to make this matter right. We had entirely
misunderstood the nature of the complaint."
"Have you any further complaint to make against Colonel Desmit?"
asked the officer, of Nimbus.
"No," said that worthy, doubtfully. "He was pretty brash wid me,
an' 'llowed ter hit me wid a stick; but he didn't--at least not ter
speak on--so I don't make no 'count ob dat. 'Twas jes dis matter
ob Lugeny's wuk dat made me bring him h'yer--nuffin' else."
"When did this matter of the stick occur?" asked the officer.
"On'y jes yeste'day, sah."
"Where was it?"
"Up ter Marse Potem's, sah. In his house."
"How did it happen?"
"Wal, you see, sah, I went up dar ter see ef I could buy a track
ob lan" from him, an'--"
"What!" exclaimed Desmit, in astonishment. "You didn't say a word
to me about land."
"No more I didn't," answered Nimbus, "kase yer didn't gib me no
chance ter say a word 'bout it. 'Peared like de fus sight on me
made yer mad, an' den yer jes feathered away on me, spite ob all I
could do er say. Yer see, sah," to the officer, "I'd made a bit ob
money in de wah, an' wanted ter see ef I could buy a bit ob pore
lan' ob Marse Desmit--a track jes good fer nothin on'y fer a nigga
ter starve on--but afore I could git to dat Marse Desmit got so
uproarous-like dat I clean fergot what'twas I cum fer."
"There was evidently a misunderstanding," said the attorney.
"I should think so," said the officer, dryly. "You say you have no
complaint to make about that affair?" he added to Nimbus. "No,"
said he; "'twan't a tingob any 'count, nohow. I can't make out
what'twas made Marse Potem so fractious anyhow. I reckon, as he says,
dar must hev ben some mistake about it. Ef he'll fix up dis matter
wid Lugena, I hain't no mo' complaint, an' I'se mighty sorry 'bout
dat, kase Marse Desmit hab allus been mighty kin' ter me--all 'cept
dis time an' once afo'."
"There's the money for the woman," said the attorney, laying some
bills on the officer's table; "and I may say that my client greatly
regrets the unfortunate misunderstanding with one of the best of
his old slaves. He desires me to say that the woman's services have
been entirely satisfactory, and that she can keep right on under
the contract, if she desires."
So that was settled. The officer discharged Colonel Desmit, commended
Nimbus for the sensible view he had taken of the quarrel, and the
parties gave way for other matters which awaited the officer's
attention.
This would not seem to have been so very oppressive, but anything
growing out of the war which had resulted so disastrously for him
was hateful to Colonel Desmit, and we should not wonder if his
grandchildren told over, with burning cheeks, the story of the
affront which was offered to their ancestor in haling him before
that infamous tribunal, "the Bureau," to answer a charge preferred
by a "nigger."
CHAPTER XV.
TO HIM AND HIS HEIRS FOREVER.
After leaving the office of "the Bureau," the parties repaired
to that of the lawyer, and the trade for the land which had been
so inopportunely forestalled by Colonel Desmit's hasty temper was
entered upon in earnest. That gentleman's financial condition was
such as to render the three or four hundred dollars of ready money
which Nimbus could pay by no means undesirable, while the property
itself seemed of so little value as to be regarded almost as an
incumbrance to the plantation of which it was a part. Such was its
well-established reputation for poverty of soil that Desmit had
no idea that the purchaser would ever be able to meet one of his
notes for the balance of the purchase money, and he looked forward
to resuming the control of the property at no distant day, somewhat
improved by the betterments which occupancy and attempted use would
compel the purchaser to make. He regarded the cash to be paid in
hand as just so much money accidentally found in his pathway, for
which, in no event, was he to render any _quid pro quo_. But
of this he said nothing. It was not his business to look after the
interests of a "sassy nigger." In fact, he felt that the money was
in a sense due to him on account of the scurvy trick that Nimbus
had played him, in deserting to the Yankees after agreeing to look
after his "niggers" on the breast-works, although, as the event
proved, his master would have gained nothing by his remaining. So
the former master and slave met on the level of barter and sale,
and gave and took in the conflict of trade.
Except the small tract just about the old hostel, which has
already been mentioned, the plantation, which included Red Wing,
was descended from an ancestor of the Richards family, who had come
from the North about the close of the Revolution and "entered" an
immense tract in this section. It had, however, passed out of the
family by purchase, and about the beginning of the war of Rebellion
a life estate therein was held by its occupant, while the reversion
belonged to certain parties in Indiana by virtue of the will of a
common ancestor. This life-tenant's necessities compelled him to
relinquish his estate, which was bought by Colonel Desmit, during
the second year of the war, together with the fee which he had
acquired in the tract belonging to the old Ordinary, not because he
wanted the land about Red Wing, but because the plantation to which
it was attached was a good one, and he could buy it on reasonable
terms for Confederate currency. He expected to treat with the
Indiana heirs and obtain their respective interests in the fee,
which no doubt he would have been able to acquire very cheaply but
for the intevening accident of war, as the life-tenant was yet of
middle age and the succession consequently of little probable value
to living reversioners. This, however, he had not done; but as his
deed from the life-tenant was in form an exclusive and unlimited
conveyance, it had been quite forgotten that the will of his
grandfather limited it to a life estate. So when Nimbus and his
friend and counsellor, Eliab Hill, sought to negotiate the purchase
of Red Wing, no mention was made of that fact; neither was it
alluded to when they came again to conclude the purchase, nor when
instructions were given to Colonel Desmit's lawyer to prepare the
necessary papers.
