THE DOWER HOUSE
The “Dower House,” which Abram Drayton had inherited from his father, old John, now resting under the great live-oaks of the plantation burying ground, was quite a pretentious affair, two stories high, with two chimneys and a leak. The stories were not very high, only six or seven feet in the clear, but it was sometimes convenient to be able to reach up and touch the ceiling, and, after all, it was a two-story house and, like all two-story houses among the negroes, added greatly to the prestige of the owner’s family. In the usual one-story negro cabin, the boarded-over “loft,” reached by ladder, is at once the sleeping room for the children, the granary for corn and peas, and the hay mow for whatever straw or fodder the householder possesses, but the Dower House had a real second story, attained by steps, narrow and teetering ’tis true, which the ascending biped usually “cooned” on all-fours, but they were steps, not rungs, and, however vigorously the negro expresses in hymns and spirituals his willingness, indeed anxiety, to “climb up Jacob’s ladder,” in the present life he prefers the creak of a board under his foot.
Under the law of primogeniture, arbitrarily established by old John for the disposition and control of his landed property, the “Two-Chimbly House” was bequeathed by word of mouth to his eldest son, and similarly settled upon his eldest grandson, and so on, as long as the line lasted, or until the shingles fell off, when dynastic difficulties would inevitably intervene. Perhaps he had heard of primogeniture and dowerhouses while waiting at the table of his English-bred master in the old times, but however the idea came into his kinky head, once in, it stuck, and he determined that a Dower House he would leave, and a Dower House entailed. “Uh gwine tie de ’tail ’puntop da’ house fuh hol’umfas’! Uh tie’um fus’ ’puntop my boy, Ebbrum, en’ den ’e fuh tie ’puntophimboy, my gran’, en’ de ’tail ent fuh tek’off! De ’tail ent fuh tie ’puntop no ’ooman. ’Ooman ent fuh hab no house. Man fuh hab’um en’ him fuh hol’um, so him kin fetch de ’ooman to ’e han’!”
So, the “’tail” still tied to Abram, in due time he came into the Dower House, and here, in the woods on the road from Adams Run Station to Caw Caw Swamp, he lived and reared a family.
At the tail of the summer his wife partook “not wisely but too well” of watermelon and buttermilk, and through the unfortunate combination was forthwith translated from the bosom of Abram to that of Abraham. The widowed man resigned himself to the will of the Lord, and accepted his bereavement not the less philosophically that his crop was already made and partly gathered. “Ef de Lawd haffuh tek’um, uh glad ’E yent tek’um ’tell de crap done mek,” he reflected gratefully and reverently. In a week he had picked and sold the last of his cotton, and out of the proceeds outfitted his old mare with a new saddle, bridle and cloth, notwithstanding which, the ungrateful creature, with true feminine perversity, “gone en’ leddown en’dead, jis’ ’cause uh yent feed’um fuh two’t’ree day. Uh nebbuh know da’ mare gwine hongry to dat! ’E hongry ’tell ’e dead, en’ now uh haffuh tek me two foot en’ walk!”
Abram, being now more than a “settled” man, jogged along in single harness uneventfully for several months. “Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing, nor so old as to dote on her for anything,” he now, in the autumn of his days, became somewhat critical in the matter of feminine needlework. His grown daughter esteemed herself a competent, almost a skilful, patcher of broken, frayed or frazzled raiment. She knew very well how to put crocus or burlap patches on the knees of the jeans or blue denim trousers affected by her sire, but though she could attach them in such fashion that they would hold, the edges always overlapped like the strakes of a clinker-built whale boat. But whatever these patches lacked in symmetrical attachment, they served well enough, for, as Abram advanced in years, he did not kneel so often as he sat. The seats of his trousers, however, yawned in pathetic neglect for, however acceptably his daughter repaired his broken knees, the half-soling of the seats was a much more serious matter, which she lacked the high spirit to undertake, and he carried about with him, whithersoever he went, gaping wounds in his sartorial equipment where, according to Hudibras, “a kick in that part more hurts honor than deep wounds before.” Not that anyone would ever have kicked him, for he was of a quiet and inoffensive disposition.
