JACK RIDES ON A MISSION
IT was the next morning after this visit that Jack, coming at Mr.
Parker’s call, found his master lying propped up in bed, clad in his
nightcap and dressing-gown. As Jack entered he thrust his hand under
the pillow and brought out a letter. “Harkee,” said he, “d’ ye see this
letter?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“Very well, then, now listen to me. This is to go to my brother,
Colonel Parker, and I choose that you shall take it. Go out to the
stables and tell Dennis that I say he is to give you a good fresh
horse. Ride to Marlborough and back as soon as you can. You can make
the South Plantation to-night if you post along briskly, and they will
give you a change of horses. I want you to be back by Friday night, so
lose no time, and see that Colonel Parker gets this letter from your
own hand, d’ ye understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack. “Shall I fetch you your breakfast first?”
“No, Peggy will attend to that.”
Jack hurried off to the stables, stopping only long enough on his
way to tell Little Coffee where he was going. Then the black boy and
the white boy went down together to find Dennis. Little Coffee was
distinctly displeased. “What for he send you, anyhow?” said he. “You no
find um way—you get lost in woods, boy. I find um way if he send me.”
Jack burst out laughing. “Why, to be sure,” said he, “that would be
a pretty thing to do! How could Mr. Parker send you to Marlborough,
Coffee? Why, you’re nothing but a black boy. You couldn’t do what he
wants to have done.”
“You call me black boy all um time,” burst out Little Coffee. “I no
like you call me black boy. Black boy good as white boy, anyhow.”
“No, he ain’t, neither,” said Jack; and just then Dennis came out of
the stable, and Jack told him the master’s bidding.
As Jack, mounted upon one of the best horses in the stable, trotted
down past the house with Little Coffee running along beside him, Peggy
Pitcher stopped him to give him some food wrapped up in a paper, and
Jack tucked it into the saddle-bag. “You lose um way,” shouted Little
Coffee after him as he cantered away, but he did not deign any reply
but galloped on down the dusty road toward the woodland, into which the
ragged roadway plunged, presently to be lost in a jungle of trees and
bushes and undergrowth.
In the woods all was still and warm and fragrant with the spicy odors.
A squirrel ran across the way; further on a rabbit scurried out of
the bushes and along the road. At one place a great wild turkey ran
down across the open path. Jack shouted at it as it plunged into the
thickets again, and he could hear it rustling thunderously through the
bushes for a long while as he sat peering in through the dense screen
of leaves whither it had gone. At another place he came upon a black
snake that lay motionless in a sunny patch in the road, watching him
with its bright, diamond-like eyes, and shooting out its quivering
tongue. The horse shied and refused to pass the snake, and Jack,
following the instinct of all men, got off his saddle and killed it.
Once he forded a great, wide, shallow creek, the horse splashing and
thundering through the water, and the fish darting swiftly away from
either side. He had some trouble in finding the road on the further
shore, but by and by he regained it and drove the horse scrambling up
the steep, bluff bank. At this time the noon sun was shining straight
down through the leaves overhead, and Jack dismounted, tied his
dripping horse to a sapling, and took out his lunch. He sat in a little
open, grassy spot, with the waters of the ford spread out before him.
The solitude of the woods was full of a ceaseless stir and rustle and
the resonant singing of wood birds; it seemed to Jack as though there
was nobody in the whole world but himself. The horse plucked at the
leaves every now and then with a loud rustle of the branch, and then
chewed them, champing upon the bit.
It was nearly sundown before Jack came to the end of the first stage
of his journey. Then suddenly, almost before he knew it, he was out
from the woods into an open clearing where there was a growing field
of maize, the harsh, crisp leaves glinting and rattling dryly in the
wind. Beyond the field of Indian corn was a great and wide stretch of
tobacco-fields, bordered, in the distance, by woodlands, nearly a mile
away. In the mid-distance he could see a low log house surrounded by
what appeared to be huts and cabins of various sizes and sorts.
Jack dug his heels into the horse’s side and galloped down the
straight, dusty road that stretched away between the unfenced fields
toward the houses, the horse pricking up his ears and whinnying.
At last he drew rein in front of the largest of the log houses. A
number of half-naked negro children ran out as he approached, and, as
he reined up his panting and sweating horse, a barefoot negro woman
with a string of beads around her neck, and another around each of her
wrists and each of her ankles, came to the door and stood looking at
him. Her tall, conical turban blazed like a flame in the light of the
setting sun and against the dark interior of the cabin. “Is this the
South Plantation?” asked Jack.
“Um! Um!” assented the woman, nodding her head.
“Where’s the master?” asked Jack. “Where’s the overseer?”
