The day after the election a colored lad rode up to the school-house, delivered a letter for Miss Ainslie to one of the scholars, and rode away. The letter was written in an even, delicate hand, which was yet full of feminine strength, and read as follows:
"My son Hesden has told me of your courage in preventing what must otherwise have resulted in a most terrible conflict yesterday, and I feel it to be my duty, in behalf of many ladies whose husbands and sons were present on that occasion, to express to you our gratitude. It is seldom that such opportunity presents itself to our sex, and still more seldom that we are able to improve it when presented. Your courage in exerting the power you have over the peculiar people toward whom you hold such important relations, commands my utmost admiration. It is a matter of the utmost congratulation to the good people of Horsford that one of such courage and prudence occupies the position which you hold. I am afraid that the people whom you are teaching can never be made to understand and appreciate the position into which they have been thrust by the terrible events of the past few years. I am sure, however, that you will do all in your power to secure that result, and most earnestly pray for your success. Could I leave my house I should do myself the pleasure to visit your school and express my gratitude in person. As it is, I can only send the good wishes of a weak old woman, who, though once a slave-mistress, was most sincerely rejoiced at the down-fall of a system she had always regarded with regret, despite the humiliation it brought to her countrymen.
This was the first word of commendation which had been received from any Southern white woman, and the two lonely teachers were greatly cheered by it. When we come to analyze its sentences there seems to be a sort of patronizing coolness in it, hardly calculated to awaken enthusiasm. The young girls who had given themselves to what they deemed a missionary work of peculiar urgency and sacredness, did not stop to read between the lines, however, but perused with tears of joy this first epistle from one of their own sex in that strange country where they had been treated as leprous outcasts by all the families who belonged to the race of which they were unconscious ornaments. They jumped to the conclusion that a new day was dawning, and that henceforth they would have that companionship and sympathy which they felt that they deserved from the Christian women by whom they were surrounded.
"What a dear, good old lady she must be!" exclaimed the pretty and gushing Lucy Ellison. "I should like to kiss her for that sweet letter."
So they took heart of grace, talked with the old "Mammy" who had charge of their household arrangements about the gentle invalid woman, whom she had served as a slave, and pronounced "jes de bestest woman in de worl', nex' to my young ladies," and then they went on with their work with renewed zeal.
Two other results followed this affair, which tended greatly to relieve the monotony of their lives. A good many gentlemen called in to see the school, most of them young men who were anxious for a sight of the brave lady who had it in charge, and others merely desirous to see the pretty Yankee "nigger teachers." Many would, no doubt, have become more intimate with them, but there was something in the terms of respectful equality on which they associated with their pupils, and especially with their co-worker, Eliab Hill, which they could not abide or understand. The fame of the adventure had extended even beyond the county, however, and raised them very greatly in the esteem of all the people.
Miss Ainslie soon noticed that the gentlemen she met in her rides, instead of passing her with a rude or impudent stare began to greet her with polite respect. Besides this, some of the officers of the post at Boyleston, hearing of the gallant conduct of their country-woman, rode over to pay their respects, and brought back such glowing reports of the beauty and refinement of the teachers at Red Wing that the distance could not prevent others of the garrison from following their example; and the old Ordinary thereafter witnessed many a pleasant gathering under the grand old oak which shaded it. Both of the teachers found admirers in the gallant company, and it soon became known that Lucy Ellison would leave her present situation erelong to brighten the life of a young lieutenant. It was rumored, too, that another uniform covered the sad heart of a cavalier who asked an exchange into a regiment on frontier duty, because Mollie Ainslie had failed to respond favorably to his passionate addresses.
So they taught, read, sang, wandered along the wood-paths in search of new beauties to charm their Northern eyes; rode together whenever Lucy could be persuaded to mount Nimbus' mule, which, despite its hybrid nature, was an excellent saddle-beast; entertained with unaffected pleasure the officers who came to cheer their loneliness; and under the care of their faithful old "Mammy" and the oversight of a kind-hearted, serious-faced Superintendent, who never missed Red Wing in his monthly rounds, they kept their oddly transformed home bright and cheerful, their hearts light and pure, and their faith clear, daily thanking God that they were permitted to do what they thought to be His will.
All of their experiences were not so pleasant. By their own sex they were still regarded with that calm, unobserving indifference with which the modern lady treats the sister who stands without the pale of reputable society. So far as the "ladies" of Horsford were concerned, the "nigger teachers" at Red Wing stood on the plane of the courtesan—they wereseenbut notknown.The recognition which they received from the gentlemen of Southern birth had in it not a little of the shame-faced curiosity which characterizes the intercourse of men with women whose reputations have been questioned but not entirely destroyed. They were treated with apparent respect, in the school-room, upon the highway, or at the market, by men who would not think of recognizing them when in the company of their mothers, sisters, or wives. Such treatment would have been too galling to be borne had it not been that the spotless-minded girls were all too pure to realize its significance.
Eliab Hill had from the first greatly interested the teachers at Red Wing. The necessities of the school and the desire of the charitable Board having it in charge, to accustom the colored people to see those of their own race trusted and advanced, had induced them to employ him as an assistant teacher, even before he was really competent for such service. It is true he was given charge of only the most rudimentary work, but that fact, while it inspired his ambition, showed him also the need of improvement and made him a most diligent student.
Lucy Ellison, as being the most expert in housewifely accomplishments, had naturally taken charge of the domestic arrangements at the Ordinary, and as a consequence had cast a larger share of the school duties upon her "superior officer," as she delighted to call Mollie Ainslie. This division of labor suited well the characteristics of both. To plan, direct, and manage the school came as naturally and easily to the stirring Yankee "school-marm" as did the ordering of their little household to the New York farmer's daughter. Among the extra duties thus devolved upon the former was the supervision and direction of the studies of Eliab Hill. As he could not consistently with the requisite discipline be included in any of the regular classes that had been formed, and his affliction prevented him from coming to them in the evening for private instruction, she arranged to teach him at the school-house after school hours. So that every day she remained after the school was dismissed to give him an hour's instruction. His careful attention and rapid progress amply repaid her for this sacrifice, and she looked forward with much pleasure to the time when, after her departure, he should be able to conduct the school with credit to himself and profit to his fellows.
Then, for the first time, she realized how great is the momentum which centuries of intelligence and freedom give to the mind of the learner—how unconscious is the acquisition of the great bulk of that knowledge which goes to make up the Caucasian manhood of the nineteenth century.
Eliab's desire to acquire was insatiable, his application was tireless, but what he achieved seemed always to lack a certain flavor of completeness. It was without that substratum of general intelligence which the free white student has partly inherited and partly acquired by observation and experience, without the labor or the consciousness of study. The whole world of life, business, society, was a sealed book to him, which no other hand might open for him; while the field of literature was but a bright tangled thicket before him.
That unconscious familiarity with the past which is as the small-change of daily thought to us was a strange currency to his mind. He had, indeed, the key to the value of each piece, and could, with difficulty, determine its power when used by another, but he did not give or receive the currency with instinctive readiness. Two things had made him clearly the intellectual superior of his fellows—the advantages of his early years by which he learned to read, and the habit of meditation which the solitude of his stricken life induced. This had made him a thinker, a philosopher far more profound than his general attainments would naturally produce. With the super-sensitiveness which always characterizes the afflicted, also, he had become a most acute and subtle observer of the human countenance, and read its infinite variety of expression with ease and certainty. In two things he might be said to be profoundly versed—the spirit of the Scriptures, and the workings of the human heart. With regard to these his powers of expression were commensurate with his knowledge. The Psalms of David were more comprehensible to him than the simplest formulas of arithmetic.
