Chapter 8

COLONEL SEYBERT.

Many a time did he voluntarily absent himself from them for days, or until the bruises had healed that some too skilfully aimed missile had inflicted upon him.

But soon after he came to Belle Fanchon, andafter he had met and loved Genieve, Col. Seybert’s treatment became so unendurable that Victor begged of his mother to go away with him, tellin’ her he could now earn a good livin’ for her; and he had dreams, hardly formulated to himself then, of the future of his mother’s race. They lay in his heart as seeds lie in the dark ground, waitin’ for the time to spring up—they were germinatin’, waitin’ for the dawn to waken them to rich luxuriance.

But his mother felt that she could not leave her kind mistress in her lonely troubles, and she entreated him prayerfully that he would not leave her, “and she could not go away and leave Miss Alice with that tyrant and murderer”—for so she called Col. Seybert in her wrath.

And his mistress’s anguished entreaties that he would not leave her, for she felt that she had but a little time to live, her health was failin’ all the time—

“And the blessed lamb would die without us anyway,” his mother would say to Victor—

And all these arguments added to his loyal desire to befriend this gentle mistress who had educated him and done for him all she could have done for son or brother—all these arguments caused him to stay on.

But after comin’ to Seybert Court, Victor had given Col. Seybert another opportunity to empty the vials of his wrath upon him.

Victor had a bosom friend, a young man in about the same circumstances that he wuz—only this friend, Felix Ward, had lived with a kind master and mistress durin’ his childhood and early youth.

His father and mother wuz both dead; his fatherbein’ killed in the war, and his mother soon followin’ him.

He wuz an intelligent negro, with no white blood in his veins, so far as he knew. Felix, for so he had been named when he looked like a tiny black doll, by his young mistress, to whom the world looked so happy and prosperous that everything assumed a roseate hue to her.

Her faithful servant, his mother, brought the little image in ebony to her room to show it to her, jest after she had read the letter from the man she loved askin’ her to be his wife.

She wuz happy; the world looked bright and prosperous to her. She gave the little pickaninny this name for a good omen—Felix: happy, prosperous.

But alas! though the pretty young mistress prospered well in her love and her life while it lasted, the poor little baby she had named had better have been called Infelix, so infelicitous had been his life—or, that is, the latter part of it.

For awhile, while he wuz quite young, it seemed as if his name would stand him in good stead and bring good fortune with it. For being owned till her death by this same gentle young mistress and her husband, both, like so many Southerners, so much better than the system they represented, they helped him, seein’ his brightness and intelligence, to an education, and afterwards through their influence he wuz placed at Hampton School, and at their death, which occurred very suddenly in a scourge of yeller fever, they left him a little money.

At Hampton School he got a good education, andlearned the carpenter’s trade. And it wuz at Seybert Court, which wuz bein’ repaired, and he wuz one of the workmen, that Victor and he become such close friends.

Victor had come on to superintend some of the work that wuz bein’ done there to fit the place for the reception of his master’s family, who wuz at that time in New Orleans. And these two young men wuz together several months and become close friends. They wuz related on their mother’s side, and they wuz joined together in that closer, subtler relationship of kindred tastes, feelings, and aspirations.

He finally bought a little carpenter’s shop and settled down to work at his trade in the little hamlet of Eden Centre, where he soon after married a pretty mulatto girl, the particular friend of Genieve.

With the remains of the money his mistress had left him he bought a little cottage—or, that is, this money partly paid for it, and he thought that with his good health and good trade he could soon finish up the payment and own his own home.

It wuz a pretty cottage, but fallen into disorder and ruinous looks, through poor tenants; but his skilful hands and his labor of love soon made it over into a perfect gem of a cottage.

And there he and his pretty young wife Hester had spent two most happy years, when Col. Seybert come into the neighborhood to live, and his roamin’ fancy soon singled out Hester for a victim.

She had been lady’s maid in a wealthy, refined family, and her ladylike manners and pretty wayswuz as attractive as her face. She loved her husband, and wuz constant to him with all the fidelity of a lovin’ woman’s heart, and Col. Seybert she detested with all the force of her nature; but Col. Seybert wuz not one to give way to such a slight obstacle as a lawful husband.