The trade was soon brought to an apparently happy conclusion. Nimbus
bought two hundred acres at a price of eight hundred dollars, paying
one half the price agreed upon in cash, and for the balance gave
three notes of equal amounts, one maturing each year thereafter, and
received from Colonel Uesmit a bond for title to the whole tract,
with full covenants of warranty and seizin. Colonel Desmit accounted
the notes of little value; Nimbus prized the bond for title above
any patent of nobility. Before the first note fell due all had
been discharged, and the bond for title was exchanged for a deed
in fee, duly executed. So the recent slave, who had but lately been
the subject of barter and sale, was clothed with the rights of a
proprietor.
According to the former law, the slave was a sort of chattel-real.
Without being attached to the land, he was transferable from one
owner to another only by deed or will. In some States he descended
as realty, in others as personalty, while in others still, he
constituted a separate kind of heritable estate, which was especially
provided for in the canons of descent and statutes regulating
administration. There was even then of record in the county of
Horsford a deed of sale, bearing the hand and seal of P, Desmit,
and executed little more than a year previously, conveying to one
Peyton Winburn "all the right, title, and interest of said Desmit,
in and to a certain runaway negro boy named Nimbus." The said
Winburn was a speculator in slaves who had long been the agent of
Desmit in marketing his human crop, and who, in the very last hours
of the Confederacy, was willing to risk a few dollars on the result.
As he well stated it to himself, it was only staking one form
of loss against another. He paid Confederate money for a runaway
negro. If the Confederacy failed, the negro would be free; but then,
too, the money would be worthless. So with grim humor he said to
himself that he was only changing the form of his risk and could
not possibly lose by the result. Thus, by implication of law,
the recent _subject_ of transfer by deed was elevated to the
dignity of being a _party_ thereto. The very instrument of
his bondage became thereby the sceptre of his power. It was only an
incident of freedom, but the difference it measured was infinite.
No wonder the former slave tiembled with elation as he received
this emblem of autonomy, or that there was a look of gloom on the
face of the former master as he delivered the carefully-enrolled deed,
made complete by his hand and seal, and attested by his attorney.
It was the first time the one had felt the dignity of proprietorship,
or the other had known the shame of fraud. The one thought of the
bright future which lay before his children, to whom he dedicated
Red Wing at that moment in his heart, in terms more solemn than the
legal phrases in which Potestatem Desmit had guaranteed to them the
estate in fee therein. The other thought of the far-away Indiana
reversioners, of whose rights none knew aught save himself--himself
and Walter Greer, who had gone away to the wilds of Texas, and
might never be heard of any more. It was the first time he had
ever committed a deliberate fraud, and when he handed the freedman
the deed and said sadly, "I never expected to come down to this,"
those who heard him thought he meant his low estate, and pitied his
misfortunes. He smiled meaningly and turned hastily away, when
Nimbus, forgetting his own elation, said, in tones of earnest
feeling:
"I declar, Marse Desmit, I'se sorry fer you--I is dat; an' I hopes
yer'll come outen dis yer trouble a heap better nor yer's lookin'
for."
Then they separated--the one to treasure his apples of Sodom, the
other to nourish the memory of his shame.
CHAPTER XVI.
A CHILD OF THE HILLS.
"Come at once; Oscar very low."
This was the dispatch which an awkward telegraph messenger handed
to the principal teacher of "No. 5," one soft September day of
1866. He waited upon the rough stone step, while she, standing in
the doorway, read it again and again, or seemed to do so, as if she
could not make out the import of the few simple words it contained.
'No 5' was a school-house in one of the townships of Bankshire
County, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In it were taught
the children, within school age, of one of those little hamlets
which have crept up the valleys of the White Mountains, toled on
and on, year after year, farther and farther up the little rivulets
that dash down the mountain slopes, by the rumble and clatter of
newly-erected machinery.
These mountain streams are the magic handiwork of the nymphs and
fays who for ages have lain hidden in the springs that burst out
into little lakes upon the birch-crowned summits, and come rushing
and tumbling down the rocky defiles to join the waters of the
Housatuck. School-house No. 5 was thriftily placed on a bit of
refractory land just opposite the junction of two streams which had
their rise in two lakelets miles away from each other--one lying
under the shadow of Pixey Mountain, and the other hidden among the
wooded hills of Birket. They were called "ponds," but are, in truth,
great springs, in whose icy coldness the mountain trout delight.
Back of the school-house, which, indeed, was half built into it,
was a sharp, rocky hillside; across the road which ran before it
was a placid pond, bordered on
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