Mollie Ainslie was not unfrequently amazed at this inequality of nature in her favorite pupil. On one side he seemed a full-grown man of grand proportions; on the other, a pigmy-child. She had heard him pour forth torrents of eloquence on the Sabbath, and felt the force of a nature exceptionally rich and strong in its conception of religious truths and human needs, only to find him on the morrow floundering hopelessly in the mire of rudimentary science, or getting, by repeated perusals, but an imperfect idea of some author's words, which it seemed to her he ought to have grasped at a glance.
He had always been a man of thought, and now for two years he had been studying after the manner of the schools, and his tasks were yet but rudimentary. It is true, he had read much and had learned not a little in a thousand directions which he did not appreciate, but yet he was discouraged and despondent, and it is no wonder that he was so. The mountain which stood in his pathway could not be climbed over nor passed by, but pebble by pebble and grain by grain must be removed, until a broad, smooth highway showed instead. And all this he must do before he could comprehend the works of those writers whose pages glow with light tooureyes from the very first. He read and re-read these, and groped his way to their meaning with doubt and difficulty.
Being a woman, Mollie Ainslie was not speculative. She could not solve this problem of strength and weakness. In power of thought, breadth of reasoning, and keenness of analysis she felt that he was her master; in knowledge—the power of acquiring and using scientific facts—she could but laugh at his weakness. It puzzled her. She wondered at it; but she had never sought to assign a reason for it. It remained for the learner himself to do this. One day, after weeks of despondency, he changed places with his teacher during the hour devoted to his lessons, and taught her why it was that he, Eliab Hill, with all his desire to learn and his ceaseless application to his tasks, yet made so little progress in the acquisition of knowledge.
"It ain't so much the words, Miss Mollie," he said, as he threw down a book in which he had asked her to explain some passage she had never read before, but the meaning of which came to her at a glance—"it ain't so much the words as it is the ideas that trouble me. These men who write seem to think and feel differently from those I have known. I can learn the words, but when I have them all right I am by no means sure that I know just what they mean," "Why, you must," said the positive little Yankee woman; "when one has the words and knows the meaning of all of them, he cannot help knowing what the writer means."
"Perhaps I do not put it as I should," said he sadly. "What I want to say is, that there are thoughts and bearings that I can never gather from books alone. They come to you, Miss Ainslie, and to those like you, from those who were before you in the world, and from things about you. It is the part of knowledge that can't be put into books. Now I have none of that. My people cannot give it to me. I catch a sight of it here and there. Now and then, a conversation I heard years ago between some white men will come up and make plain something that I am puzzling over, but it is not easy for me to learn."
"I do not think I understand you," she replied; "but if I do, I am sure you are mistaken. How can you know the meanings of words, and yet not apprehend the thought conveyed?"
"I do not knowhow," he replied. "I only know that while thought seems to come from the printed page to your mind like a flash of light, to mine it only comes with difficulty and after many readings, though I may know every word. For instance," he continued, taking up a voiume of Tennyson which lay upon her table, "take any passage. Here is one: 'Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean!' I have no doubt that brings a distinct idea to your mind."
"Yes," she replied, hesitatingly; "I never thought of it before, but I think it does."
"Well, it does not to mine. I cannot make out what is meant by 'idle' tears, nor whether the author means to say that he does not know what 'tears' mean, or only 'idle' tears, or whether he does not understand such a display of grief because itisidle."
"Might he not have meant any or all of these?" she asked.
"That is it," he replied. "I want to know what hedidmean. Of course, if I knew all about his life and ways, and the like, I could tell pretty fully his meaning. You know them because his thoughts are your thoughts, his life has been your life. You belong to the same race and class. I am cut off from this, and can only stumble slowly along the path of knowledge."
Thus the simple-minded colored man, taught to meditate by the solitude which his affliction enforced upon him, speculated in regard to theleges non scriptawhich control the action of the human mind and condition its progress.
"What has put you in this strange mood, Eliab?" asked the teacher wonderingly.
His face flushed, and the mobile mouth twitched with emotion as he glanced earnestly toward her, and then, with an air of sudden resolution, said:
"Well, you see, that matter of the election—you took it all in in a minute, when the horse came back. You knew the white folks would feel aggravated by that procession, and there would be trouble. Now, I never thought of that. I just thought it was nice to be free, and have our own music and march under that dear old flag to do the work of free men and citizens. That was all."
"But Nimbus thought of it, and that was why he sent back the horse," she answered.
"Not at all. He only thought they might pester the horse to plague him, and the horse might get away and be hurt. We didn't, none of us, think what the white folks would feel, because we didn't know. You did."
"But why should this affect you?"
"Just because it shows that education is something more that I had thought—something so large and difficult that one of my age, raised as I have been, can only get a taste of it at the best."
"Well, what then? You are not discouraged?"
"Not for myself—no. The pleasure of learning is reward enough to me. But my people, Miss Mollie, I must think of them. I am only a poor withered branch. They are the straight young tree. I must think of them and not of Eliab. You have taught me—this affair, everything, teaches me—that they can only be made free by knowledge. I begin to see that the law can only give us an opportunity to make ourselves freemen. Liberty must be earned; it cannot be given."
"That is very true," said the practical girl, whose mind recognized at once the fact which she had never formulated to herself. But as she looked into his face, working with intense feeling and so lighted with the glory of a noble purpose as to make her forget the stricken frame to which it was chained, she was puzzled at what seemed inconsequence in his words. So she added, wonderingly, "But I don't see why this should depress you. Only think how much you have done toward the end you have in view. Just think what you have accomplished—what strides you have made toward a full and complete manhood. You ought to be proud rather than discouraged."
"Ah!" said he, "that has been for myself, Miss Mollie, not for my people. What am I to my race? Aye," he continued, with a glance at his withered limbs, "to the least one of them not—not—" He covered his face with his hands and bowed his head in the self-abasement which hopeless affliction so often brings.
"Eliab," said the teacher soothingly, as if her pupil were a child instead of a man older than herself, "you should not give way to such thoughts. You should rise above them, and by using the powers you have, become an honor to your race."
"No, Miss Mollie," he replied, with a sigh, as he raised his head and gazed into her face earnestly. "There ain't nothing in this world for me to look forward to only to help my people. I am only the dust on the Lord's chariot-wheels—only the dust, which must be brushed out of the way in order that their glory may shine forth. And that," he continued impetuously, paying no attention to her gesture of remonstrance, "is what I wanted to speak to you about this evening. It is hard to say, but I must say it—must say it now. I have been taking too much of your time and attention, Miss Mollie."
"I am sure, Mr. Hill—" she began, in some confusion.
"Yes, I have," he went on impetuously, while his face flushed hotly. "It is the young and strong only who can enter into the Canaan the Lord has put before our people. I thought for a while that we were just standing on the banks of Jordan—that the promised land was right over yon, and the waters piled up like a wall, so that even poor weak 'Liab might cross over. But I see plainer now. We're only just past the Red Sea, just coming into the wildnerness, and if I can only get a glimpse from Horeb, wid my old eyes by and by, 'Liab 'll be satisfied. It'll be enough, an' more'n enough, for him. He can only help the young ones—the lambs of the flock—a little, mighty little, p'raps, but it's all there is for him to do." "Why, Eliab—" began the astonished teacher again.