He thought if Felix wuz out of the way the course of his untrue love would run comparatively smooth. Why, it seemed to him to be the height of absurdity that a “nigger” should stand in the way of his wishes.

Why, it wuz aginst all the traditions of his race and the entire Southern Aristocracy that so slight things as a husband’s honor and wife’s loyalty should dare oppose the lawless passions of a white gentleman.

Of course, so reasoned Col. Seybert; the war had made a difference in terms and enactments, but that wuz about all. The white race wuz still unconquered in their passion and their arrogance, and the black race wuz still under their feet; he could testify to the truth of this by his own lawless life full of deeds of unbridled license and cruelty.

So, wantin’ Victor out of the way, and bein’ exceedingly wroth aginst him, it wuz easy to persuade certain ignorant poor whites, and the dispensers of what they called law, that Felix wuz altogether too successful for a nigger.

He owned a horse, too, an almost capital offence in some parts of the South.

He had worked overhours to buy this pet animal for Hester’s use as well as his own. Many a hundred hard hours’ labor, when he wuz already tiredout, had he given for the purchase money of this little animal.

It wuz a pretty, cream-colored creeter, so gentle that it would come up to the palin’ and eat little bits that Hester would carry out to it after every meal, with little Ned toddlin’ along by her side; and it wuz one of the baby boy’s choicest rewards for good behavior to be lifted up by the side of the kind-faced creeter and pat the glossy skin with his little fat hands.

This horse seemed to Felix and Hester to be endowed with an almost human intelligence, and come next to little Ned, their only child, in their hearts.

And Hester had herself taken in work and helped to pay for the plain buggy in which she rode out with her boy, and carried Felix to and from his work when he wuz employed some distance from his home.

But no matter how honestly he had earned this added comfort, no matter how hard they had both worked for it and how they enjoyed it—

“It wuz puttin’ on too much damned style for a nigger!”

This wuz Col. Seybert’s decree, echoed by many a low, brutal, envious mind about him, encased in black and white bodies.

And one mornin’, when Hester went out in the bright May sunshine to carry Posy its mornin’ bit of food from the breakfast-table, with little Ned followin’ behind with his bit of sugar for it, the pretty creeter had jest enough strength to drag itself up to its mistress and fix its pitiful eyes on her in helpless appeal, and dropped dead at her feet.

They found the remains of a poisoned cake in the pasture, and on the fence wuz pinned a placard bearin’ the inscription—

“LOW, BRUTAL, ENVIOUS MIND.”

“No damned niggers can ride wile wit foaks wak afut—so good buy an’ take warnin’.”

They did not try to keep a horse after this. Felix took his long mornin’ and evenin’ walks with a sore,indignant heart that dragged down his tired limbs still more.

And Hester wiped away the tears of little Ned, and tried to explain to his bewildered mind why his pretty favorite could not come up to him when he called it so long and patiently, holdin’ out the temptin’ lump of sugar that had always hastened its fleet step.

And she wiped away her own tears, and tried to find poor comfort in the thought that so many wuz worse off than herself.

She had Felix and Ned left, and her pretty home.

But in the little black settlement of Cedar Hill, not fur away, where her mother’s relations lived, destitution wuz reignin’.

For on one pretext or another their crops that they worked so hard for wuz taken from them. The most infamous laws wuz made whereby the white man could take the black man’s earnings.

The negro had the name of bein’ a freedman, but in reality he wuz a worse slave than ever, for in the old times he had but one master who did in most cases take tolerable care of him, for selfishness’ sake, if no other, and protected him from the selfishness of other people.

But now every one who could take advantage of his ignorance of law did so, and on one pretext or another robbed him of his hard-earned savings.

And it wuz not considered lawful and right by these higher powers for a nigger to get much property. It wuz looked upon as an insult to the superior race about him who had nuthin’, and it wuzconsidered dangerous to the old-established law of Might over Right.

