Barnwell family, was the terror of all the negroes roundabout. True to
his Scottish breeding, Barney was both stubborn and acquisitive and
lived up to
“The good old rule * * * the simple plan
That they should take who have the power
And they should keep who can.”
Barney had the power. Therefore he took. He loved green peavines as
the Scot loves his haggis, and whenever he fancied them he had but
to lean against the miserable fences enclosing the negroes’ patches,
walk through, and help himself. The negroes would shoot him up with
firearms and ammunition of all sorts and his hide was constantly full
of lead of every size from mustard seed to swan shot, but fear kept
the marksmen from getting near enough to hurt him seriously, so Barney
philosophically took the lead without, and the peavines within, and
after eating his fill would lie down in the field and chew his cud
complacently, walking out later through the owner’s front yard, pausing
to paw the dirt contemptuously and pull a few mouthfuls from the
Seewee bean vines that climbed about the garden palings.
One day Friday’s field was invaded, and, hat in hand, he came to the
doorstep to complain. “Missis,” he said, “dat bull Baa’ney, she is
ridickilus! Missis, I mek my fench ten rail high. I stake her and I
rider her, but ole Baa’ney she put her breas’ agains’ my fench, she
lean on her, she break her down. She enter my fiel’, she eat my peas. I
shoot her, but she is indifferent to my shot. When she conclude eatin’
my peas, she lie down, and, Missis, she was so full that she could not
rise!” But Friday was a gentlemanly old darkey and treated his sturdy,
quick-talking wife, Minda, with great gallantry, _practical_ gallantry,
too, as she bore him (and raised) 17 sons and daughters, thereby
earning the well-done of her kindly though thrifty old master. “Maussuh
lub me ’cause uh hab chillun so fas’,” she boasted. “I fetch’um uh fine
nigguh eb’ry year Gawd sen’!”--meaning that the old gentleman had a
pre-Rooseveltian objection to race suicide on the plantation.
Although old Bo’sun Smashum, the herdsman, who had raised Barney from
a calf, would twist his tail in the barnyard and chevy him about with
impunity, the bull was truculent toward outsiders and on more than
one occasion disputed the highway with planters of the neighborhood,
who were forced to turn back and drive a mile or so out of the way
in the interest of safety; while negroes riding or driving oxen, on
sighting Barney in the road half a mile away, would take to the woods
or the fields and make a wide and respectful detour. The danger would
be enhanced should the animal between the shafts of the primitive cart
be one of the “bull yellin’s” so much affected by the freedmen for
combination purposes. The silly song, “Everybody works but father,” had
not then been evolved from the near-brain of the writer of music hall
lyrics, and the labors of a beast of burden were held not incompatible
with the paternity of a bovine family. So these little creatures
multiplied and continued to lead their double lives. Barney held in
utter contempt even the authenticated bulls of the community, but he so
terrorized the little harnessed scrubs that their owners could hardly
avert a stampede when the great bull bellowed in the vicinity.
One hot Sunday afternoon three or four hundred negroes were holding
services at the old log church near the Parker’s Ferry cross-roads.
Too numerous for the building, they were using outdoor bush shelters
covered with green boughs and with hewn saplings for seats. At the tail
of a “distracted meetin’” that had been running for several days, while
grass grew in their crops, they were in a state of exaltation, and
the high, sweet voices of the women blended in harmony with the deep,
rich basses of the men in the perfect rhythm characteristic of African
music. Old time hymns and “sperrituals” alternated. At first, only two
or three voices followed the leader, then one by one the singers joined
in major and minor keys, until at the last the entire congregation
swelled the diapason that floated away on the summer wind. The little
oxen and bulls, whose harness permitted the indulgence, lay down at
their hitching posts, the less fortunate stood between the shafts and
chewed their cuds, drowsing with half-closed eyes in the soft, warm air
of the pineland, fragrant with the blossoming partridge peas.
The singers walked up and down the aisles of the open-air church,
working up enthusiasm in camp meeting fashion.
“Sistuh Chizzum, won’t you meet me yonduh?” Sister Chisolm would, so
she responded to the masculine invitation, “Oh yaas, Lawd!”
“Bredduh Hacklus, won’t you meet me yonduh?” And Brother Hercules,
a wizened little member of Sister Chisolm’s “class,” shouted in
acquiescent gallantry, “Oh yaas, Lawd!”
The meeting drew to a close, the last inspiring “sperritual,” of
African suggestiveness, remained to be sung. Who should raise the tune?