"Don't! don't! Miss Mollie, if you please," he cried, with a look of pain. "I'se done tried—I hez, Miss Mollie. God only knows how I'se tried! But it ain't no use—no use," he continued, with a fierce gesture, and relapsing unconsciously into the rougher dialect that he had been training himself to avoid. "I can't do it, an' there's no use a-tryin'. There ain't nothin' good for me in this worl'—not in this worl'. It's hard to give it up, Miss Mollie—harder'n you'll ever dream; but I hain't blind. I knows the brand is on me. It's on my tongue now, that forgets all I've learned jes ez soon ez the time of trial comes."
He seemed wild with excitement as he leaned forward on the table toward her, and accompanied his words with that eloquence of gesticulation which only the hands that are tied to crippled forms acquire. He paused suddenly, bowed his head upon his crossed arms, and his frame shook with sobs. She rose, and would have come around the table to him. Raising his head quickly, he cried almost fiercely:
"Don't! don't! don't come nigh me, Miss Mollie! I'm going to do a hard thing, almost too hard for me. I'm going to get off the chariot-wheel—out of the light of the glory—out of the way of the young and the strong! Them that's got to fight the Lord's battles must have the training, and not them that's bound to fall in the wilderness. The time is precious—precious, and must not be wasted. You can't afford to spend so much of it on me! The Lord can't afford ter hev ye, Miss Mollie! I must step aside, an' I'se gwine ter do it now. If yer's enny time an' strength ter spar' more'n yer givin' day by day in the school, I want yer should give it to—to—Winnie an' 'Thusa—they're bright girls, that have studied hard, and are young and strong. It is through such as them that we must come up—our people, I mean. I want you to give them my hour, Miss Mollie—myhour! Don't say you won't do it!" he cried, seeing a gesture of dissent. "Don't say it! You must do it! Promise me, Miss Mollie—for my sake! for—promise me—now—quick! afore I gets too weak to ask it!"
"Why, certainly, Eliab," she said, in amazement, while she half shrank from him as if in terror. "I will do it if you desire it so much. But you should not get so excited. Calm yourself! I am sure I don't see why you should take such a course; but, as you say, they are two bright girls and will make good teachers, which are much needed."
"Thank God! thank God!" cried the cripple, as his head fell again upon his arms. After a moment he half raised it and said, weakly,
"Will you please call Nimbus, Miss Mollie? I must go home now. And please, Miss Mollie, don't think hard of 'Liab—don't, Miss Mollie," he said humbly.
"Why should I?" she asked in surprise. "You have acted nobly, thoughI cannot think you have done wisely. You are nervous now. You maythink differently hereafter. If you do, you have only to say so.I will call Nimbus. Good-by!"
She took her hat and gloves and went down the aisle. Happening to turn near the door to replace a book her dress had brushed from a desk, she saw him gazing after her with a look that haunted her memory long afterward.
As the door closed behind her he slid from his chair and bowed his head upon it, crying out in a voice of tearful agony, "Thank God! thank God!" again and again, while his unfinished form shook with hysteric sobs. "Andshesaid I was not wise!" he half laughed, as the tears ran down his face and he resumed his invocation of thankfulness. Thus Nimbus found him and carried him home with his wonted tenderness, soothing him like a babe, and wondering what had occurred to discompose his usually sedate and cheerful friend.
"I declare, Lucy," said Mollie Ainslie that evening, to her co-worker, over their cosy tea, "I don't believe I shall ever get to understand these people. There is that Eliab Hill, who was getting along so nicely, has concluded to give up his studies. I believe he is half crazy anyhow. He raved about it, and glared at me so that I was half frightened out of my wits. I wonder why it is that cripples are always so queer, anyhow?"
She would have been still more amazed if she had known that from that day Eliab Hill devoted himself to his studies with a redoubled energy, which more than made up for the loss of his teacher's aid. Had she herself been less a child she would have seen that he whom she had treated as such was, in truth, a man of rare strength.
The time had come when the influences so long at work, the seed which the past had sown in the minds and hearts of races, must at length bear fruit. The period of actual reconstruction had passed, and independent, self-regulating States had taken the place of Military Districts and Provisional Governments. The people of the South began, little by little, to realize that they held their future in their own hands—that the supervising and restraining power of the General Government had been withdrawn. The colored race, yet dazed with the new light of liberty, were divided between exultation and fear. They were like a child taking his first steps—full of joy at the last accomplished, full of terror at the one which was before.
The state of mind of the Southern white man, with reference to the freedman and his exaltation to the privilege of citizenship is one which cannot be too frequently analyzed or too closely kept in mind by one who desires fully to apprehend the events which have since occurred, and the social and political structure of the South at this time.
As a rule, the Southern man had been a kind master to his slaves. Conscious cruelty was the exception. The real evils of the system were those which arose from itsun-conscious barbarism—the natural and inevitable results of holding human beings as chattels, without right, the power of self-defence or protestation—dumb driven brutes, deprived of all volition or hope, subservient to another's will, and bereft of every motive for self-improvement as well as every opportunity to rise. The effect of this upon the dominant race was to fix in their minds, with the strength of an absorbing passion, the idea of their own innate and unimpeachable superiority, of the unalterable inferiority of the slave-race, of the infinite distance between the two, and of the depth of debasement implied by placing the two races, in any respect, on the same level. The Southern mind had no antipathy to the negro in a menial or servile relation. On the contrary, it was generally kind and considerate of him, as such. It regarded him almost precisely as other people look upon other species of animate property, except that it conceded to him the possession of human passions, appetites, and motives. As a farmer likes to turn a favorite horse into a fine pasture, watch his antics, and see him roll and feed and run; as he pats and caresses him when he takes him out, and delights himself in the enjoyment of the faithful beast—just so the slave-owner took pleasure in the slave's comfort, looked with approval upon his enjoyment of the domestic relation, and desired to see him sleek and hearty, and physically well content.
It was onlyas a manthat the white regarded the black with aversion; and, in that point of view, the antipathy was all the more intensely bitter since he considered the claim to manhood an intrusion upon the sacred and exclusive rights of his own race. This feeling was greatly strengthened by the course of legislation and legal construction, both national and State. Many of the subtlest exertions of American intellect were those which traced and defined the line of demarcation, until there was built up between the races,considered as men, a wall of separation as high as heaven and as deep as hell.
It may not be amiss to cite some few examples of this, which will serve at once to illustrate the feeling itself, and to show the steps in its progress.
1. It was held by our highest judicial tribunal that the phrase "we the people," in the Declaration of Independence, did not include slaves, who were excluded from the inherent rights recited therein and accounted divine and inalienable, embracing, of course, the right of self-government, which rested on the others as substantial premises.
2. The right or privilege, whichever it may be, of intermarriage with the dominant race was prohibited to the African in all the States, both free and slave, and, for all legal purposes, that man was accounted "colored" who had one-sixteenth of African blood.
3. The common-law right of self-defence was gradually reduced by legal subtlety, in the slave States, until only the merest shred remained to the African, while the lightest word of disobedience or gesture of disrespect from him, justified an assault on the part of the white man.
4. Early in the present century it was made a crime in all the States of the South to teach a slave to read, the free blacks were disfranchised, and the most stringent restraining statutes extended over them, including the prohibition of public assembly, even for divine worship, unless a white man were present.
5. Emancipation was not allowed except by decree of a court of record after tedious formality and the assumption of onerous responsibilities on the part of the master; and it was absolutely forbidden to be done by testament.
