"Dats whot you orter dun und dun fo yu jined," answered Clarissa deprecatingly; "jess gon und fotched all dis trubble on de lan fur nuffin. Mouter node ole marser was ergwine to raise er harrykane when he seed de cussed niggers wid dere muskeets er marchin up und down de plantashun lak er passel of squorking gooses. I got wexed mysef und I haint fit in no war nudder. Dars dat po gal er cryin her eyeballs out, und her po lovyer er lying ober yander under de cold clods of Furginny. I don't specks nuffin else but dat ole Laflin ergwine to get all de niggers in de New United States massacreed. Needn't pin dere fafe to whippin de Souf ef she is flung upon her back.
"Yander cums Ellik now lak a lunytik wid fedders nuff on de tip eend of his hat to stuff a fedder bed, wid his neck as stiff es er poker und his eyes same es de sun in de clipse er sot in de sky."
"Halt! Serlute!" came a self addressed command from the negro sergeant.
"Aha! missus Jonsin, how is yo ladyship dis a. m.?" he asked in the stern voice of an officer.
"I haint got no ladyship; dats whot I haint got, nur I haint ergwine to say amen to no sich dooins nudder," replied Clarissa poutingly.
"Hi!" ejaculated the black sergeant; "why, missus Jonsin," he continued "De las time I dun yu de onner to wisit yu, yu was spashiatin erbout de fousend doller peanny corpul Jonsin was agwine to purchis fur yu, und how yu was ergwine to play de hopperattiks fur yo frens.
"Ugh!" grunted Clarissa scornfully, "I plays de hopperattiks now ebery day, twell my fingurs is clean wo' out on de wash bode, er slavin fur er no count miluntary nigger jes lak yu."
"Nigger!" exclaimed the sergeant derisively, "Dere is no niggers in dis 'lan ob de free und de home ob de brave.' We is sufferens und kings, und our wifes und dorters is queens; und yu holes de specter in yo hans ef yu node it."
Clarissa, greatly irritated at the saucy negro, placed her arms akimbo, and fixing her gaze upon him, exclaimed with wrath,
"Yu go erway frum here, Ellik. I natally spises yu enny how, yu hateful creetur. I haint er puttin my mouf on yu, nigger, but fo' dis bressed year runs out, yu is ergwine ter be er spexter, und de buzzards is ergwine ter be er huvverin erroun yer ole bones; jess see ef day don't. Ole Mars Jon aint ergwine ter stan no mo'. Yu und Efrum er trapesin backards und farrards ober dis plantashun wid a hep, hep, hep, same as Captin Grant ur Ginurl Linkum. Pend upon it, nigger, dem white fokeses in de town fools yu to def yit."
"Yu sprises me, missus Jonsin," responded the negro with assumed dignity. "I spishioned yu wus a patrot."
"No I haint, nudder, und I haint ergine tu be no patrot; but I kin tell yu whot yu is ergwine ter be fo' dis year runs out—yu is ergwine ter be er pennytenshur conwick, er yu is ergwine ter be histed twixt de hebbens und de yurth on de gallus. Ef yu takes my wice yu'll burn up dem ole sojer gyarments und tell ole Mars Jon yu is dun und cum back to stay. Dat is de moest senserbulest fing you can doo; dats whot me und Ned dun und dun und now ole mars Jon is es happy es a cockerroche in er borrul of flour."
The sergeant waltzed up to Clarissa, and taking her with some violence by the arm sang in a harsh unmusical voice:
"Oh: say kin yu see by the dorhns early lite?"
"Oh: say kin yu see by the dorhns early lite?"
when a heavy back banded blow sent the sergeant bowling, as Clarissa shouted in her anger.
"Yaas, I sees de dorn und yu sees de stors."
"Ah!" he exclaimed "I perseeves yu is not er patrot," and he commanded "Attenshun! eyes to de front! forrard march!" and marched away as he whistled
"De jay bird died wid de hooping coff,Und de sparrer died wid de kollery."
"De jay bird died wid de hooping coff,Und de sparrer died wid de kollery."
Clarissa made one observation as the negro marched off, "Yu will be ded, sted of de sparrer und de jay bird."
What had become of the warning paragraph in the reconstruction calendar? The three blood red stars that punctuated the enigmatical judgment, "sixty days within which to prove your loyalty." Powers that be, at whose shrine shall the persecuted man make the act of apotheosis? Shall it be at the altar of Laflin, the freedman's deity? Shall it be in the presence of the cringing minions who will mock at his calamity and laugh when his fear cometh?
An arctic night has dropped down upon the south; and in our dense blindness we know not in what direction lies the Serbonian bog. We once erected upon this soil a mighty temple which wisdom and virtue consecrated to patriotism. We laid the edifice upon foundations of concession and compromise; and we were vain enough to believe that it would stand forever; but not so. So the dykes of Holland; the mountains of Switzerland, and the surrounding Sea of Venice were proclaimed as everlasting pledges for the preservation of patriotism, but intestine struggles engendered those revolutionary factions which invited the attack of a despotism and secured its victory. So reasoned with himselfthis veteran of the civil war, and the father of a loyal-hearted daughter, this slave of a power whose minions were drunken with its excess.