Simon Jenkins the “squerril” hunter, a devout old rascal, called to his
brother-in-law, John Chisolm, “hice’um, Chizzum! You hice de chune.”
John’s resonant voice rolled out--
“Jedus, hol’ de lion jaw,
Jedus, hol’ de lion jaw,
Jedus, hol’ de lion jaw,
’Tell I git on de grazin’ groun’,
Oh, ’tell I git on de grazin’ groun’,”
“_Hol’um, Jedus!_”
“_Don’ tun’um loose, Lawd!_”
“_Maussuh Jedus, hol’ ’e jaw!_”
came the responses in bass and treble, then, as the refrain again
swelled and died away, “Oh-h ’tell I git on de grazin’ groun’,” an
ominous “mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, mmh! mmh! mnmh!” rolled through the woods.
“_Duh Baa’ney! Great Gawd, duh Baa’ney!_” shrieked the panic-stricken
women who scattered in every direction, while the men ran to release
their hitched animals as old Barney leisurely approached, routing
sonorously. “Mek’ace, gal, mek’ace! Him duh walk sedate but ’e bex,”
shouted a man to a leggy, dry-boned black girl who, although guiltless
of shoes and stockings, had worn to the meeting an antiquated hoopskirt
which now impeded her progress. “Hice’um, gal! Hice yo’ ’coat en’
_run_!” She “hiced” her petticoat and ran, but the crinoline billowed
about her knees as she passed Dick Smashum on her way to the Savage
plantation. Dick was duck-legged and as slow of speech as of foot, but
discretion had urged him to get an early start and he was well out of
the danger zone. Later, when Atalanta’s mother overtook him and asked,
“You see my gal? Weh ’e gone?” he replied. “Uh yiz see one sump’nurruh
duh run like de debble, gwine Sabbidge. ’E pass me duh paat’, en’ ’e
binnuh trabble so swif’ uh yent ruckuhnize um ’zackly, but ’e stan’
sukkuh two blacksnake duh ’tretch out een one bu’dcage.”
“BILLYBEDAM”
Billybedam was bibulous.
None knew how he achieved his devilmaycare nickname--the only name he
had, but everybody around Pocotaligo knew that he came by his thirst
through patient industry, and that he loved his work. No round-paunched
monk of the Middle Ages, no Falstaff of the English taverns, ever
absorbed dusky Tuscan wine or Sherris Sack with more appreciative
avidity than Billybedam soaked up the “Fus’ X” corn sold on the sly
by Yemassee blind tigers and bootleggers, for Billybedam had acquired
his “liquorish mouth” during the days, the glorious, honorable days,
of the State Dispensary, when, under the operation of that “Great
Moral Institution,” certain sons of “Grand old South Carolina” had
shown the world that the Caucasian was not “played out,” but could,
upon occasion, graft like any freedman of the good old days of
Reconstruction!
So the bibulousness of Billybedam became a byword all about “de
Yamassee,” where “de Po’ Trial” Railway--significant name--crosses the
Atlantic Coast Line, and, not infrequently, the tempers of passengers
bound for Beaufort and Port Royal.
Perhaps it was the frequent pouring of libations--his gods were all in
his gullet--that enabled Billybedam to crook his elbow so expertly,
but this facility, and a marvelous twist of the wrist, contributed
to his success as a fisherman, and the greater part of what he ate
and drank and wore, came from the brown waters of the Salkehatchie,
whose deep and narrow current flowed between wooded banks a mile or
so away. With rod and line he fished the stream by day, and many a
string of bream and redbreast perch was sold at the station to buy the
precious whiskey, while the narrow-mouthed “blue cats,” caught on his
set lines over night, were traded among the negroes in exchange for his
scanty food and shelter, for Billybedam was a bachelor and a vagabond,
unattached and unaffiliated, and called no roof his own.
Sometimes in the spring when the sturgeon were running, the fisherman
would get the big-game fever, and, armed with a “grain” which he threw
as the whaler throws a harpoon, stationed himself on some log that
jutted out over the water, or in the fork of a low, overhanging tree,
and took toll from the passing thousands. During the sturgeon run,
when, too, mulberries and blackberries were plentiful, the negroes grew
fat and “swonguh” and became more than usually irresponsible.