Most observers of humanity have noted with interest the close resemblance of certain types of the “wild (and tame) animals one has known.” The horse, the ass, the bulldog, the pug, sheep and goat, fox, raccoon and rat, the ’possum, grinning with pious hypocrisy, and the Berkshire pig with slanting eyes and champing jowls, are all marked likenesses frequently reproducedin human faces, representing the stupid, the sly, the selfish, the grasping, the predaceous, the stubborn, the sensual, the combative, the treacherous—all of them to be avoided, or warily appraised, for the good of one’s soul—and of one’s pocket. Unhappily, those who have been blessed with so rich an experience as to have suffered both fools and knaves, seldom learn to read the buoys with which nature has wisely marked the dangerous reefs in her physiognomonic charts, until the keels of their craft grind upon the rocks! But Abram’s face was that of the mild-eyed, introspective ox. There was no militant personality in the neighborhood to “walk a mile out of his way to kick a sheep,” and, even had there been, to have kicked Abram would have been anatomically impossible, for the unsportsmanlike may shoot a sitting bird, but he cannot kick (offensively) a sitting man, and Abram was usually sitting! So, having held inviolate against the insulting toe the seats of his trousers, which he had lost only through the slow attrition of honest sloth, he retained his self-respect, though he was a peripatetic scandal whenever he went abroad upon his “peaceful occasions.” With praiseworthy propriety, he now came in late to church or prayer-meeting, and, a vigorous and devout “class leader,” coached his class from the bench, dreading the publicity of the sidelines. Then he sat discreetly at the close of the services until “de ’ooman en’ t’ing” had gained an offing and sailed away, when, as he showed a fairly presentable front, he would follow after them and engage in long distance conversation.
“Come on, Bredduh Drayton. Mekso you walk so slow?”
“Uh haffuh walk slow, tittie, ’cause dese debble’ub’uh britchiz bus’, en’ dem ent wut. Da’ gal uh my’own able fuh pit uh berry deestunt patch ’puntop de knee, but seem lukkuh him ent able fuh do nutt’n’ ’long de seat. Da’ w’ymekso dish’yuh britchiz do berry well fuh man fuh seddown een’um, but dem cyan’ specify fuh walk.”
“Wuh mekso you ent tek anodduh lady fuh wife? You got big house en’ ’nuf groun’ fuh mek crap, mekso you ent fuh hab ’ooman?”
“Uh hab house en’ groun,’ fuh true. Uh got uh two-chimbly house, but ’ooman shishuh onsaa’t’n t’ing, uh kinduh ’f’aid fuh tek anodduh chance. Ebbuh sence my lady nyam dem watuhmilyun en’ buttuhmilk en’ him Jedus tek’um, uh yent hab nutt’n’ fuh bodduh me. Uh kin seddown een de sunhot eenjurin’ de whole day en’ nebbuh yeddy no ’ooman’ woice duh call fuh tell me fuh git’up. Uh kin seddown tell uh fuh gone ’sleep.”
“Yaas, my Bredduh, you binnuh seddown, fuh true!” a church sister laughingly retorted. “Da’ de reas’n w’ymekso you shame’ fuh stan’up fuh lead yo’ class! Long seddown mek short stan’up, you know.”
“Go ’way, gal! ’Nuf man wuh hab wife een dem house, dem britchiz ent able fuh specify. Dem wife lazy tummuch fuh patch’um.” And so Abram, always backward in company, put on the best front he could for a while and, unlike Edward Bellamy, never looked behind him. At last the raillery told on him, however, and he made up his mind to take another plunge into the roiling waters of married life. Not the “uncertain sea of matrimony” beloved of poets, but just the black and sluggish current of the branch or run, in which,among snags and cypress knees, swam the slimy catfish and the venomous moccasin. The hazard was not great, for, however forbidding they looked, the waters were shallow, and the low-country negro, stepping into matrimony, keeps at least one big toe on dry ground, and, if one steps in the wrong place, one can always step out again, and try elsewhere. So, with more than a toe-hold of mental reservation, Abram at last, like the storied frog, “would a wooing go”—and he went. “Uh gwine Cross Road’. Uh gwine Sat’d’y night w’en ’nuf ’ooman dey dey, en’ uh gwine saa’ch dem eb’ry Gawd’ one ’tell uh git one wuh kin specify. Uh yent wan’ no settle’ ’ooman, ’cause dem done hab ’nuf man fuh marri’d, en’ dem know tummuch. Dem too schemy! Seem lukkuh de mo’ husbun’ en’ t’ing dem fuh hab, de mo’ schemy dem git! Ef uh tek uh nyung gal fuh wife, wuh ent know nutt’n’, uh kin bruk’um fuh suit, same lukkuh oxin bruk fuh pull plow. Uh kin fetch’um onduhneet’ me han’!”