As Colonel Seymour was passing a group of negroes in the court-yard this irritating remark from one of them arrested his attention. "Dat dar secesh's home is agwine to be sold at auction ter day under a margige, und de boss is ergwine ter buy hit;" and very soon thereafter a half-grown negro boy ringing a huge bell, and bearing aloft a placard as imperiously as a Roman lictor bore the axe and fasces, halted before him, and displayed offensively the following advertisement. "By virtue of a certain deed of mortgage executed by John W. Seymour and wife Alice to James W. Bowden, and duly recorded in the proper office of the —— county, and value duly assigned to me, I shall sell for cash on Saturday, the 6th day of November, 186— the lands and premises described in said mortgage deed, and known and designated as Ingleside, containing twenty-five hundred acres," Abram Laflin, assignee. Thus ran the publication that may possibly furnish a key to the mystic meaning of the three blood-red stars under the written order. "Sixty days in which to prove your loyalty." To-day, and the patrimonial estateof Ingleside with all but its cherished memories, will pass by right of purchase into the hands of the carpet baggers and negroes; to-day, and the axe of the barbarian will be laid at the roots of the ancestral oaks; to-day, and the grained corridors will echo to ribaldry and wassail; to-day, and the war scathed veteran and his beautiful daughter, like the pariahs of Hindoostan, shelterless vagrants, will beg their bread and home. "If an uninterpretable destiny; if an inscrutable providence so orders and decrees, that I shall surrender this home, yet as token of the love I bear this wretched country, I will abide by her; I will cherish her as my wife, my mother, my child; I will defend her with my sword, my speech, my life, and I will be to my oppressed countrymen, their friend, their champion and their brother. I abhor these natural sons of Belial who are whetting the knife that will drink their blood;" so exclaimed the old soldier without a blemish upon his name. So thought the fire-tried christian who was appealing to the ultimate tribunal for right; so thought the man who was harrassed by every resource of vengeance, as he turned his rigid face from the jeering crowd, the assassins of his peace.
The old man with fading memory tried in vain to recollect the transactions he had had with James W. Bowden, to whom he once owed twenty-five thousand dollars, and to whom he had conveyed in trusts the valuable estate of Ingleside. He asked appealingly of his daughter "Have you no knowledge of these affairs that will aid me in this extremity."
"My dear father," she answered reflectively, "I am sure the debt has been paid. Indeed I heard you say that you paid it in gold."
"But where are my papers?" he asked; "Scattered to the winds by the school mistress and her negropupils. Shall I ever be able to exhibit any proof of its payment? Can you not assist me? Perhaps we may find somewhere the cancelled note."
Bowden was dead and a profligate son alone survived.
There were a hundred negroes who thronged the negro auctioneer.
"What is I bid fur dis plantashun?" "Fifteen thousand dollars."
"Hold!" interrupted Colonel Seymour now advancing. "I forbid the sale of this land or any part of it, the debt is paid."
"Ha, Ha. Ha," jeered the negroes, "dat dar secesh's mind is a puryfied wanderin," shouted a chorus of voices. "Cry de bid Mr. auctioneer," shouted the negro Wiggins. "Ef dat ar white man mak eny mo sturbance, we's agwine ter slap him in de jail forthwid. I warrantees de title fer de boss." "Twenty thousand——twenty-five thousand——once, twice, free, times dun und gone to Mr. Laflin."
The whole affair seemed an illusion, an unnatural evaporation of land and houses—the Ingleside plantation dissipated into thin vapor like the genii of the sealed casket in the Arabian Nights.
"Great God," exclaimed the broken hearted old man, "and Laflin the wretch! Laflin the monster standing there in dumb show, and nodding his head in savage and pantomimic gravity when the hammer fell."
The old Colonel and his daughter rode back to their home perhaps for the last time. One of the blood-red stars had been blotted out of the tyrants' calendar. Two more like the painted dolphins in the circus at Antioch remained to be taken down, one by one. The search for the missing document was renewed when they reached home, but unavailingly. Alice however discovered in anold ash barrel in a neatly folded package, two papers signed by Abram Laflin to her father; one a note for five thousand dollars, the other a mortgage securing the payment of the note. No trace however, of the twenty-five thousand dollar mortgage. Alice carried the Laflin note to her father whose mind for a moment appeared a complete blank; he then remembered the transaction circumstantially.
"Yes, Yes," he exclaimed reminiscently; "the note was executed to me as a fee, when he was indicted and acquitted for murder in 1866. Now he may let slip the dogs of war, and 'damned be he who first cries hold! Enough!'"
It was painful to observe that Mr. Seymour had become so injuriously affected by the exciting events transpiring from day to day, that his mind upon matters of business was almost inert. Certainly his memory was fast failing; a giving away of the mental poise; and in consequence thereof, poor Alice was picking up here and there great bits of trouble, with as much freedom as the washwoman gathers sticks for her fire. "Tomorrow she exclaimed will be the Sabbath. Blessed day will it bring surcease from sorrow, a moment's respite from the maelstrom of trouble?" she asked, "I can only hope. I feel sometimes like crying aloud, 'What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue'!"
When the morning broke tranquilly upon the old home, the little birds were caroling in the trees, and the poor girl felt that her care worn spirit should rest this holy Sabbath day. After the morning meal, her father perturbed and dejected walked along the river's bank, and she retired to the parlor where she sang and played. In the evening old Ned came to express again his sense of gratitude to his young mistress and his old master,and observed among other things, remorsefully, how foolish he had been to take up with the vagaries of the negroes, who were fomenting so much trouble. "And mars John," he continued, "I seed where I was agwine rong, und I knowed yu wud fetch me outen de miry clay. Times is er gitten so mistrustful dat I cum ter ax yu und yung missis mouten me und Clarissa stay wid yu in de grate house? Whar we kin run on urrans fo yu nite und day."