6. As indicative of the fact that this antipathy was directed against the colored man as a free agent, a man, solely, may be cited the well-known fact of the enormous admixture of the races by illicit commerce at the South, and the further fact that this was, in very large measure, consequent upon the conduct of the most refined and cultivated elements of Southern life. As a thing, an animal, a mere existence, or as the servant of his desire and instrument of his advancement, the Southern Caucasian had no antipathy to the colored race. As one to serve, to nurse, to minister to his will and pleasure, he appreciated and approved of the African to the utmost extent.
7. Every exercise of manly right, sentiment, or inclination, on the part of the negro, was rigorously repressed. To attempt to escape was a capital crime if repeated once or twice; to urge others to escape was also capitally punishable; to learn to read, to claim the rights of property, to speak insolently, to meet for prayer without the sanction of the white man's presence, were all offences against the law; and in this case, as in most others, the law was an index as well as the source of a public sentiment, which grew step by step with its progress in unconscious barbarity.
8. Perhaps the best possible indication of the force of this sentiment, in its ripened and intensest state, is afforded by the course of the Confederate Government in regard to the proposal that it should arm the slaves. In the very crisis of the struggle, when the passions of the combatants were at fever heat, this proposition was made. There was no serious question as to the efficiency or faithfulness of the slaves. The masters did not doubt that, if armed, with the promise of freedom extended to them, they would prove most effective allies, and would secure to the Confederacy that autonomy which few thoughtful men at that time believed it possible to achieve by any other means. Such was the intensity of this sentiment, however, that it was admitted to be impossible to hold the Southern soldiery in the field should this measure be adopted. So that the Confederacy, rather than surrender a tithe of its prejudice against the negroas a man, rather than owe its life to him, serving in the capacity of a soldier, chose to suffer defeat and overthrow. The African might raise the food, build the breastworks, and do aught of menial service or mere manual labor required for the support of the Confederacy, without objection or demurrer on the part of any; but they would rather surrender all that they had fought so long and so bravely to secure, rather than admit, even by inference, his equal manhood or his fitness for the duty and the danger of a soldier's life. It was a grand stubborness, a magnificent adherence to an adopted and declared principle, which loses nothing of its grandeur from the fact that we may believe the principle to have been erroneous.
9. Another very striking and peculiar illustration of this sentiment is the fact that one of the most earnest advocates of the abolition of slavery, and a type of its Southern opponents, the author of "The Impending Crisis"—a book which did more than any other to crystallize and confirm the sentiment awakened at the North by "Uncle Tom's Cabin"—was perhaps more bitterly averse to the freedom, citizenship, and coexistence of the African with the Caucasian than any man that has ever written on the subject. He differed from his slaveholding neighbors only in this:theyapproved the African as a menial, but abominated him as a self-controlling man;heabhorred him in both relations. Withthem,the prejudice of race made the negro hateful only when he trenched on the sacred domain of their superior and self-controlling manhood; withhim,hatred of the race overleaped the conventional relation and included the African wherever found, however employed, or in whatsoever relation considered. His horror of the black far overtopped his ancient antipathy to the slave. The fact that he is an exception, and that the extravagant rhodomontades of "Nojoque" are neither indorsed nor believed by any considerable number of the Southern people, confirms most powerfully this analysis of their temper toward the African.
10. Still another signal instance of its accuracy is the striking fact that one of the hottest political struggles since the war arose out of the proposition to give the colored man the right to testify, in courts of justice, against a white man. The objection was not bottomed on any desire to deprive the colored man of his legal rights, but had its root in the idea that it would be a degradation of the white man to allow the colored man to take the witness-stand and traverse the oath of a Caucasian.
Now, as it relates to our story:—That this most intense and vital sentiment should find expression whenever the repressive power of the conquering people was removed was most natural; that it would be fanned into a white heat by the freedman's enfranchisement was beyond cavil; and that Red Wing should escape such manifestations of the general abhorrence of the work of development there going on was not to be expected, even by its most sanguine friend.
Although the conduct of the teachers at Red Wing had been such as to awaken the respect of all, yet there were two things which made the place peculiarly odious. One was the influence of Eliab Hill with his people in all parts of the county, which had very greatly increased since he had ceased to be a pupil, in appearance, and had betaken himself more than ever to solitude and study. The other was the continued prosperity and rugged independence of Nimbus, who was regarded as a peculiarly "sassy nigger." To the malign influence of these two was attributed every difference of opinion between employer and employee, and every impropriety of conduct on the part of the freedmen of Horsford. Eliab was regarded as a wicked spirit who devised evil continually, and Nimbus as his willing familiar, who executed his purpose with ceaseless diligence. So Red Wing was looked upon with distrust, and its two leading characters, unconsciously to themselves, became marked men, upon whom rested the suspicion and aversion of a whole community.
An election was impending for members of the Legislature, and there was great excitement in the county of Horsford. Of white Republicans there were not above a half dozen who were openly known as such. There were two or three others who were regarded with some suspicion by their neighbors, among whom was Hesden Le Moyne. Since he had acted as a judge of election at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, he had never been heard to express any opinion upon political matters. He was known to have voted for that Constitution, and when questioned as to his reasons for such a course, had arrogantly answered,
"Simply because I saw fit to do so."
His interrogator had not seen fit to inquire further. Hesden Le Moyne was not a man with whom one wished to provoke a controversy. His unwillingness to submit to be catechised was generally accepted as a proof positive of his "Radical" views. He had been an adviser of Nimbus, his colored playmate, in the purchase of the Red Wing property, his interest in Eliab Hill had not slackened since that worthy cast in his lot with Nimbus, and he did not hesitate to commend the work of the school. He had several times attended the examinations there, had become known to the teachers, and took an active interest in the movement there going on. What his personal views were in regard to the very peculiar state of affairs by which he was surrounded he had never found it necessary to declare. He attended quietly to the work of his plantation, tenderly cared for his invalid mother, and watched the growth of his little son with the seemingly settled conviction that his care was due to them rather than to the public. His counsel and assistance were still freely sought in private matters by the inhabitants of the little village of Red Wing, and neither was ever refused where he saw that it might do good. He was accounted by them a friend, but not a partisan, and none of them had ever discussed any political questions with him, except Eliab Hill, who had more than once talked with him upon the important problem of the future of that race to which the unfortunate cripple was so slightly akin and yet so closely allied.
There was a large majority of colored men in the county, and one of the candidates for the Legislature was a colored man. While elections were under the military control there had been no serious attempt to overcome this majority, but now it was decided that the county should be "redeemed," which is the favorite name in that section of the country for an unlawful subversion of a majority. So the battle was joined, and the conflict waged hot and fierce. That negroes—no matter how numerous they might be—should rule, should bear sway and control in the county of Horsford, was a thought not by any means to be endured. It was a blow on every white cheek—an insult to every Caucasian heart. Men cursed wildly when they thought of it. Women taunted them with cowardice for permitting it. It was the one controlling and consuming thought of the hour.
On the other hand, the colored people felt that it was necessary for them to assert their newly-acquired rights if they expected to retain them. So that both parties were influenced by the strongest considerations which could possibly affect their action.