The woman stared at him, making no attempt to answer his question.
“Where’s your master?” said Jack again; and then, the woman still not
replying, he said: “What’s the matter, don’t you speak English?”
“Iss,” said the woman with a grin; “me Ingiss.”
“Well, then,” said Jack, “where’s your master, where is he, eh?” and
he waved his hand off toward the plantation field in a general way.
Perhaps the negro woman understood the action better than the words.
“He dar,” she said, pointing with her fingers. “He beat white man.”
“What?” said Jack.
“He beat white man—he dar,” and she pointed again. Jack did not
understand what she meant, but he knew that the overseer was in the
direction indicated, so he rode off toward the long row of huts that
stretched away beyond, some built of boards and bark, and some of
wattled sticks smeared with clay. Turning the end of the last hut he
came suddenly upon an open space fronted by the outbuildings. A little
crowd of men—black and white—stood gathered in this open. A man,
evidently the overseer, was mounted upon a barrel and was addressing
the group clustered before him. He carried one arm in a sling, and
the sling was stained with fresh blood. Two assistant helpers, or
overseers, stood behind the speaker.
The crowd of slaves in front of the overseer—black and
white—barefoot, half-clad, wretched, low-browed, made a motley group.
The overseer was evidently just finishing his harangue to them when
Jack came up around the corner of the cabin. He stopped for a moment
in his speech and turned his head as Jack appeared upon the scene,
and the listening crowd turned their eyes toward him from the speaker
as with one movement. Jack recognized the overseer as the man who had
come down with him and his master in the flat-boat from the Hall. Then
the overseer went on with his speech, concluding, perhaps, rather more
abruptly than he otherwise would have done. “And don’t you forget this
here what I’ve been telling to you,” said he; “I be one of the best
drivers in the province of Virginia if ye did but know it—and what be
ye, I should like to know? Why, the very dirt of the earth under my
feet. How many drivers d’ ye suppose there be in this here Colony, but
what would have killed that there Will Dickson if they’d been in my
place, and been struck with a hoe in the arm and cut to the bone? But
I tell you, I’ve got my eye on ye all, and the first man that lifts
his hand ag’in’ me again had better never been born. And now you go
about your business, all of ye, and remember what you’ve seen.” Then he
stepped down from the barrel and came across to Jack. “Well, master,”
said he, “and who be ye?”
“I’m Master Richard Parker’s serving-man,” said Jack. “Don’t you
remember me? I came down with you in the flat-boat from the Hall.”
“Ay, to be sure,” said the other. “Now I remember you very well. But
what brings you here?”
“Why,” said Jack, “I take a letter up to Colonel Parker, and his
honor—that is Mr. Richard Parker—told me I was to stay here all night
and then be on again to-morrow.”
“Did he?” said the overseer. “Then we’ll go on to the house and tell
Chloe to fit ye up a room. How long ha’ ye been over from the old
country?” he asked as they walked off together.
“I was just brought here when you saw me in the boat,” Jack answered.
“Ay, to be sure,” said the other. “And what part o’ England do ye hail
from?”
“I was fetched from Southampton,” said Jack. “I was kidnapped.”
“So?” said the man. “I came from Hampshire myself, and I was kidnapped,
too. That’s been more than twelve year ago. I had a cousin in
Southampton. D’ ye happen to know anything of her—Polly Ackerman?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Jack, “I do know a Mistress Mary Ackerman. She
lives in Kennel Alley. Her husband’s a tailor-man. A tall, thin man
with a wart on his chin.”
“Ay,” said the man, “that’s Polly Ackerman’s husband to a T, and to
think it’s been twelve year since I see ‘em. Well, here we are; walk
in. Here, Coffee, take this horse and put it up in the stable. Walk
in.” And Jack entered the barren interior with its earthen floor and
its rude, home-made furniture.
That evening, after supper, Jack and his host sat out in front of the
house in the gloaming. Three of the overseer’s helpers came over from
their cabins to sit with them and smoke their pipes. Jack, being a
new-comer, was questioned and cross-questioned about the old country
until he was wearied of telling what he knew. It was all very quiet
and restful after the day’s journey. Some voices from the servants’
quarters sounded loud in the stillness of the hot, breathless evening.
The night-hawks flew high, circling with piping cries, and now and then
dropping with sudden booming flight. The frogs from the distant swamp
piped and croaked ceaselessly, and a whippoorwill perched on the edge
of the roof in the darkness, and uttered its hurried repeated notes
over and over again in answer to one of its kind in the more distant
thickets. Once or twice Jack wondered aimlessly how it was faring with
the poor servant whom he had only just missed seeing whipped an hour or
two before, but he did not ask the overseer about him.