Old Ned like the hunted rabbit had been smoked out of his hollow. Reconstruction with its insipid pageants had come: It had emptied its cornucopia in the old commissariat; not a dust of flour, nor a fluid dram of molasses, nor a pound of bacon had it put into the jug or sack of the aged and the poor; and the stars and stripes waved as proudly from its mast head as if there were no vacant stomachs, no hungry freedmen in all the South. Colonel Seymour was inexpressibly glad to see the change that had come over the spirit of the old slave. He had been employed in many situations and he was faithful in all. He had been his carriage driver; he had packed old missis trunks when she went to the seaside or the springs in the happy old days; and Ned remembered how contented he was, when an imaginary line separated peace from discord, plenty from squalor. He had seen old missis put away in the ground, and with him were feelings that would not be stifled that were now recasting his nature, however sensual and hardened it had become by contact with vicious companions. When the clouds of war lowered angrily Ned's faith in old missis grew stronger and stronger, and like a watch dog always on duty, so Ned was always at his post; to obey every command, to anticipate every wish. It was Ned who held ajar the old plantation gate, that day the young cavalier rode intothe deepening shadows on his way to Manassas, and with hat in hand bade him good-bye with the entreaty, "Be shore und cum back nex Saddy to yo po mammy. I'll be rite heer to open de gate." It was Ned who reverently placed the spray of the little immortelle upon the grave of Mars Harry when the procession had turned their faces homeward. It was Ned who carried "old Missis" in his arms back to the carriage when she swooned at the grave, and now he had come back like the prodigal confessing his sins.
"If Gord spares me ter outlive ole marser, I'm agwine ter put him erway lak ole missis and yung mars Harry, und strow his grave wid hiasents und lillys ob de valley. I haint agwine ter put no mo pendence in de carpet baggers, dey will gouge de eyeballs outen yo hed, und I'm agwine ter twist my eyes clean erround de tother side when I passes de ole kommissery. 'Ole glory' is jess flirting up its skerts, und larfing when poor ole niggers is agwine erlong de rode, jess es scornful es er flop-eared mule when he pokes yu under de jaw wid his hind foot, widout ary warnin. I wishes dat de bosum of struction wud slam de ole kommissery clean clar to de yurth, dat I does."
"You seem to be very thoroughly disgusted with the situation Ned?" observed the Colonel.
"I is mars John, deed I is. Ef a pusson fools yu won time, or maybe two times, er yu mout say free time, you mout try him agin, but ef he fools yu all de time ole Marser, what is yu agwine to do den, mout as well be flinging de hook in de crick for Joshaway's munny, as agwine to dat ole kommissery wid yo happysack speckin arry moufful ob wittles."
"Is that the experience of all the colored people?" the Colonel inquired.
"No sar, no sar," Ned replied with feeling."Dem dat carries woters to de conwenshun, und drinks de bosses sperits dey gits a leetle now und den, but tother wuns sucks de fingers in misury all de time, specktin, un gittin disappinted."
"By the way tell me something about Ephraim, how is he getting on," asked the Colonel.
"Why bress your soul mars John he is clean outen site; er totin great big yaller upper lips on his sholders, und er sword dat runs on a wheel on de groun, und fedders on his hat same as a pee-fowell. He is dun und growd outen my membrance. Dey got norated eroun dat he is agwine ter marry a white gal in de town, und Joshaway und Hannah has dun and got er inwite to de weddin."
"And Aleck, what is he doing?" asked the Colonel.
"Ugh, Ugh," exclaimed Ned, "now yu obersizes my kalkilashuns, mars John. He's wusser den Efrum, er uprarin fine housen all ober dis plantashun."
"The savage?" muttered the enraged man. "All Laflin's doings I suppose. Sixty days within which to prove your loyalty," he muttered. "The black flag of the buccaneers of reconstruction marked not with death's heads but by red stars!" A score of carpenters were plying their vocation on the plantation. A confusion of sounds, such as sawing and hammering, drowned the melody of the singing birds, and Aleck like the boldest of pirates, was caracoling here and there giving orders; and fashionably dressed negro women strolled offensively and imperiously over the grounds.
"Mars Jon," exclaimed Ned, "I dun and tole yu so; now yu sees fo yosef."
Before the deed of purchase was recorded, the devilish freedmen were enforcing their claim to the plantation by visible, notorious and violent occupation. The colonel and Alice were sitting inthe verandah one beautiful starlit night; there was scarcely the rustle of a leaf and the full-orbed moon was shining with a radiant splendour. Of course there was but one event to think about. Was it not a grief that lay like a dead bulk upon the heart, all the day and all the night; and peopled their dreams with negroes and ogres too?
"Thank God," exclaimed Alice "mother is out of it all. They were but heaping the fagots around the furnace when she so wearied went home to her eternal rest. Now the fires are all consuming."