Red Wing was one of the points around which this contest raged the hottest. Although it had never become a polling precinct, and was a place of no mercantile importance, it was yet the center from which radiated the spirit that animated the colored men of the most populous district in the county. It was their place of meeting and conference. Accustomed to regard their race as peculiarly dependent upon the Divine aid because of the lowly position they had so long occupied, they had become habituated to associate political and religious interests. The helplessness of servitude left no room for hope except through the trustfulness of faith. The generation which saw slavery swept away, and they who have heard the tale of deliverance from the lips of those who had been slaves, will never cease to trace the hand of God visibly manifested in the events culminating in liberty, or to regard the future of the freed race as under the direct control of the Divine Being. For this reason the political and religious interests and emotions of this people are quite inseparable. Wherever they meet to worship, there they will meet to consult of their plans, hopes, and progress, as at once a distinct race and a part of the American people. Their religion is tinged with political thought, and their political thought shaped by religious conviction.
In this respect the colored race in America are the true children of the Covenanters and the Puritans. Their faith is of the same unquestioning type, which no disappointment or delay can daunt, and their view of personal duty and obligation in regard to it is not less intense than that which led men to sing psalms and utter praises on board the storm-bound "Mayflower." The most English of all English attributes has, by a strange transmutation, become the leading element in the character of the Africo-American. The same mixed motive of religious duty toward posterity and devotion to political liberty which peopled the bleak hills of New England and the fertile lands of Canaan with peoples fleeing from bondage and oppression, may yet cover the North with dusky fugitives from the spirit and the situs of slavery.
From time to time there had been political meetings held at the church or school-house, composed mainly of colored men, though now and then a little knot of white men would come in and watch their proceedings, sometimes from curiosity, and sometimes from spleen. Heretofore, however, there had been no more serious interruption than some sneering remarks and derisive laughter. The colored men felt that it was their own domain, and showed much more boldness than they would ever manifest on other occasions. During this campaign, however, it was determined to have a grand rally, speeches, and a barbecue at Red Wing. The colored inhabitants of that section were put upon their mettle. Several sheep and pigs were roasted, rude tables were spread under the trees, and all arrangements made for a great occasion.
At an early hour of the day when it was announced that the meeting would be held, groups of colored people of all ages and both sexes began to assemble. They were all talking earnestly as they came, for some matter of unusual interest seemed to have usurped for the moment their accustomed lightness and jollity of demeanor. Nimbus, as the most prosperous and substantial colored man of the region, had always maintained a decided leadership among them, all the more from the fact that he had sought thereby to obtain no advantage for himself. Though a most ardent supporter of that party with which he deemed the interests of his race inseparably allied, he had never taken a very active part in politics, and had persistently refused to be put forward for any official position, although frequently urged to allow himself to be named a candidate.
"No," he would always say; "I hain't got no larnin' an' not much sense. Besides, I'se got all I kin manage, an' more too, a-takin' keer o' dis yer farm. Dat's what I'm good fer. I kin manage terbacker, an' I'd ruther hev a good plantation an' run it myself, than all the offices in the worl'. I'se jes fit fer dat, an' I ain't fit fer nuffin' else."
His success proved the justice of his estimate, and the more he prospered the stronger was his hold upon his people. Of course, there were some who envied him his good-fortune, but such was his good-nature and readiness to render all the assistance in his power that this dangerous leaven did not spread. "Bre'er Nimbus" was still the heart and life of the community which had its center at Red Wing. His impetuosity was well tempered by the subtle caution of Eliab Hill, without whose advice he seldom acted in any important matter.
The relations between these two men had continued singularly close, although of late Eliab had been more independent of his friend's assistance than formerly; for, at the suggestion of the teachers, his parishioners had contributed little sums—a dime, a quarter, and a few a half-dollar apiece—to get him one of those wheeled chairs which are worked by the hands, and by means of which the infirm are frequently enabled to move about without other aid. It was the first time they had ever given anything to a minister of their own, and it was hard for those who had to support families upon a pittance which in other parts of the country would mean starvation; yet so many had hastened to give, that the "go-cart," as it was generally called, proved a vehicle of marvelous luxury and finish to the unaccustomed eyes of these rude children of the plantation.
In this chair Eliab was able to transport himself to and from the school-room, and even considerable distances among his people. This had brought him into nearer relations with them, and it was largely owing to his influence that, after Northern benevolence began to restrict its gifts and to condition its benevolence upon the exercise of a self-help which should provide for a moiety of the expense, the school still continued full and prosperous, and the services of Miss Ainslie were retained for another year—the last she intended to give to the missionary work which accident had thrust upon her young life. Already her heart was pining for the brightness and kindly cheer of the green-clad hills from which she had been exiled so long, and the friends whose hearts and arms would welcome her again to her childhood's home.
On the morning of the barbecue Nimbus and his household were astir betimes. Upon him devolved the chief burden of the entertainment which was to be spread before his neighbors. There was an abundance of willing hands, but few who could do much toward providing the requisite material. His premises had undergone little change beyond the wide, cool, latticed walk which now led from his house to the kitchen, and thence to "Uncle 'Liab's" house, over which Virginia-creepers and honeysuckle were already clambering in the furious haste which that quick-growing clime inspires in vegetation. A porch had also been added to his own house, up the posts and along the eaves of which the wisteria was clambering, while its pendulous, lilac flower-stems hung thick below. A few fruit-trees were planted here and there, and the oaks, which he had topped and shortened back when he cut away the forest for his house-lot, had put out new and dense heads of dark-green foliage that gave to the humble home a look of dignity and repose hardly to be matched by more ornate and costly structures. Upon the north side the corn grew rank and thick up to the very walls of the mud-daubed gable, softening its rudeness and giving a charm even to the bare logs of which it was formed. Lugena had grown full and matronly, had added two to her brood of lusty children, and showed what even a brief period of happiness and prosperity would do for her race as she bustled about in neat apparel with a look of supreme content on her countenance.
Long before the first comers from the country around had made their appearance, the preparations were completed, the morning meal cleared away, the table set in the latticed passage for the dinner of the most honored guests, the children made tidy, and Nimbus, magnificently attired in clean shirt, white pants and vest, a black alpaca coat and a new Panama hat, was ready to welcome the expected arrivals.
Eliab, too, made tidy by the loving care of his friends, was early mounted in his hand-carriage, and propelling himself here and there to meet the first comers. The barbecue was roasting under the charge of an experienced cook; the tables were arranged, and the speakers' stand at the back of the school-house in the grove was in the hands of the decorators. All was mirth and happiness. The freedmen were about to offer oblations to liberty—a sacrifice of the first-fruits of freedom.
"I say, Bre'er Nimbus!" cried a voice from the midst of a group of those first arriving, "how yer do dis mornin'? Hope yer's well, Squar', you an' all de family."
The speaker was a slender, loose-jointed young man, somewhat shabbily attired, with a shapeless narrow-brimmed felt hat in his hand, who was bowing and scraping with a mock solemnity to the dignitary of Red Wing, while his eyes sparkled with fun and his comrades roared at his comic gestures.
"Is dat you, Berry?" said Nimbus, turning, with a smile. "How yer do, Berry? Glad ter see ye well," nodding familiarly to the others and extending his hand.
"Thank ye, sah. You do me proud," said the jester, sidling towards him and bowing to the crowd with serio-comic gravity. "Ladies an' gemmen, yer jes takes notice, ef yer please, dat I ain't stuck up—not a mite, I ain't, ef Iispore. I'se not ashamed ter shake hands wid Mr. Squar' Nimbus—Desmit—War'. I stan's by him whatever his name, an' no matter how many he's got, ef it's more'n he's got fingers an' toes." He bowed low with a solemn wave of his grimy hat, as he shook the proffered hand, amid the laughter of his audience, with whom he seemed to be a prime favorite.