It wuz a dangerous precedent, and not to be condoned. So it wuz nuthin’ oncommon if a colored man succeeded by hard work and economy in gettin’ a better house, and had good crops and stock, for a band of masked men to surround the house at midnight and order its inhabitants, on pain of death, to leave it all and flee out of the country before daylight.

And if they appealed to the law, it wuz a slender reed indeed to lean upon, and would break under the slightest pressure.

Indeed, what good could law do, what would decrees and enactments avail in the face of this terrible armed power, secret but invincible, that closed round this helpless race like the waves of the treacherous whirlpool about a twig that wuz cast into its seethin’ waters?

The reign of Terrorism, of Lynch Law, of Might aginst Right wuz rampant, and if they wanted to save even their poor hunted bodies they had learned to submit.

So, poor old men and wimmen would rise up from the ruins of their homes, the homes they had built with so much hard toil. Feeble wimmen and children, as well as youth and strength, would rise up and move on, often with sharp, stingin’ lashes to hasten their footsteps.

Move on to another place to have the same scenes enacted over and over agin.

The crops and stock that wuz left fell as a reward to the victors in the fray.

And if there wuz a pretty girl amongst the fugitives she too wuz often and often bound to the conqueror’s chariot wheels till the chariot got tired of this added ornament, then she fell down before it and the heavy wheels passed over her. And so exit pretty girl.

But the world wuz full of them; what mattered one more or less? It wuz no more than if a fly should be brushed away by a too heavy hand, and have its wings broken. There are plenty more, and of what account is one poor insect?

Many a poor aged one died broken-hearted in the toilsome exodus from their homes and treasures.

But there wuz plenty more white-headed old negroes—why, one could hardly tell one from another—of what use wuz it to mention the failure of one or two?

Many a young and eager one with white blood throbbin’ in his insulted and tortured breast stood up and fought for home, and dear ones, and liberty, all that makes life sweet to prince or peasant.

What became of them? Let the dark forests reveal if they can what took place in their shadows.

Let the calm heavens speak out and tell of the anguished cries that swept up on the midnight air from tortured ones. How the stingin’ whip-lash mingled with vain cries for mercy. How frenzied appeals wuz cut short by the sharp crack of a rifle or the swing of a noose let down from some tree-branch.

How often Death come as a friend to hush the lips of intolerable pain and torture!

Sometimes this tyrannical foe felt the vengeancehe had called forth by his cowardly deeds, and a white man or woman fell a victim to the vengeance of the black race.

Then the Associated Press sent the tidings through an appalled and horrified country—

“Terrible deed of a black brute—the justly incensed citizens hung the wretch up to the nearest tree—so perish all the enemies of law and order.”

And the hull country applauded the deed.

The black man had no reporters in the daily papers; if he had, their pens would have been worn down to the stump by a tithe of the unrecorded deeds that are yet, we believe, put down on a record that is onbought and as free to the poorest class as to the highest, and is not influenced by political bias.

But these accounts are not open yet, and the full history of these tragedies are as yet unread by the public.

More awful tragedies than ever took place or ever could take place under any other circumstances, only where one alien and hated race wuz pitted aginst the other.

Ignorance on both sides, inherited prejudices, and personal spite, and animosities blossomin’ out in its fruit of horror.

“They were burnt at the stake; they were sawed asunder; they were destitute, afflicted, tormented.”

Your soul burns within you as you read of these deeds that took place in Jerusalem; your heart aches for them who wandered about tormented, hunted down on every side; you lavish your sympathy upon them; but then you think it wuz a savage age, this wuz one of its brutalities, and you congratulate yourself upon livin’ in an age of Christian enlightenment.

DEFENDING HIS HOME.

You think such deeds are impossible in a land over which the Star of Bethlehem has shone for eighteen hundred years.

Down in many a Southern bayou, in the depths of many a cypress swamp, near the remains of a violated home, lies a heap of ashes—all that remains of a man who died fightin’ for his home and his loved ones.

That wuz his only crime—he expiated it with his life. But his liberated soul soared upwards jest as joyfully, let us hope, as if his body received the full sacrament of sorrowful respect.