With these masterful masculine reflections, Abram went his ways to the Cross Roads, and having, like Poe’s Raven, acquired the sitting habit, down he sat near the store on a convenient log which offered at once rest for his weary bones and camouflage for his sartorial infirmities. For an hour or more he watched with an appraising eye the women coming and going, acknowledging the salutations of those who passed near him. At last, his approving regard rested upon what the ante-bellum advertisements would have called a “likely girl” who curtseyed as she came opposite him. “Come’yuh, gal,” he called. “Wuh you name?”
“Sukey, suh.”
“You duh An’ Minda’ gal, enty?”
“Yaas, suh, him duh my Grumma en’ me duh him gran’.”
“You onduhstan’ ’bout cook en’ wash, enty?”
“Yaas, suh, uh well acquaintun wid alltwo.”
“Berry well. You know how fuh patch man’ britchiz en’ t’ing?”
“No, suh, uh know how fuh patch ’ooman’ frock, but uh yent know nutt’n’ ’bout no britchiz ’cause none ent fuh dey een we house.”
“You hab Pa, enty?”
“No, suh, uh yent hab no Pa. Uh yeddy ’bout’um but uh nebbuh shum. Grumma tell me suh one time uh bin hab Pa, but Ma run’um off en’ ’e ’f’aid fuh come back, en’ attuhw’ile w’en uh biggin fuh grow big, Ma sen’ me fuh lib ’long Grumma, ’cause ’e say suh uh tek attuh Pa ’tell eb’ry time ’e look ’puntop me ’e bex ’tell him haffuh lick me, en’ him say suh ’e yent hab time fuh fuhrebbuh duh lick me.”
“You tek attuh yo’ Pa, enty?”
“Yaas, suh, uh nebbuh shum, but eb’rybody say suh uh look luk’um en’ tek attuhr’um alltwo.”
“You ent tek attuh yo’ Ma, iz you?”
“No, suh, uh yent tek attuhhim.”
“Berry well, uh gwine hab you fuh wife. You know who uh yiz, enty? Me duh Ebbrum Drayton, en’ uh lib todduh side Adam’ Run deepo, en’ uh hab uh two-chimbly house en’ ’e got two story, en’ uh bin hab uh mare, but him gone en’ dead. En’ w’en you gone home, tell yo’ Grumma uh gwine fuh shum Sunday night fuh tell’um uh gwine hab you fuh wife.”
“Yaas, suh. Well, good ebenin’, suh,” and, with another curtsy, she was gone.
But Abram’s plans they gang’d agley, for old John,in putting the word-of-mouth entail on the Dower House, had tied the “’tail” so loosely that its terms and conditions were constantly subject to family discussion and interpretation, and Abram’s son now objected to his father’s marriage, believing that it would break the entail and deprive him of the right of succession to “de Two-Chimbly House.” “W’en Grumpa him tie de ’tail ’puntop de house, ’e say ’sponsubble suh ’e yent fuh tek off, en’ suh ’e yent fuh tie ’puntop no ’ooman. Pa ent know uh Gawd’ t’ing ’bout da’ gal him duh talk ’bout hab fuh wife. ’E nebbuh see ’e Ma, ’e nebbuh shum fight. Da’ gal’ Ma iz de debble! W’en da’ ’ooman fight da’ gal’ Pa, ’e run’um ’long hoe en’ hatchitch alltwo! Da’ nigguh run ’tell ’e cross Jacksinburruh. ’E nebbuh stop’ ’tell ’e gone spang Ti Ti! W’en ’e bog up to ’e crotch ’mong dem waa’ment’ en’ t’ing ’e git sattify een ’e mine’. No, suh! Pa ent study nutt’n’ ’cep’ hab wife fuh sweep ’e house en’ patch ’e britchiz. Bumbye, w’en da’ gal’ maamy’ sperrit git een’um en’ ’e bex fuh true! Ki! Da’ gal gwine tek de ’tail off Grumpa’ house en’ none uh we gwine shum ’gen! W’en Pa duh bog up to ’e crotch een Ti Ti, wuh saa’bis den fuh hab patch ’puntop ’e britchiz? No, suh!”
His daughter sought to comfort Abram, who, in the short space of 36 hours, had loved and wooed, and won and lost. “Nemmine’, Pa, you got yo’ Two-Chimbly House.”
“Yaas, but uh cyan’ seddown befo’ alltwo de chimbly one time.”