"Glad ter know it, Berry," said Nimbus, shaking the other's hand warmly, while his face glowed with evident pleasure. "How's all gittin' on wid ye, ennyhow?"
"Gittin' on, Bre'er Nimbus?" replied Berry, striking an attitude. "Gittin' on, did yer say? Lor' bress yer soul, yer nebber seed de beat—nebber. Ef yer ebber pegs out h'yer at Red Wing, Bre'er Nimbus, all yer's got ter du is jes ter come up on de Kentry Line whar folkslibs.Jes you look o' dar, will yer?" he continued, extending a slender arm ending in a skinny hand, the widely parted fingers of which seemed like talons, while the upturned palm was worn smooth and was of a yellowish, pallid white about the fingers' ends. "Jes see de 'fec's ob high libbin' on a nigger. Dar's muscle fer ye. All you needs, Bre'er Nimbus, is jest a few weeks ob good feed! Come up dar now an' wuk a farm on sheers, an' let Marse Sykes 'llowance ye, an' yer'll come out like me an' git some good clothes, too! Greatest place ter start up a run-down nigger yer ever seed. Jes' look at me, now. When I went dar I didn't hev a rag ter my back—nary a rag, an' now jes see how I'se covered wid 'em!"
There was a laugh from the crowd in which Berry joined heartily, rolling his eyes and contorting his limbs so as to show in the completest manner the striking contrast between his lank, stringy, meanly-clad frame and the full, round, well-clothed form of Nimbus.
When the laughter had subsided he struck in again, with the art of an accomplished tease, and sidling still closer to the magnate of Red Wing, he said, with a queer assumption of familiarity:
"An' how is yer good lady, Missus Lugena, an' all de babies, Squar'? They tell me you're gittin' on right smart an' think of settin' up yer kerridge putty soon. Jes' ez soon ez yer git it ready, Sally an' me's a-comin' over ter christen it. We's cousins, yer know, Squar', leastways, Sally an' Lugena's allus said ter be kin on the father's side—the white side ob de family, yer know. Yer wouldn't go back on yer relations, would yer, Nimbus? We ain't proud, not a bit proud, Bre'er Nimbus, an' yer ain't a gwine ter forgit us, is yer? Yah, yah, yah!"
There was a tinge of earnestness in this good-natured banter, but it was instantly dissipated by Nimbus's reply:
"Not a bit of it, cousin Berry. Lugena charged me dis berry mornin', jes ez soon ez I seed you an' Sally, ter invite ye ter help eat her big dinner to-day. Whar' is Sally?"
"Dar now," said Berry, "dat's jes what I done tole Sally, now. She's got a notion, kase you's rich yer's got stuck up, you an' Lugena. But I tole her, sez I, 'Nimbus ain't dat ar sort of a chile, Nimbus hain't. He's been a heap luckier nor de rest of us, but he ain't got de big-head, nary bit.' Dat's what I say, an' durn me ef I don't b'lieve it too, I does. We's been hevin' purty hard times, Sally an' me hez. Nebber did hev much luck, yer know—'cept for chillen. Yah, yah! An' jes' dar we's hed a trifle more'n we 'zackly keered about. Might hev spared a few an' got along jest ez well, 'cordin' ter my notion. Den de ole woman's been kinder peaked this summer, an' some two or free ob de babies hez been right poorly, an' Sal—wal, she got a leettle fretted, kase yer know we both wuks purty hard an' don't seem ter git ahead a morsel. So she got her back up, an' sez she ter me dis mornin': 'Berry,' sez she, 'I ain't a gwine ter go near cousin Nimbus', I ain't, kase I hain't got no fine clo'es, ner no chicken-fixing ter take ter de barbecue nuther.' So she's done stop up ter Bob Mosely's wid de baby, an' I t'ought I'd jes come down an' spy out de lan' an' see which on us wuz right. Dat's de fac' truf, Bre'er Nimbus, an' no lyin". Yah, yah!"
"Sho, sho, Berry," replied Nimbus, reproachfully; "what makes Sally sech a big fool? She oughter be ashamed ter treat her ole fren's dat ar way."
"Now yer talkin', Bre'er Nimbus, dat you is! But la sakes! Bre'er Nimbus, dat ar gal hain't got no pride. Why yer wouldn't b'lieve hit, but she ain't even 'shamed of Berry—fac'! Yah, yah! What yer tinks ob dat now?"
"Why, co'se she ain't," said Nimbus. "Don't see how she could be. Yer always jes dat peart an' jolly dat nobody couldn't git put out wid yer."
"Tink so, Bre'er Nimbus? Wal, now, I'shures ye dat yer couldn't be wuss mistaken ef yer'd tried. On'y jes' dis mornin' Marse Sykes got put out wid me jes de wus kind."
"How's dat, Berry?"
"Wal, yer see, I'se been a wukkin' fer him ebber sence de s'rrender jes de same ez afore, only dat he pays me an' I owes him. He pays me in sto' orders, an' it 'pears like I owes him mo' an' mo' ebbery time we settles up. Didn't use ter be so when we lied de Bureau, kase den Marse Sykes' 'count didn't use ter be so big; but dese las' two year sence de Bureau done gone, bress God, I gits nex' ter nuffin' ez we goes 'long, an' hez less 'n nuffin' atterwards."
"What wages d'ye git?" asked Nimbus.
"Marse Sykes, he sez I gits eight dollahs a month, myself, an' Sally she gits fo'; an' den we hez tree pounds o' meat apiece an' a peck o' meal, each on us, ebbery week. We could git along right peart on dat—we an' de chillens, six on 'em—wid jes' a drop o' coffee now an' agin, yer know; but yer see, Sally, she's a leetle onsartin an' can't allus wuk, an' it 'pears like it takes all ob my wuk ter pay fer her rations when she don't wuk. I dunno how 'tis, but dat's de way Marse Sykes figgers it out,"
"Yer mus' buy a heap ob fine clo'es," said one of the bystanders.
"'Wall, ef I does, I leaves 'em ter home fer fear ob wearin' 'em out, don't I?" said Berry, glancing at his dilapidated costume. "Dat's what's de matter. I'se bad 'nough off, but yer jest orter see dem chillen! Dey war's brak ebbery day jes' like a minister, yer knows—not sto' clo'es dough, oh, no! home-made all de time! Mostly bar'-skins, yer know! Yah, yah!"
"An' yer don't drink, nuther," said one whose words and appearance clearly showed that he regarded it as a matter of surprise that any one should not.
"'Ceptin' only de Christmas an' when some feller treats," respondedBerry.
"P'raps he makes it outen de holidays," said a third.
"Dar's whar my boss sloshes it on ter me. Clar ef I don't hev more holidays than dar is wuk-days, 'cordin 'ter his 'count."
"Holidays!" said Berry; "dat's what's de matter. Hain't hed but jes tree holidays 'cep' de Chris'mas weeks, in all dat time. So, I 'llowed I'd take one an' come ter dis yer meetin'. Wal, 'long de fust ob de week, I make bold ter tell him so, an' ebber sence dat 'pears like he's gwine ter hu't hisself, he's been so mad. I'se done tried not ter notice it, kase I'se dat solemn-like myself, yer knows, I couldn't 'ford ter take on no mo' ob dat kind; but every day or two he's been a lettin' slip somethin' 'bout niggas gaddin' roun', yer know."
"That was mean," said Nimbus, "kase ef yer is allus laughin' an' hollerin' roun', I'm boun' ter say dar ain't no stiddier han' in de county at enny sort ob wuk."