One of the laws enacted of late in the South permits a white man to kill a black man for a crime committed aginst his honor, and if the white man commits the same crime and the black man takes the same revenge, he is killed at once accordin’ to law—one man liberated with rejoicings, the other shot down like a dog. Do you say the black man is more ignorant? That is a bad plea.

And wantin’ to act dretful lawful, a short time ago a gang of white law-makers dug up the dead body of a dark-complexioned husband they had murdered accordin’ to law, and after breakin’ its bones, hung it over agin.

He could find in the law no help to defend his home or protect his honor, no refuge in the grave to which the law had sent him.

I wonder if his freed soul has found some little safe corner in space fenced round by justice andcompassion, where it can hide itself forever from the laws and civilization of this 19th Century, in this great and glorious country of the free.

To select this one instance of cruel wrong and injustice from the innumerable ones similar to it is like takin’ up a grain of sand from the seashore and contemplatin’ it—the broad seashore that stretches out on either hand is full of them.

And why should not wrongs, and crimes, and woes be inevitable—why, indeed?

A race but lately slaves, with the responsible gift of freedom dropped too soon into their weak hands—

The race so lately the dominant and all-powerful one through the nation, by the fiction of law dropped down under the legal rule of these so long down-trodden, oppressed, ignorant masses, what could the result be?

And the law-makers who had proclaimed peace and liberty, on paper, sot afar contemplatin’ the great work they had done, and left the Reign of Horror to be enacted by the victors and the victims.

Poor colored man! poor white man! both to be pitied with a pity beyend words.

It wuz not their fault, it wuz but the fallin’ hail and lightnin’ and tempest out of clouds that had been gatherin’ for ages.

But after the tempest cometh peace. And the eyes of Faith beholds through the mists and the darkness the sunshine of a calmer time, the peace and the rest of a fair country, and a free one.

God grant more wisdom to the great commonwealth of this nation, those whose wills are spokenout by their ballots, to the makers and the doers of law.

But I am a eppisodin’, and to resoom, and continue on.

Felix and Hester, by some good chance, or by the grace of God, had not been obliged yet to leave their pretty home, so they worked on, tryin’ to be so peaceable and friendly that no fault could be found with them.

Col. Seybert’s attention when he wuz at Seybert Court wuz very annoyin’ to Hester, but she dared not tell Felix, fearin’ that he would avenge himself on the Colonel, and bloodshed would result.

So she tried to be very careful. She had an old negro woman stay with her; she took in work all she could at home, and when she went out to work she wuz prudent and watchful, and, fortunately for her peace of mind, the Colonel made short stays at his home—he found more potent attractions elsewhere.

So stood matters when Felix wuz appointed Justice of the Peace at Eden Centre.

He wuz honestly appointed and honestly elected.

Victor had always declined any office, and had Felix taken his advice he would also have refused the office.

But perhaps Felix had some ambition. And maybe he had some curiosity to see what honesty and a pure purpose could accomplish in political matters, to see what such a marvellous thing could amount to.

Anyway, he accepted the nomination and received the office.

And the night after he wuz elected he and Hestertalked the matter over with some pardonable pride as they sot in the door of their pretty little parlor in the warm moonlight.

The creepin’ vines on the trellis cast pleasant shadows of leaf and blossom down over their heads and on the pretty carpet at their feet.

This carpet Hester had bought with her own money and wuz proud of.

The moonlight lay there warm and bright, weavin’ its magic tapestry of rose leaf and swingin’ vine tendrils long after they wuz asleep in their little white-draped room near by.

Baby Ned lay fast asleep, with a smile on his moist, flushed face, in his love-guarded cradle near them.

The little boy did not dream of anything less sweet and peaceful than his mother’s good-night kiss that had been his last wakin’ remembrance.

But about midnight other shadows, black and terrible ones, trod out and defaced the swayin’, tremblin’ rose images and silvery moonlight on the floor.

Tall men in black masks, a rough, brutal gang, surrounded the place and crashed in the door of the little cottage.

Amongst the foremost wuz Nick Burley, a low, brutal fellow, one of Col. Seybert’s overseers and boon companions.