"My daughter," said Colonel Seymour dejectedly after awhile, "I will go to my grave with the knowledge that the Bowden debt has been paid; and not one cent do I owe upon it. It is possible I may err, but as God is my judge, this great loss has come upon me, through the devilish machinations of Laflin, in the employment of the schoolmistress, to occupy the office in which he knew my valuable papers were deposited. An ingeniously devised plot doubtlessly, but one distressingly successful."
"Mars Jon," interrupted Clarissa quite seriously, "Haint yu neber foun dem papers yit, yu was er sarchin fur?"
"No indeed, and I do not believe I shall ever find them."
"Grate King! Ole marser I specks dem dere pizen niggers shoolickin eround de offis dun und stroyed em outen puryfied cussedness."
"Quite likely," rejoined the Colonel.
"Lemme studdy er minit," said Clarissa. "Pears lak Ned gin me sum papers to stow erway in my ole blue chiss. Wud yu kno hit ef you wast to see hit mars Jon? Don't speck it is wurf nuffin do. Ned he gin hit to me way back yander, I dismember how long ergo, und he tole me to putit in de blu chiss, twell he ax for hit. Don't speck hit is ergwine to do mars Jon no good do, but hit haint ergwine to pizen noboddy ef hit don't doo no good. I'm ergwine to fetch it rite now."
The old gentleman paid but little attention to the negro until he saw her returning with uplifted hand like a stalking spectre.
"Now mars Jon," she cried, out of breath, "yu read dat paper, und cide fo yoself."
As soon as the old man took the paper in his hand, he forgot his gouty joints, and his white hairs; he forgot who he was or where he was and danced a succession of Scottish reels with old Clarissa, as an unwilling partner.
"Why father!" cried Alice in great fright, "Clarissa! Clarissa! What is the matter with my dear father?"
"Oh! Oh! Oh! The mortgage and the note! The mortgage and the note!" wildly screamed her father. "Thank God! Thank God!"
Clarissa, rubbing her head with both hands where it had struck a pillar in the wild whirl of the dance, emotionally exclaimed, "Bress de Lord; mars Jon has yu dun und gon plum crazy? I neber seed sich shines fo in all my born days; jambye busted dis ole hed wide open ergin dat postess."
"Clarissa," excitedly exclaimed the Colonel, "you shall have forty acres and a mule too."
"Grate Jurusulum! Mars Jon, whot I want wid dat lan? Und I dun got wun mule, und de Lord knose he tarrifies de life outen me."
"Alice," remarked her father, still excited, "I know all about the matter now. Old Mr. Bowden was very ill when I paid the debt, but feebly raised himself in bed and marked upon the face of the note, 'Paid in full.' Here it is," said the Colonel, "and he surrendered the note and mortgage in the presence of his worthless son, and promised thathe would cancel the record; but the poor fellow died. His son witnessed the settlement. I had no doubt that this villainous son, knowing that his father had died before cancelling the mortgage, and believing that in the terrible condition of the country I could not prove the payment of the debt, did unlawfully, maliciously and feloniously conspire, combine and confederate with the wretch Laflin to defraud me of my property. Thank God the beasts have been hounded to their lair. I remember that upon coming out of the town my hands were filled with letters and papers, and in getting into my carriage this particular package dropped into the road and I ordered Ned to pick it up, and I doubt not that while I was busy reading Ned did not care to interrupt me, and put it into his pocket, and thinking it of no value, forgot to give it to me. I feel now like falling down upon my knees and thanking the great God of heaven and earth for this, His especial providence and mercy."
It is said that in one of the beautiful isles in the southern Pacific—the land of the mango and pineapple, where the air is perpetually perfumed by the aroma of flowers; where the birds of every plume and every voice, like animated pictures in gold and emerald and carmine, flit in and out of whispering branches; where pellucid waters ripple along, their voices keyed to song and laughter—that the people are bestial and barbaric. They distil from a gum that exudes from one of their umbrella-top trees an intoxicant that bestializes the man, woman and child who drinks it, and he or she will run a-muck, ferocious in temper, devilish in spirit, and betraying a morbid desire to destroy whoever or whatever they may encounter. Here in these full grown years of nineteenth-century civilization, amid Christian churches and ministers;amid ten thousand object lessons suggesting the vanity of human pursuits originating in wrong; the eternity of God's punishments; the certainty and swiftness of His retributions—the black, defiled, distorted genius of reconstruction was running a-muck, drinking from a brazen chalice the sweetened liquor.
A skilled artisan in the employment of the local authorities had been for many days surveying and diagramming, until a certain area of the old plantation remote from the mansion was arranged in geometrical figures, scientifically corespondent to each other, and there were curves and angles artistically precise. If the reader will place before him a miniature flag of the Turkish empire, the alignment of the tenements of the negroes will be seen, the concave line of the crescent indicating the position of the modest little houses of the freedmen, and the star the position of the stately mansion of Mr. Alexander Wiggins, a former slave of Colonel Seymour.
Up to the time of this unblushing trespass upon the private domain of Colonel Seymour, and indeed afterwards, the negroes, like rodents, had burrowed in colonies in old dank cellars and where ever else they could find rest and shelter. This unhappy condition, post-dating the surrender at Appomattox, had a demoralizing effect upon them. They became spiritless and languid, or else vicious and vindictive. They felt that freedom was an illusion, an ignis fatuus that they had been recklessly pursuing, that lured them further into an impenetrable morass. In the excited state of their ignorant minds they had been indulging feverish and extravagant projects; chimerical notions of wealth and aggrandizement, and again like inert bodies they would drop lifelessly into the very depths of despair. It is impossible just now forthe most active imagination to conceive a condition of human society more wretched. The sympathies of the old masters were moved; their humanity shocked; their very hearts grieved at the injustice done under the direction of the freedman's bureau in this violent and forced state of things.