"Jes' so. Much obleeged ter ye, Squar', fer dat. Same ter yeself 'tu. Howsomever,hedidn't make no sech remark, not ez I heerd on, an' dis mornin' bright an' airly, he comed roun' an' axes me didn't I want ter take de carry-all and go ter Lewyburg; an' when I 'llowed dat I didn't keer tu, not jes to-day, yer know, he axed me, was I comin' h'yer ter dis yer meetin', an' when I 'llowed I was, he jes' got up an' rar'd. Yah, yah! how he did make de turf fly, all by hissef, kase I wur a whistlin' 'Ole Jim Crow' an' some other nice psalm-tunes, jes' ter keep myself from larfin' in his face! Till finally he sez, sez he, 'Berry Lawson, ef yer goes ter dat er Radikil meetin', yer needn't never come back ter my plantation no mo'. Yer can't stay h'yer no longer—' jes so. Den I made bold ter ax him how our little 'count stood, kase we's been livin' mighty close fer a while, in hopes ter git a mite ahead so's ter sen' de two oldes' chillen ter school h'yer, 'gin winter. An' den sez he, 'Count be damned!'—jes so; 'don't yer know hit's in de papers dat ef yer don't 'bey me an' wuk obedient ter my wishes, yer don't git nary cent, nohow at all?' I tole him I didn't know dat ar, and didn't reckon he did. Den he out wid de paper an' read it ober ter me, an' shure 'nough, dar 'tis, dough I'll swar I nebber heerd nothin' on't afo'. Nebber hed no sech ting in de papers when de Bureau man drawed 'em up, dat's shuah."
"How de debble yer come ter sign sech a paper, Berry?" said Nimbus.
"Dod burned ef I know, Cousin Nimbus. Jes kase I don' know no better, I s'pose. How I gwine ter know what's in dat paper, hey? Does you read all de papers yer signs, Squar' Nimbus? Not much, I reckons; but den you keeps de minister right h'yer ter han' tu read 'em for ye. Can't all ob us afford dat, Bre'er Nimbus."
"Yah, yah, dat's so!" "Good foryou,Berry!" from the crowd.
"Wal, yer orter hev a guardian—all on us ought, for dat matter," said Nimbus; "but I don't s'pose dere's ary man in de country dat would sign sech a paper ef he know'd it, an' nobody but Granville Sykes that would hev thought of sech a dodge."
"It's jes so in mine," said one of the bystanders. "And in mine;" "an' mine," added one and another.
"And has any one else offered to turn men off for comin' here?" asked Nimbus.
To his surprise, he learned that two thirds the men in the crowd had been thus threatened.
"Jes let 'em try it!" he exclaimed, angrily. "Dey dassent do it, nohow. They'll find out dat a man can't be imposed on allus, ef heispore an' black. Dat dey will! I'se only jes a pore man, but I hain't enny sech mean cuss ez to stan' roun' an' see my race an' kin put on in dat ar way, I hain't."
"All right, Cousin Nimbus, ef Marse Sykes turns me outen house an' home, I knows right whar I comes ter, now."
"Co'se yer do," said Nimbus, proudly. "Yer jes comes ter me an' I takes keer on ye. I needs anudder han' in de crap, ennyhow."
"Now, Cousin Nimbus, yer ain't in airnest, is yer? Yer don't mean dat, pop-suah, does yer now?" asked Berry anxiously. "Dat I does, Cousin Berry! dat I does!" was the hearty response.
"Whoop, hurrah!" cried Berry, throwing up his hat, turning a hand-spring, and catching the hat as it came down. "Whar's dat Sally Ann? H'yeah, you fellers, clar away dar an' let me come at her. H'yer I goes now, I jes tole her dis yer bressed mornin' dat it tuk a fool fer luck. Hi-yah!" he cried, executing a sommersault, and diving through the crowd he ran away. As he started off, he saw his wife walking along the road toward Nimbus' house by the side of Eliab Hill in his rolling-chair. Berry dashed back into the circle where Nimbus was engaged in earnest conversation with the crowd in relation to the threats which had been made to them by their employers.
"H'yer, Cousin Nimbus," he cried, "I done fergot ter thank ye, I was dat dar' flustered by good luck, yer know. I'se a t'ousan' times obleeged ter ye, Bre'er Nimbus, jes' a t'ousan' times, an' h'yer's Sally Ann, right outside on de road h'yer, she'll be powerful glad ter hear on't. I'd jes ez lief wuk fer you as a white man, Bre'er Nimbus. I ain't proud, I ain't! Yah! yah!"
He dragged Nimbus through the crowd to intercept his wife, crying out as soon as they came near:
"H'yer, you Sally Ann, what yer tinks now? H'yer's Bre'er Nimbus sez dat ef dat ole cuss, Marse Sykes, should happen ter turn us off, he's jest a gwine ter take us in bag an' baggage, traps, chillen and calamities, an' gib us de bes' de house affo'ds, an' wuk in de crap besides. What yer say now, you Sally Ann, ain't yer 'shamed fer what yer sed 'bout Bre'er Nimbus only dis yere mornin'?"
"Dat I be, Cousin Nimbus," said Sally, turning a comely but careworn face toward Nimbus, and extending her hand with a smile. "Bre'er 'Liab was jest a-tellin' me what a fool I was ter ever feel so toward jes de bes' man in de kentry, ez he sez."
"An' I be damned ef he ain't right, too," chimed in Berry.
"Sho, you Berry. Ain't yer'shamed now—usin' cuss-words afore de minister!" said Sally.
"Beg yer parding, Bre'er Hill," said Berry, taking off his hat, and bowing with mock solemnity to that worthy. "Hit's been sech a long time sence Sunday come ter our house dat I nigh 'bout forgot my 'ligion."
"An' yer manners too," said Sally briskly, turning from her conversation with Nimbus.
"Jes so, Bre'er Hill, but yer see I was dat ar flustered by my ole woman takin' on so 'bout dat ar sneakin' cuss ob a Marse Sykes a turnin' on us off, dat I hardly knowed which from todder, an' when Cousin Nimbus 'greed ter take me up jes de minnit he dropped me down, hit kinder tuk me off my whoopendickilar, yer know."
The attempt to prevent the attendance of voters at the meeting, showing as it did a preconcerted purpose and design on the part of the employers to use their power as such, to overcome their political opponents, was the cause of great indignation at the meeting, and gave occasion for some flights of oratory which would have fallen upon dull ears but for the potent truth on which they were based. Even the cool and cautious Eliab Hill could not restrain himself from an allusion to the sufferings of his people when he was raised upon the platform, still sitting in his rolling-chair, and with clasped hands and reverent face asked God's blessing upon the meeting about to be held.
Especially angry was our friend Nimbus about this attempt to deprive his race of the reasonable privileges of a citizen. Perhaps the fact that he was himself a proprietor and employer rendered him still more jealous of the rights of his less fortunate neighbors. The very immunity which he had from any such danger no doubt emboldened him to express his indignation more strongly, and after the regular speeches had been made he mounted the platform and made a vigorous harangue upon the necessity of maintaining the rights which had been conferred upon them by the chances of war.
"We's got ter take keer ob ourselves," said he. "De guv'ment hez been doin' a heap for us. It's gin us ourselves, our wives, our chillen, an' a chance ter du fer ourselves an' fer dem; an' now we's got ter du it. Ef we don't stan' togedder an' keep de white folks from a-takin' away what we's got, we nebber gits no mo'. In fac', we jes goes back'ards instead o' forrards till yer can't tell de difference twixt a free nigger an' a rale ole time slave. Dat's my 'pinion, an' I say now's de time ter begin—jes when dey begins. Ef a man turns off ary single one fer comin' ter dis meetin' evr'y han' dat is ter wuk for him oughter leave him to once an' nary colored man ought ter do a stroke ob wuk fer him till he takes 'em back."