He had wanted the office, and his friends greatly desired it for him, thinkin’ no doubt it would prove many times a great convenience to them.

But Felix won it honorably. He got the majority of votes and wuz honestly elected.

But Burley and his choice crew of secret Regulators could not brook such an insult as to have oneof a race of slaves preferred to him, so they proceeded to mete out the punishment to him fit for such offenders.

THE LEADER.

They tore Felix from his bed, leavin’ Hester in a faintin’ fit, and the little child screamin’ with fright. Took him out in the swamp, bound him to a tree, and whipped him till he had only a breath of life left in him; then they put him into a crazy old boat, and launched him out on the river, tellin’ him “if he ever dared to step his foot into his native State agin they would burn him alive.”

And this happened in our free country, in a country where impassioned oritors, on the day set apart to celebrate our nation’s freedom, make their voices heard even above the roar of blatant cannons, so full of eloquence and patriotism are they, as they eulogize our country’s liberty, justice, and independence.

“The only clime under God’s free sky,” they say, “where the law protects all classes alike, and the vote of the poorest man is as potent as the loftiest, in moulding our perfect institutions. Where the lowest and the highest have full and equal civil and political rights.”

Oh, it would have been a goodly sight for our American eagle, proud emblem of liberty, to have witnessed this midnight scene we have been describin’; methinks such a spectacle would almost have magnetism to draw him from his lofty lair on Capitol Hill to swoop down into this cypress swamp, and perchin’ upon some lofty tree-top, look down and witness this administration of justice and equal rights, to mark how these beneficent free laws enwrap all the people and protect them from foreign invasion and home foes, to see how this nation loves its children, its black children, who dumbly endured generations of unexampled wrongs and indignities at its hands, and then in its peril bared their patient breasts and risked their lives to save it.

How this bird of freedom must laugh in a parrot-like glee, if so grave and dignified a fowl wuz ever known to indulge in unseemly mirth, to see the play go on, the masquerade of Folly and Brutality in the garb of Wisdom and Order, holding such high carnival.

After thus sendin’ Felix half dead from his brutal usage adrift on the turbid river waves that they felt assured would float him down to a sure and swift death, the gang of ruffians returned to the cottage to complete their night’s work.

Col. Seybert had dealt out plenty of bad whiskey to them to keep up their courage; and Nick Burley, besides satisfying his own vengeance upon Felix, had been offered a very handsome reward by his master for gettin’ him out of the way and takin’ Hester to a lonely old cabin of his in the depths of the big forest.

But they found the pretty cottage empty, and they could only show their disapprobation of the fact by despoilin’ and ruinin’ the cozy nest from which the bird had flown.

Hester had recovered from her faintin’ fit jest as they wuz takin’ Felix to the river; she discovered by their shouts which way they had gone, followed them at a safe distance, and when they had disappeared she by almost a miracle swam out to the boat which had drifted into a bayou, brought it to shore, and nursed him back to life agin.

And for weeks they remained in hidin’, not darin’ to return to their dear old home that they had earned so hardly, and Felix not dreamin’ of claimin’ his honest rights as a duly elected Justice of the Peace.

No, he felt that he had had enough of political honors and preferments—if he could only escape with his life and keep his wife and boy wuz all he asked.

At last he got a note to Victor, who aided him inhis flight to another State, where he patiently commenced life agin with what courage and ambition he might bring to bear on it, with his mind forever dwellin’ on his bitter wrongs and humiliation, and on memories of the old home left forever behind him—that pretty home with the few acres of orchard and garden about it. And remembered how he and Hester delighted in every dollar they paid towards it, and how they had a little feast, and invited in their friends that sunny June day when the last dollar wuz paid, and it wuz their own.

And remembered how proudly they had labored to finish and furnish the little home. How Hester had worked at washin’ and ironin’ and bought the paper and paint, and pretty curtains and carpet, and how infinitely happy they had been in it.

How after his hard day’s work he would work in the little sunshiny garden and orchard settin’ out fruit trees, plantin’ berry bushes and grape-vines, and how they had together gloried over all their small successes, and thought that they had the very coziest and happiest home in the world.