"An outrage," exclaimed the Colonel, "long matured, maliciously devised, and boldly perpetrated. Fanatics! you have emancipated by fraud and violence the slaves you affect to pity; you have doomed them to beggary, outlawry, prostitution and crime! You have filled them with discontent and made them to feel a chain they never felt before, and turned against them the care and consideration of their own masters, while your red squadrons of fanaticism are careering wildly through our plantations, so lately scourged by the hurricane of war; you the minions of a power confessedly omnipotent. Will you, too, destroy the Doric edifice of our morals, the Corinthian porticoes of our religion, stifle the denationalizing stream until it swells in great tides of blood? When the incendiary is lightning his torch, and the vultures are looking on with felon eyes, may the holy memories of the past give you pause."
Thus spoke the old man in the eloquence of high-wrought feeling, for his country; for the poor negroes who, like bats and owls, were peopling dens and holes of darkness in this "land of the free and home of the brave."
On the night of the 15th of September the elegant mansion of Mr. Wiggins, the pampered slave of Laflin, lay smiling and smirking in beautiful frescoes from turret to foundation stone; astral lamps hung in rich festoons, shimmered from dome and window and verandah, lighting up the broad pebbly avenues that rayed out from the central vestibule.
It was a night of surprises, of merriment, of revelry, of rivalries; when the bat and owl came out of their hollow, the cat out of its lair, the negro out of his cabin, the ku-klux out of his skin. It was a night that punctuated reconstruction with a red-hot iron, and dropped its dead ashes upon a score of hearth-stones. It was a night that stealthily removed the fifth wheel from the chariot of the bosses and dropped its inert body into the road.
Ah! there were surprises! Corporal Ephraim Gillum was to take unto himself a wife, and Priscilla Pinxly, a spinster, was to take unto herself husband. No doleful Jeremiads in this carnival; no forbidding of banns; no scandal on religion; no trespass on the law. "Ef dat ar white gal is a mine ter jine hersef ter dat cullud gemman, who's ergwine ter hender?"
There were ferns and smilax, hollies and magnolias; there was an altar embellished with carnations, red and white; who shall say it was profaned by this ceremonial? There were heavily groined parlors reposing in velvety carpets, bric-a-brac and rugs. Here were the minions of reconstruction in red, white and blue, the favorites of this institutional era; here were the animated beauties of the town bedizened, bejeweled and beflowered; here was the pompous celebrant in patent-leather slippers and dress coat, Elder Tuttle, paying court to the ladies.
Here was the bride, a very spare lady in the forties, with fishy eyes and gold spectacles. Here was the groom, as black as an antarctic midnight, reposing uncomfortably in a celluloid collar that cut a transverse line through both cheeks, dressed in blue uniform with yellow epaulets upon his shoulders as large as sunflowers; here were the bats and owls, human earth burrowers, who were not wanted at the wedding supper, peeping slyly in thewindows; here was Mrs. Parthenia Wiggins in silks and satins, and her lord in satins and silks; here was Joshua an octogenarian in regimentals, looking like a revolutionary drum major in masquerade, greeting the happy hostess with the exclamation:—"Pend pon it, your ladyship, I smelt dat barbeku clean clar to my house fore it was kilt," pausing now and then in his circuit around the supper table, to cut "de pigon whing;" here was old Hannah, in hoops and frills, "er following Joshua, frustated lak, kase some gal or udder mout run erway wid him unbeknownist to her;" here was old Ned "er settin in der chimney corner all by his lone lorn sef;" and then here was a skeleton at the feast, a spectre at the banquet, who greeted neither host, groom or bride——a living knight of the "White Camelia." Then there was a pause; then there was a proclamation by the host: "All hands eround fur de fust kertillien," and there was a voluntary shuffling of slippered, sandalled and booted feet. Then the music struck up and all went merry as a marriage bell. Castanets and cymbals, cornets and trombones, distributed huge chunks of melody, chopped off the "Star Spangled Banner," "Rally around the flag boys," "The Girl I left behind me," and "Brudder Ephrum got de coon and gone on."
As the dance went on and on in the great hall the Kuklux slipped out of the shadows and into the parlor and concealed himself behind the embowered altar. Ned, at his suggestion, stole into the dining room, and taking the cover off of the basted pig, brought it out and gave it to the hideous creature, and still the dance went on. With uplifted hand Mr. Wiggins cried "Tention ladies und gemman's. All you who's inwited to the weddin follow me to the parlor," and the band struck up "Johnny get your gun." "Comeparson, you shassay in fust," and the parson struck out in an Irish reel, and the crowd followed like flotsam upon a current of water, tossing here and there, up and down, automatically, to the music.
"Now breddin und sistern," exclaimed the parson in a nasal sing-song, "range erlong side de haltar whilst I spaciate upon dis weddin. Now den, fustly und foremustly, who gin dis bride away?"
"I does" replied Mr. Wiggins, pompously stepping to the front.
