OLD WINE—NEW BOTTLES
He lived in Spartanburg, and was the proud valet (pronounced “valley” in the up-country) of a young physician. Whether the charcoal hue of his face, or his employer’s profession, prompted a clever woman to bestow upon him the appellation of “the valley of the shadow of death,” I do not know, but it certainly seemed, to every one acquainted with him, a peculiarly appropriate “eentitlement.”
Whence he came was a mystery. He tramped into the town one day, with his kinky wool full of the red dust of the up-country roads and his mouth full of the Gullah dialect of the coast, and asked for work. Although not more than thirteen years of age, his hardened muscles and pinched face indicated that he had known both toil and starvation. “Gran’puh lick me en’ I run’way en’ lef’um,” was all he said, and, as he proved industrious and reasonably honest, there was no further inquiry into his antecedents.
One day, soon after he had established himself in his Spartanburg sanctuary, I chanced, while on a visit to the low-country, to learn something of his history. Passing through a plantation, formerly the home of a distinguished South Carolina family, but now abandoned to the occupancy of a few negro squatters, whose slovenly agricultural methods extracted but a scanty subsistence from the naturally fertile soil, I came to a miserable cabin, half a mile away from the main settlement. On its site had once stood a comfortable frame house of the type in general use on Southern plantations for ante-bellum negro quarters,but the woodwork had long since been destroyed by fire, and the brick chimney alone remained. Among the negroes of the coast, where brick are scarce and the cabin chimneys are generally made of clay or mud, the possession of a brick “chimbly” is a sort of badge of aristocracy and a passport to high position in colored society, and old Scipio Smashum, having been a house servant before the war, and, retaining through all the hardships that had come to him with freedom, a profound contempt for the coarser-fibred “field hands,” preferred to live apart from them, and had reared around the isolated brick chimney a habitation which, even when new, was never weatherproof, and was now in a pitiable state of dilapidation.
From the pine saplings, of which the walls were constructed, the rotting bark had fallen away, disclosing the perforations of the wood borers or “sawyers,” whose industry had almost honey-combed the sappy logs. The clapboards which covered the house were falling to pieces with decay, and here and there on the weather-worn roof lay, like oases in a desert of gray, patches of green mould.
The surroundings of the cabin were as unkempt and unattractive as the building itself. Dogfennel and “Jimpson” weed grew almost up to the threshold. A few rows of corn and beans in a garden nearby were choked with grass and had been abandoned soon after the plants were up. The “wattled” fence of clapboards surrounding it was tumbling down, and through the fallen panels the neighbors’ cows and pigs roamed at will. On the top of a little log chicken coop, a young Dominique rooster cackled loudly while he awaited the coming of his partner, who was, at the moment, busied with domestic duties within.
On a bench near the door sat old Scipio. The wool which covered his head was as white as the back of a Cotswold sheep, and the face, in which his bleared and jaundiced eyes were deeply set, was seamed with care.
As I approached, he was upbraiding the boastful rooster. “You so ’laagin’. Soon ez yo’ lady git on ’e nes’ you biggin fuh cackle same lukkuhyouduh specify, ’stead’uhhim. You stan’ dey wid yo’ back speckle’ lukkuh one dese red-head’ woodpeckuh’, en’ t’ink you gots mo’ eentruss’ een dat aig den de hen ’eself.—Mawnin’, maussuh, t’engkGawdI see you teday. De time so berry haa’d, maussuh; ef you didn’ bin come soon, I ’spec’ you wouldn’ uh fine’ yo’ ole nigguh yuh teday. I mos’ t’ink de big Maussuh gwine to call me putty soon, ’cause de mis’ry een de back git mo’ wuss den ’e nyuse to be, en’ bittle git so sca’ceful dese day’, en’ I cyan’ hol’ de hoe like I could’uh do one time, en’ I cyan’ git no cow, needuhso no mule, fuh plow de groun’, ’tell I cyan’ raise no crop, en’ eb’nso w’en de crop done plant, I yent gots no chillun en’ t’ing’ fuh keep de waa’mentout’n’um, en’ I mos’ t’ink ef you didn’ come teday,Stepneywould’uh git dis po’ ole body. Trouble come sence you bin yuh las’, sho’ ez Gawd! Dat boy Joe run’way en’ gone to de up-country jis’ ’cause I lick’um, en’ soon ashimgone, old Sancho Haywu’d’ lady dead, en’ Sancho come en’ tek’way my gran’daa’tuh ’Riah, en’ tek’um home fuh wife. I t’aw’t dat ole nigguh had mo’ sense, but w’en I peruse ’e cyarrictuh close, I see ’e cyan’ specify ez uh sensubble man.”
“When did his wife die?” I asked.
“’E dead een Fibbywerry, suh. ’E binnuh cook supper, en’ ’e gone to de shelf fuh git salt fuh pit een dehom’ny, en’ ebbuh sence ’e gots catt’rack’ een ’e yeye ’e cyan’ see berry well, en’ ’stead’uh tek de can wid de salt, ’e tek de can wid de consecrate’ lye, en’ ’e pit de consecrate’ lye een de hom’ny, en’ fus’ t’ing ’e know, ’e yent knownutt’n’’cause ’e dead! Oh yaas’suh, ’e git relij’un jis’ befo’ ’e dead, en’ ’e dead beautiful, yaas’ suh, en’ ’e had de biggis’ fun’rul you ebbuh see, en’ ole Pa Sancho pit ’e lady een de groun’ lukkuh teday, en’, please Gawd, ez ’e gwine home frum de fun’rul dat same berry day, ’e come by my house en’ tek my gran’ ’Riah en’ tek she home fuh wife! Ef I had’uh bin home, I wouldn’uh let’um tek de gal befo’ de munt’ done out, ’e would’uh look mo’deestunt, yaas’suh. But I don’ min’ ’bout Sancho, ’cause dat gal gwine to mek’um t’ink t’unduhsnake got’um befo’ dis yeah gone, yaas’suh. I tell’um, ‘Sancho, you better min’! Tek care bettuh mo’nuh baig paa’d’n[4], en’ Paul’ wu’d to Buhrabbus een de Scriptuh specify puhtickluh dat you cyan’ pit uh nyung grapewine een uh ole killybash, en’ you cyan’ pit a nyung ’ooman een uh ole ’ooman’ frock, ’cause dem alltwo will buss’. Sancho, you know berry well you cyan’ specify, en’ you ent gots de strengk fuh lick dat nyung ’ooman, en’ likeso Buhrabbus say dat ef you don’ lick yo’ lady you will spile ’e chile,’ but I sway-to-Gawd, suh, dat gal tu’n Pa Sancho staa’t fool, en’ ’e nebbuh had my exwice een de back’uh ’e head! En’ now, maussuh, sence de gal gone, I ent gots nobody fuh do nutt’n’ fuh me. Dese nigguh’ w’at grow up sence freedom come een ent gots no mannus, en’ dey would’uh lemme dead een dis house, ef de w’ite people didn’ see me t’ru. W’en ole Missis binnuh lib, bress Gawd, ’e always ’membuh de ole nigguh, butnow, sence him dead en’ de grass duh grow obuh ’e grabe out yonduh onduhneet’ de libe-oak tree, en’ all de w’ite people w’at I raise lef’ de ole plantesshun en’ scattuh all obuh de wull’, en’ all kind’uh low-down buckruh, w’at couldn’ ’sociate wid we w’ite people’ fambly een ole time’, come fuh lib on de place, please Gawd, I yent gots nutt’n’ much fuh lib fuh now, dese days. T’engk you, nyung maussuh, t’engk you, suh,Gawd bress you!”