Wall, they had lost it all. The honor of bein’ an American citizen bore down pretty heavy on him, and he had to give it up.

Wall, twice did Felix try to get a home for himself and his wife in the Southern States.

But both times, on one pretext or another, did the dominant power deprive him of his earnings, and take his home from him.

Felix had a good heart; and once, the last time he tried to make a home under Southern skies, this good heart wuz the cause of his overthrow.

He barely escaped with his life for darin’ to harbor a white teacher who had left his home and gone down South, followin’ the Bible precepts “to seek and save them that was lost, and preach the Gospel to every creature.”

He taught a small colored school week days and preached in an old empty barn on Sundays.

Little Ned went to his school and wuz greatly attached to him.

But when he wuz ordered to leave the State within twenty-four hours, because “he wuz tryin’ to teach them brute cattle jest as if they wuz humans”—

Bein’ frightened and made sick by the violence of his discharge and the stingin’ arguments with which they enforced their orders, Felix opened his poor cabin-door and sheltered him; then agin his home wuz surrounded with a band of armed, masked men, and they only managed to escape with their lives, and Felix agin left all his poor little improvements on his home behind him.

He and his family and the white teacher, bruised but undaunted, got to the railroad by walkin’ almost all night, and so escaped out of their hands.

The young teacher married soon after a rich Northern woman with kindred tastes to his own, and they both betook themselves imegiatly after their marriage to a part of the South a little less ardent in hatred to the Freedmen’s Bureau, where they are doin’ a good work still in teachin’ a colored school.

But the next time Felix made a start in life he commenced it in a Northern city.

There the best thing he could get in the way of a home for his wife and child wuz a room way up on the top of a crazy old tenement-house tenanted by noisy, drunken, profane men and women.

FELIX AND THE TEACHER.

For drunkenness, and brawls, and sickenin’ horrors are not confined to Southern soil; they are also indigenous to the North.

And the gaunt wolves of Sin and Want howl to the moon under the Northern skies as well as Southern.

And stayin’ there—not livin’—workin’ hard as he did through the day, and uninvitin’ as his homewuz after his labor wuz over, he could set down for a few minutes with Hester, only to have their quiet broken by drunken brawls, and oaths, and fights, and all sounds and sights of woe and squalor.

In such circumstances as these the teachings and importunate words of Victor about colonization fell upon a willin’ ear.

For the seeds that had laid in Victor’s heart, waitin’ only the warm sun to bring them to life, had sprung up into full vigor and bloom under the influence of Genieve’s prophetic words, and afterwards by his own observation and study.

Victor come to believe with his whole soul and heart that the future of his race depended upon their leavin’ this land and goin’ fur away from all the cursed influences that had fettered them so long here and found a new home and country for themselves—a New Republic.

And as Felix, with whom Victor had been in constant correspondence, read these glowin’ words and arguments, they fell upon good ground.

Truly the soil in Felix’ breast had been turned, and ploughed, and made ready for the seed of liberty to be planted and spring up.

All of the time while he wuz gettin’ his education so hardly, spendin’ every hour he could possibly spare from his work in endeavorin’ to fit himself for a future of freedom and usefulness—all this while he had been told, been taught in sermons and religious and secular literature, and read it in law books and statutes, that merit wuz the only patent of nobility in this country, that merit would win the prizes of life.

To this end he had worked, had shaped his own life to habits of honesty and industry; he had surrounded himself with all the safeguards possible to keep him in the right path, chose for his intimate friends young men who cherished the same lofty ideals that he did.

He attended church constantly, became an earnest Christian, had obtained an excellent education, and then it wuz not strange that he should look about him to try to behold the rewards that merit wins. One illustration of this reward of merit we have jest given—when he wuz elected Justice of the Peace.

That wuz a fair sample of the rewards of merit offered to his race.

He wuz not alone in it; no, he looked about him, and he saw thousands and thousands of young colored men who had studied jest as hard as he had—they too had dreams of this great truth that had been dinned in their ears so long—that Christianity, education, and merit will win all the prizes of life.