"Well, den, I'll persede wid de sallymony. Fustly und foremostly, I'm agwine in my sebenty seben year, please God I lives to see de harvest moon, und I has been a exhauster, und locus preacher, und surkus rider, und slidin elder fust und last, und I've jined black ones und yallow ones und yallow ones und black ones, und now I'm agwine ter jine a white und black one togedder in de yoke of bondage, und in the bonds of purgertory, ef I haint upset fore I gits froo by de kommisserys ob de debbil."
"Land sakes alive!" ejaculated Joshua, as he brought his hollow jaws together with a resounding crash, "Don't talk about de kommissery, parson; I'm hungry rite now."
"Now den, ef der is any pusson or debbil, here or here erbout, who is agwine to nullify dis weddin, I commands dem ter hold dere peace foreber mo."
Instantly a hooded figure of gigantic stature, clad in a gown of dragons' tongues, with small red lanterns burning in the socket of his eyes, arose behind the parson. The audience, first paralyzed with fear, now gave shriek after shriek which filled the house, as he gave an unearthly yell and with the basted pig cudgelled the black parson over the head as he leaped with a frantic cry intothe bosom of the spectacled bride, and then through glass and shutter out of the window.
"Kuklux! Kuklux!" shrieked the terrified negroes, as in desperation they fled out of the house.
Joshua, in his frantic efforts to escape, ran his head against a heated stove and red hot coals of fire were scattered over rug, carpet and floor. As the last society lady somersaulted out of the window, great tongues of fire were lapping up frieze and cornice, and facade, and the cresent and star disappeared in a ghastly cincture of fire.
As Jake the Kuklux was passing near the cabin of Joshua the next morning, on his way to the dark recesses of the swamp, he heard groans and incoherent exclamations that caused him to knock at the door and ask what was the matter. No answer came, but the groans were louder and more frequent. He opened the door and entered. Joshua was lying on the bed swathed in red flannel and Hannah, with a bandanna tied around her head, was tossing to and fro in an old rickety chair, holding her jaw in both hands.
"Hello!" exclaimed the Kuklux, "What ails you folkses."
"Who dat a woicing dat lamentashun?" cried Joshua. "Go lang away wid yu white man, I aint agwine to be pestered," he continued.
"Hi there Aunt Hannah, what ails you?"
"Oh my Lord!" exclaimed Hannah, amid her groans. "Go lang way frum heer I haint agwine to put mysef on ekality wid no low down white trash lak you is." And Hannah kept sea-sawing in the rickety chair. Jake took a slouching stride toward the fire-place and making the letter V with his fingers spat in the fire and accidentally overturned a stew pan in which two or three small catfish were cooking.
"Fo my King! white man," exclaimed Hannahwrathfully, "What hes yu gon und dun now? I wishes yu would stay outen dis house. Now whar is Joshaway agwine to git his supper er me udder?"
This lamentation caused Joshua to unswathe the bandage about his eyes and he groaned louder and longer. "Dem was de onliest mouffel ob wittles in dis house, und now me und Hannah hes got ter suck de fingers twell de good Lord send us mo," he exclaimed mournfully.
"You lay dar spectin de Lord to send you mo, und you will be stark naked as a picked ginny hen," said Hannah.
Jake squinted his right eye as he drawled out:
"You knows Aunt Hannah dat de Lord does feed his lambs, don't you."
"How cum Joshaway enny of his lambs? Mouter say he is de debbils old billy gote," answered Hannah savagely.
"Kase I is one of his lambs," said Joshua. "How cums I goes to Filadelfy meeting-house ebery fourth Sunday, und how cums I courages de moners, und how cums I goes to de baptizin und totes de passons gown? Tell me dat."
"Ugh! Ugh!" grunted Hannah; "I nebber seed de lams cutting up sich shines in a grate house lak yu dun las nite; yu went to de weddin, didn't yu Joshaway? Und yu seed de kommissery ob de debbil; did yu see de Lord's lambs dare? und yu set yo mouf for de barbeku, didn't yu, und yu seed a harrykane too, didn't yu?"
"Oh, yu go erlong way frum here," said Joshua, "I natally spises dese heer biggity niggers dat is tarnally butting up agen de good Lord's jedgements. You is fell frum grace, dat's what yu done," replied Joshua deprecatingly.
"Is?" ejaculated Hannah. "Und yu fell frum something last nite. What was dat?"
"Now dat dere tantalizing nigger thinks I fell outen de window, but I clumb down de jice, dat is what I dun," angrily replied the old negro.
"When you seed de bride und de passon und de tother lams lak yu, Joshaway? tell me dat!" continued old Hannah provokingly.
"Nuff sed Hannah, yu dun und sot my po hed er akin wusser. You is de debbils own billy gote not me."
Reaching down into his greasy haversack the Kuklux brought out a great chunk of barbecue, and flourished it around old Joshua's head like a musician's baton.
"Dar now Hannah, what I tole yu, you sees whar my fafe is, don't yu?" said Joshua smiling. "Don't de Scriptur sez how dat ef yu hes fafe, ef yu hes fafe," he repeated with emphasis, "you can tote away mountains, tell me dat?"
"It mout," answered Hannah quizzically, "und den agin it mout'nt. Do hit say anyfing erbout barbyku?" continued Hannah, "Tell me dat."