Loud cheers greeted this announcement, but one old white-headed man arose and begged leave to ask him a question, which being granted, he said:
"Now, feller citizens, I'se been a listenin' ter all dat's been said here to-day, an' I'm jest ez good a 'Publikin ez enny ub de speakers. Yer all knows dat. But I can't fer de life ob me see how we's gwine ter carry out sech advice. Ef we leave one man, how's we gwine ter git wuk wid anodder? An' ef we does, ain't it jest a shiftin' ub han's? Does it make ary difference—at least enough ter speak on—whether a white man hez his wuk done by one nigger er another?"
"But," said Nimbus, hotly, "we oughtn't ternoneon us wuk fer him."
"Then," said the old man, "what's we ter do fer a libbin'? Here's half er two thirds ob dis crowd likely ter be turned off afore to-morrer night. Now what's yer gwine ter do 'bout it? We's got ter lib an' so's our wives an' chillens? How's we gwine ter s'port dem widout home or wuk?"
"Let them git wuk wid somebody else, that's all," said Nimbus.
"Yes, Bre'er Nimbus, but who's a-gwine ter s'port 'em while we's waitin' fer de white folks ter back down, I wants ter know?"
"I will," said Nimbus, proudly.
"I hain't no manner ob doubt," said the other, "dat Bre'er Nimbus'll do de berry bes' dat he can in sech a case, but he must 'member dat he's only one and we's a great many. He's been mighty fortinit an' I'se mighty glad ter know it; but jes s'pose ebbery man in de county dat hires a han' should turn him off kase he comes ter dis meetin' an' goes ter 'lection, what could Bre'er Nimbus du towards a feedin' on us? Ob co'se, dey's got ter hev wuk in de crop, but you mus' member dat when de 'lection comes off de crap's all laid by, an' der ain't no mo' pressin' need fer wuk fer months ter come. Now, how's we gwine ter lib during dat time? Whar's we gwine ter lib? De white folks kin stan' it—dey's got all dey wants—but we can't. Now, what's we gwine ter do? Jest ez long ez de guv'ment stood by us an' seed dat we hed a fa'r show, we could stan' by de guv'ment. I'se jest ez good a 'Publikin ez ennybody h'yer, yer all knows dat; but I hain't a gwine ter buck agin impossibles, I ain't. I'se got a sick wife an' five chillen. I ain't a gwine ter bring 'em nex' do' ter starvation 'less I sees some use in it. Now, I don't see no use in dis h'yer notion, not a bit. Ef de white folks hez made up der minds—an' hit seems ter me dey hez—dat cullu'd folks shan't vote 'less dey votes wid dem, we mout jest ez well gib up fust as las'!"
"Nebber! nebber, by God!" cried Nimbus, striding across the platform, his hands clenched and the veins showing full and round on neck and brow. The cry was echoed by nearly all present. Shouts, and cheers, and groans, and hisses rose up in an indistinguishable roar.
"Put him out! Down wid him!" with other and fiercer cries, greeted the old man's ears.
Those around him began to jostle and crowd upon him. Already violent hands were upon him, when Eliab Hill dashed up the inclined plane which had been made for his convenience, and, whirling himself to the side of Nimbus, said, as he pointed with flaming face and imperious gesture to the hustling and boisterous crowd about the old man,
"Stop that!"
In an instant Nimbus was in the midst of the swaying crowd, his strong arms dashing right and left until he stood beside the now terrified remonstrant.
"Dar, dar, boys, no mo' ob dat," he cried, as he pushed the howling mass this way and that. "Jes you listen ter Bre'er 'Liab. Don't yer see he's a talkin' to yer?" he said, pointing to the platform where Eliab sat with upraised hand, demanding silence.
When silence was at last obtained he spoke with more earnestness and power than was his wont, pleading for moderation and thoughtfulness for each other, and a careful consideration of their surroundings.
"There is too much truth," he said, "in all that has been said here to-day. Brother Nimbus is right in saying that we must guard our rights and privileges most carefully, if we would not lose them. The other brother is right, too, in saying that but few of us can exercise those privileges if the white men stand together and refuse employment to those who persist in voting against them. It is a terrible question, fellow-citizens, and one that it is hard to deal with. Every man should do his duty and vote, and act as a citizen whenever called upon to do so, for the sake of his race in the future. We should not be weakly and easily driven from what has been gained for us. We may have to suffer—perhaps to fight and die; but our lives are nothing to the inheritance we may leave our children.
"At the same time we should not grow impatient with our brethren who cannot walk with us in this way. I believe that we shall win from this contest the supreme seal of our race's freedom. It may not come in our time, but it will be set on the foreheads of our children. At all events, we must work together, aid each other, comfort each other, stand by each other. God has taught us patience by generations of suffering and waiting, and by the light which came afterwards. We should not doubt Him now. Let us face our danger like men; overcome it if we may, and if not, bow to the force of the storm and gather strength, rooting ourselves deep and wide while it blows, in order that we may rise erect and free when it shall have passed.
"But above all things there must be no disagreement. The colored people must stand or fall together. Those who have been as fortunate as our Brother Nimbus may breast the tempest, and we must all struggle on and up to stand beside them. It will not do to weakly yield or rashly fight. Remember that our people are on trial, and more than mortal wisdom is required of us by those who have stood our friends. Let us show them that we are men, not only in courage to do and dare, but also to wait and suffer. Let the young and strong, and those who have few children, who have their own homes or a few months' provision, let them bid defiance to those who would oppress us; but let us not require those to join us who are not able or willing to take the worst that may come. Remember that while others have given us freedom, we must work and struggle and wait for liberty—that liberty which gives as well as receives, self-supporting, self-protecting, holding the present and looking to the future with confidence. We must be as free of the employer as we are of the master—free of the white people as they are of us. It will be a long, hard struggle, longer and harder than we have known perhaps; but as God lives, we shall triumph if we do but persevere with wisdom and patience, and trust in Him who brought us up out of the Egypt of bondage and set before our eyes the Canaan of liberty."
The effect of this address was the very opposite of what Eliab had intended. His impassioned references to their imperilled liberty, together with his evident apprehension of even greater danger than was then apparent, accorded so poorly with his halting counsel for moderation that it had the effect to arouse the minds of his hearers to resist such aggression even at every risk. So decided was this feeling that the man whom Nimbus had just rescued from the rudeness of those about him and who had been forgotten during the remarks of the minister, now broke forth and swinging his hat about his head, shouted:
"Three cheers for 'Liab Hill! an' I tells yer what, brudderin', dat ef dis yer is ter be a fight fer takin' keer ob de freedom we's got, I'se in fer it as fur ez ennybody. We must save the crap that's been made, ef we don't pitch ary other one in our day at all. Them's my notions, an' I'll stan' by 'em—er die by 'em ef wust comes ter wust."
Then there was a storm of applause, some ringing resolutions were adopted, and the meeting adjourned to discuss the barbecue and talk patriotism with each other.
There was much clamor and boasting. The candidates, in accordance with a time-honored custom in that region, had come prepared to treat, and knowing that no liquor could be bought at Red Wing, had brought a liberal supply, which was freely distributed among the voters.