They studied, they worked hard, they pursued lofty ideals, and when they left their schools they wuz Christians, they wuz educated, they wuz meritorious. Their minds wuz bright and well equipped, their tastes wuz refined, they wuz good.

Of what avail wuz it all, so Felix asked himself, when they wuz pushed back to the wall by brazen audacity and ignorance—and intolerance and ignorance and immorality, if encased in a white skin, might snatch all the prizes out of their hands and take their places in the front ranks of life.

In many States in the South they could not get the place of a policeman if it depended upon the integrity of the ballot.

What sort of an education, a finishing school, wuz this for the young colored man of the South? Wuz such unblushin’ fraud, and lies, and cheatin’, and heart-burnings, and sickenin’ disappointments, and deeds of violence, a wholesome atmosphere for young people to learn morals in?

Felix, as he looked about him and saw the thousands and thousands and thousands of young men, graduates of schools and members of churches, in jest the same condition as he himself wuz—he might be pardoned if he asked himself if the long horror of the War had been in vain.

If Lincoln and Grant and all the other pure souls had toiled and died in vain.

If the millions of dollars given by Northern philanthropy, and the noble lives of sacrifice in teachin’ and preachin’, had been given in vain.

He might be pardoned if he said:

“Give these young colored people new doctrines or new laws; teach them less Christianity by book and a little more practical religion and justice by object lesson; give these law-abiding, native-born citizens of this Republic a tithe of the rights and privileges enjoyed by the lowest criminal foreigner newly landed on our shores, or else let this addition be made to their creeds:

“‘Merit has nothing to do in determining a man’s future life.’

“‘Injustice shall conquer in the end.’

“‘Fraud shall be victor over honest and Christian endeavor.’

“‘The colored man, by reason of his dark complexion, shall be forever deprived of all the blessings and privileges of the Government he risked his life to save.’”

Put this into the creeds you teach the young colored men and women, and they will at least respect you for bein’ sincere and truthful.

Felix felt all this, and more too—more than I could set down if my pen wuz as long as from here to the moon, and longer.

And feelin’ as he did, is it any wonder that all his mind and heart wuz sot on this skeme of Victor’s, and all his hopes and aims pinted towards a new home, where he could take his wife and child and be free? where he felt that he could own them and own a right to make a home for ’em—a home where the American eagle, proud bird of Liberty, could nevermore tear him with her talons, or claw his trustin’ eyes out with her sharp bill?

He felt this, but the eagle wuzn’t to blame—it wuz her keepers, if he had only known it. The eagle wuz in a hard place. I felt real sorry for the fowl, and have for a number of times. She has been in many a tight place before now—places where it wuz all she could do to squeeze out her wings and shake ’em a mite.

Wall, Felix worked hard, and so did Hester, with this end in view—to go fur away and be at rest.

Felix, after many efforts, got a place as workman on a big buildin’ that wuz bein’ put up; and Hestergot a place as fine washerwoman and laundress with good wages.

They lived cheap as they could, and at the time when I first hearn about ’em (from Genieve) they had got about the amount saved that Victor thought they would require.

Felix wanted at least four or five hundred dollars to start with. You see, he and Victor could look ahead, which is more than some of their mother’s race can do.

Felix knew he had got to have something to live on for the first year after he got to the Promised Land. He didn’t mean to pin his faith onto anybody or anything. He felt that his family’s safety and well-bein’ depended on him, and he wuz bound to labor with that end in view.

And Victor wuz workin’ as hard as Felix; workin’ quietly and secretly as possible, deemin’ that the best way to avert danger from them and make success possible.

He wuz workin’ as a standard-bearer, a tryin’ to make his people hear his cry to move forward into the Promised Land, into their own land, from whence they had been torn with violence, but to which they should return with knowledge and wisdom learned in the hard school of martyrdom and slavery.

He knew that to preach this doctrine to all his people would be like tryin’ to stop the course of the wind by a shout.

The old, the feeble, and those who wuz attached by strong ties of love or gratitude to this Western land—and Heaven knows there wuz many such who hadreceived such kind treatment from the dominant race (if kindness is possible in slavery) that their hearts wuz knit to the spot where their old masters and mistresses wuz—

“THE OLD, THE FEEBLE.”