"Oh, go long, nigger," tartly answered Joshua; "I haint ergwine ter argify de question no mo wid a debilish nigger dat actally mistrusts de bible; yu is dun und sot in yo ways, und all Filadelfy church aint ergwine ter save yu, nudder."
"Not ef it is ergwine ter preach dat dar kind ob fafe. I wudn't put no pendence in de slidin elder ef he was to say pine plank dat dat dar barbyku is in de bible."
"Don't de scriptur say how dat a passel ob horgs broke er loose outen de gap und run down er hill und choked up de sea? Tell me dat? Und what does yu make barbeku outen? Catfishes I spose!" asked Joshua contemptuously.
Hannah turned her back upon the old negro with the observation, "You is er black satan kotin de scriptur."
And all the time the musician's baton was marking curves around old Joshua's head, and Joshua's hollow eyes, as if under the spell of a mesmerist, were moving mechanically right and left, left and right, while his great mouth was yawning like a cavern in a red marl pit.
"Boss," he exclaimed, "ef yu eber specks tu giv me ary mouful ob dat ar barbyku, fur de Lawd's sake drap hit rite inter dis heer mouf," and he brought his old jaws together with a resounding crash, like an alligator biting at a leaping frog.
The ku-klux, without further teasing, gave the big chunk of meat to Joshua, who devoured it like a starved dog.
"Haint yu ergwine ter give me nun?" asked Hannah.
Joshua slowly replied between bites,
"Yu is got er gripin misery now, Hanner, und ef yu wuz ter your dis peppery stuff und tuck wid a gripin pain, I'd neber hear de eend ob it. De nex time I'm ergwine ter give yu a grate big hunk, perwidin yu haint got no gripin misery ur nuffin," he continued as he gnawed the last piece of gristle from the bone.
"Boss," he observed, as he wiped his capacious mouth, "ef I hadn't bin ticed erway by dat nigger sea-sawin ober dar, I wudn't er bin in dis heer fixment. De women fokeses fotched de debil in dis heer wurld, und bress de Lawd when dey is ceasded dey is ergwine ter take him erlong wid dem. Does yer see how slak-sided I'se got? Look at dese ole holler eyes; yu kin jamby play marbles in dem. I'm ergwine rite strate back ter ole marser, lak dat progigle man in de scriptur, und I'm ergwine ter tell him he mout hab my freedom. I'd ruther hab de tarrifyin fever dan be a franksized woter. I wishes ole Laflin had er died fo' he wuz born, upsottin de niggers, und dey ergwine erbout lak raggedruffins, wid nuffin ter do but beatin drums und wotin yaller tickets. Dar aint narry grane o' rest nite nor day. Peers lak Hanner she gits sick de wery wustest time in de wurld, und when she aint ailin she's tarnally moufin erbout no meal in de gum und no catfish es in de stewpan. De Lawd knows dis ole stractified nigger hes sucked misery long ernuff. I haint neber node ole marser ter turn his back on nobody, und es fur Miss Alice, her purty white hans is wide open all de time, und she do say 'Uncle Joshaway' de hebenliest I eber seed."
With these heartfelt expressions the old negro maintained a dead silence, and Hannah, like the Temanite of old, essayed to answer,
"Yu needn't blame it all on me, dat yu needn't. Enybody er seein yu er wourin up dat grate big hunk o' meat mout hab node yu wuz er horgish nigger, und hit maks no diffunce who parishes so yo stumick is full. Er lyin dar now er pickin yo ole snags und er hikkerpen es full es er dorg tick, und me er settin here er fairly rackin wid mizry."
"Hush Hannah," interrupted Joshua, "nuff is nuff, ef yu had er wourd dat barbyku und tuck defly sick, dar wudn't been no sleep in dis house dis nite. 'Twant kase I hankered fo dat leetle grain ob fresh meat dat I didn't wide wid yu, twas kase I knowd it was gwine gin yo stummick."
"Bress God," answered Hannah, "you's er powerful doctor, er puttin yo mouf on sick folkses dat is peert und harty," and Hannah began sea-sawing again.
Shortly after the events narrated in the last chapter, the announcement was made by Clarissa that a white man, "und dat biggety nigger Ellic, was at de do to see ole marser." The interview occurred on the verandah.
Abram Laflin, the carpet-bagger, introduced the subject as follows:
"I observed" said he, "in passing the court house on yesterday, that you had advertised my home to be sold to pay a debt of five thousand dollars due you. Will you be kind enough to make the calculation and inform me what is due you, principal and interest?"
"Certainly I will, with great pleasure," replied the Colonel. "Here is the account accurately computed."
"Make your calculations, Mr. Wiggins, and see if the gentleman is correct," he said to the negro.
Mr. Wiggins adjusted his gold rimmed eyeglasses, fingered a moment the gold chain upon his immaculate shirt bosom, scratched his head a time or two with the point of his gold pencil and passed the statement to his lord and master.
"Ah, ha," exclaimed the carpet-bagger, "Four thousand three hundred and fifty-seven dollars and thirty-three and one-third cents, and not five thousand dollars as you have it, Mr. Seymour."
"Ah, very well" replied Mr. Seymour "You may settle by my calculation if you wish, if not the sale shall go on."
"Give me the paper and pencil, Mr. Wiggins, Iwill make the calculation for myself," said the carpet-bagger. "The result as you have it sir, is correct. Here is your money sir."
"Now, sir, I will show you the gate," replied the Colonel with asperity. "Good morning," and the two men locked arms and went away.