These people he did not seek to disturb with dreams of new homes in a freer land—love makes labor light—they wuzn’t unhappy.

And then there wuz many who had got peaceful homes in settlements and cities who wuz contented and doin’ well—or, that is, what they thought well—these Victor did not seek to change.

But for the young, the educated, the resolute, theambitious he tried to influence their eager, active minds with his own ideal of a New Republic.

Where his people, so long down-trodden, might have a chance to become a great nation, with a future glorious with a grandeur the colder white race, never dreamed of.

When Victor heard scoffin’ prophecies of the negro’s incapacity to govern himself or others, he thought of the example of that hero saint, Toussaint L’Ouverture. How he, a pure negro, with no white blood in his veins, carved out the freedom of his race.

How, brave as a lion, this untaught man fought aginst overwhelmin’ odds, and won battles that the best-trained soldier would almost have despaired of; surmounted difficulties and won victories that would have proved well-nigh impossible to a Washington or a Napoleon. How, untaught in diplomacy, he reconciled conflictin’ interests that would have baffled our wisest statesmen.

Clement and merciful, for he always shrank from causin’ bloodshed till war or ruin wuz inevitable.

Generous, for when the storm burst his first thought wuz to save his master’s family.

Wise and prudent, he founded and ruled over a peaceful and prosperous republic till he wuz betrayed to his ruin—not by the black race, but by the cupidity, and treachery, and envy of the white race.

Perished by starvation in a dungeon for the sole fault of bein’ superior and nobler than the white people who envied his success and sought his overthrow.

Victor thought if one of his own race could do thismarvellous thing, amidst such warrin’ and diverse elements and opposin’ races, what would it not be possible for his people to do in a new and free country, in a state of peace and quiet, with only the interests and advancement of this one race to look after.

He dreamed in his hopeful visions of a fresh new civilization springin’ up anew in the soil that had nurtured the first civilization.

For in the East, where the star had first shone and travelled on to the West, then back agin to the mystical wonder-laden East—thither did Victor’s rapt eyes follow it. And Genieve, too, how she dreamed and longed for that new kingdom!

All through their dreary servitude, tortured and wretched, it seemed as if God gave to the believers amongst this people songs in the night, as if His spirit breathed through the simple hymns they sung to lighten the hours of bondage.

Some spirit, some inspiration seemed to breathe through their songs that brought tears to eyes unused to weepin’.

The most cultured, the most refined found, in spite of themselves, that they had wet cheeks and beatin’ hearts after listenin’ to these simple strains.

It could not have been for their musical worth—for they had little; it could not have been for their literary value—for they had none.

What could it have been in them that charmed alike prince and peasant but the spirit of the Most High, who come down to speak hope and cheer to His too burdened and hopeless ones and lighten their captivity?

Genieve thought that when this people, whom God chose to honor in this way, and whom He had led in such strange ways out of the jungles of ignorance in Africa, through the hard school of American slavery, out into liberty—she dreamed it was for the express purpose of educating her race so they might go back and redeem this dark land; and then she fancied that the Presence that had stayed with them through the dark night of sorrow would in the full day of their civilization shine out with a marvellous light, and they would be peculiarly under His care.

She dreamed that this childlike, warm-hearted race would indeed “see God” as the colder and more philosophical races could not.

So, as I begun to say—but what a hand to episode I am, and what a digressor I be—and I believe my soul it grows on me—

Wall, as I begun to say more’n half an hour ago, if it wuz a minute,

Col. Seybert thought he had another cause of enmity aginst Victor, for he had strong proofs that it wuz he who had helped release Hester from his clutches.

And although it wuz kept secret as possible, yet rumors had reached Col. Seybert of Victor’s dreams of the colonization of his race.

And to this Col. Seybert wuz opposed with all the selfishness and haughty arrogance of his nature. Why, who would work his big plantations if it wuz not for the blacks? And if this movement should succeed he knew it would draw off the best, and most intelligent, and industrious element, and the onesleft in the South would charge double wages, so he reasoned.

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