As the enraged man was entering the verandah, he was greeted unexpectedly and obsequiously by Joshua, with "Compliments, ole Marser. I have fotched you some long-necked gode seeds; spected yer would lak to hab dem, mars Jon."
"Yes, Yes, I am glad you remembered me Joshua. I thought my old slave had quite forgotten me," replied the Colonel.
"You mout hab spected dat ole masser, but I knowed all de time you wus de onliest fren I had in de wurrell," answered the old negro.
"I am surprised to see you looking so badly, Joshua. Why your hair is as white as cotton, and your clothes too are ragged and dirty, and there are great hollows in your cheeks; what have you done with yourself old man?"
The old negro dashed a great big tear from each eye as he replied hesitatingly, "Better ax tother fokeses dat ar questun, ole marsa; better ax de bosses at de kommissery; I'se been froo de froos sens I seed you sar, mommucked up monstrus, dat I is. Dem dar pizen'd carpet-baggers tole us cullud fokses ef we didn't do jess lak dey sed, dat dey was agwine to put us bak in slavery, und dey skeert us jam ni to def, dat dey did. Dey uprared a grate big sto in de town, und sakes alive! de moest lasses und horg meat und flower und backer, und sich lak yu nebber did see, mars Jon, und likker, too; und wun ob de bosses he cum to de do und sez, sez he boys, fetch yer happysaks und jimmyjons ebery Tuesday, und eberry Saddy nite de Lord sens und fill dem chok full. I clar marser,I felt jess lak I wus in Paradise, wid de angels er harpin pon golden harps und soppin lasses; und I took dat white man at his word, und I'se been on de rode twixt my house und de sto fur seben weeks, backards und forrards, a totin my ole jimmyjon un happy-sak; I clar pon my Marser in Heben, I haint eben got de rappins ob my finger from dat sto yit. De boss wud laf und say de rashuns had gin out fore I got dere, und to cum agin nex Tuesday sho; und mars Jon, I'se jess nachully a tired to def, widdout a moufful ob wittels in my house fur me nur Hanner nudder, und we bof a perishin to def. Ole marsa, hain't yer got nary ole ash tater, nur a leetle piece ob meat skin yer kin gib dis ole darky jess to pacify his stummik, seems lak I jess hab to draw my galluses rale tite roun it to keep it frum creepin fru my mouf."
The old soldier of fifty battles looked down upon the poor old negro in his squalor and emaciation and wretchedness, and the tears came into his eyes, too, as he said,
"If there is anything in this house to eat, Joshua, you shall have all you want. I pity you from my heart, old negro. These people are not your friends nor mine. The day will come when you will know them as they are—enemies of every one who will not wash their dirty linen."
"Eber yu spoke de truf, Mars Jon, you spoke it den—hit's de God's truf."
"Clarissa!" called the Colonel, "Clarissa!"
"Sar!" came Clarissa's voice from the kitchen. "I'se er cummin, ole marsa, jes es fast es I ken."
As she saw Joshua she threw up her hands and impulsively exclaimed,
"Fur de Lawd's sake, Joshaway, whot do ail yer eny way? I faut yu wuz er gostis er settin outen here wid ole marser. Po ole nigger! Duz sis Hanner luk lak yu duz? De grabeyard is er yornin fer yurite now." And Clarissa placed her hand feelingly upon the old negro's white head, saying the while, "Po Joshaway! Po nigger!" while Joshua covered his face with his knotty hands and his feeble body shook as with a spasm.
In obedience to orders, Clarissa placed before Joshua a huge dish of boiled ham, cabbage, potatoes—Irish and sweet—and the old negro in the joy of his heart sprang nimbly to his aged and aching feet and "cut de piggen whing jes ter sho ole marsa how spry und suple he wus."
"Bress Gawd!" he gratefully exclaimed, "I'se been happy two times in my life—wun time when I jined de miluntary cumpny when de niggers wus playin 'de jay bird' on der tootin horns (den I wus er fule), und tother time wus dis here time."
After devouring like a starved brute the bulk of the food before him, he considerately placed into his old beaver hat choice bits and fragments, layer upon layer, with the observation,
"I wudn't er tasted a moufful o' dis good truck ef I hadn't er node Hanner wuz ergwine ter git her shar. Jes er watchin me now lak a sparrer hawk er settin on er lim! Tank yer a fousun times, ole marser! Tank yu, too, sis Clarsy; tank eberybody in de whole wurld. Ole marsa," he continued, "mout I hab jes wun wurd wid yer?"
"Why, certainly, Joshua; what more can I do for you?" asked the old man.
The old negro put his hand to his face as if he were shielding his eyes, and asked sheepishly,
"Mars Jon, ef me und Hanner wus ter turn niggers ergin, jes lak slabery times, wud yer tuck us home—yu und Miss Alice?"
"I would not have you do that, Joshua; but whenever you like, you and Hannah can bring your belongings to the office and Alice and I will alwaysbe your friends. You shall never suffer any more for something to eat or wear as long as we live."
"Tank yer, ole marser, tank yu, a fousand times!" Joshua replied, as he brushed away great liquid beads that were chasing each other down his haggard cheeks. "Now I mus be ergwine, Mars Jon," and the old stiffened joints bore homeward a filled body and a full heart, as he sang in an untuned but sweet voice,