The heavy, sensuous Southern spring was in the air. The bayous or
“backwaters,” which irrigated the inland swamp ricefields, were dotted
with the sweet white pond lilies, or aflame with the yellow lotus,
while over the broad leaves of lily and lotus, purple gallinules
tripped daintily. Every log that floated and every stump that rose
above the water carried a string or a cluster of terrapins, their
glistening backs reflecting the sunshine. The sloping trunks of the
willows that fringed the banks were festooned with water snakes,
basking in the grateful warmth. Here and there on tussock or muddy
flat, rough-backed alligators lay dozing. Blue flags flaunted along the
marges. Tall white cranes stalked slowly about the shallows, pausing
now and then with spear-like bill poised, watching, waiting.
Billybedam was full of the magic of the spring-time, but it was
not altogether a satisfying fullness, and as he pushed the shallow
flat-bottomed skiff off from shore, he laid down the paddle long enough
to eat a hunk of coarse corn bread and swallow a nip from his “Fus’ X”
flask. And then, thoroughly satisfied with the world, he dipped his
blade and, with alternate strokes to right and left, pushed the clumsy
snub-nosed bateau across the backwater to a famous “drop,” a deep pool
just below a gap in the dam where the dark waters flowed slowly through
from an upper reservoir. This was Billybedam’s favorite preserve
whenever high water in the Salkehatchie forced the river fishermen to
seek their living elsewhere.
Today, however, he made an unpropitious start. After his earthworm bait
had been repeatedly stripped from his hook by the troublesome silver
fish, whose small mouths enabled them to nibble it away piecemeal
without getting hooked, his cork bobbed furiously, and he jerked
quickly, only to bring swinging over the boat one of the malodorous
little black turtles commonly called “limus cootuh” by the low-country
negroes. This unwelcome catch he disengaged from the hook and threw as
far away from him as possible. “You good fuh nutt’n’ _nigguh_! Yunnuh
t’ink me come spang f’um Macfuss’nbil fuh ketch limus cootuh, enty? Who
eenwite you fuh eat ’long fish? You ebbuh see nigguh eat ’long buckruh?
De debble!” Running his cork a foot or two higher up the line, he
fished at a deeper level and soon began to haul in fine perch, which he
strung on the willow withes he had provided. At the end of two hours
he had several strings of marketable fish, and, as the sun had set, he
paddled to shore, threw away his now empty flask, tied his boat to a
snag, and started for Yemassee to convert his catch into cash.
An hour later, with silver jingling in his pocket, he encountered in
the dusk, Miss Maria Wineglass, a much sought-after ornament of colored
society. Miss Wineglass was, in a manner of speaking, a peripatetic
paradox. Altho’ dour-looking and glum, she was noted for her spirits
(80 proof); bootless and bare-legged, she was McPhersonville’s most
daring and accomplished bootlegger, and so circumspect and resourceful
that she seldom met the law face to face.
When her course crossed that of Billybedam, she was traveling an
unfrequented path on the outskirts of the settlement, and, with little
need for caution, she walked rapidly, giving out as she moved a faint,
hollow sound like the subdued tones of a xylophone. She hailed the
bibulous one as a regular and valued customer.
“Weh you gwine, bubbuh?”
“Wuh you got? I gwine ’tell I fin’um.”
“I got ’nuf.”
“Gimme uh pint;” and he held out half a dollar.
“Gimme seb’nty fi’ cent. Dishyuh t’ing hol’ mo’n uh pint.”
“Wuh kinduh t’ing dat? Lemme shum.”
“Yuh him,” and Miss Wineglass fumbled under her skirt and, from a
marvelously durable and comprehensive pair of bloomers made of two
cottonseed meal sacks sewed together at the top, produced a gourd
holding about three half-pints, and passed it over. The gourd was
bottle-shaped and cob-stoppered and ingeniously laced about with
hickory bark, as flasks of Chianti are wrapped with flags. The knocking
together of half a dozen of these gourds, tied around her waist and
suspended within her bloomers, had produced the xylophone music. The
money paid, they parted.
Billybedam went his ways. Whatever the nature of the nepenthe the “Fus’
X” extracted from the calabash, it so ’whelmed his wits that oblivion
lurked in the bottom of the gourd and overcame him. He fell among
thieves, who stripped him of a new shirt he wore and left him, in his
trousers only, by the roadside, where a local constable found him next
morning and haled him before the magistrate for being inadequately
clothed on the public highway.
“What have you to say for yourself?”
“Cap’n, uh yent hab nutt’n’ fuh say. Uh gone fish duh backwatuh, en’
een de fus’ gwinin’ off, uh did’n’ hab no luck, ’cause silbuhfish tek
me bait en’ uh nubbuh ketch’um, en’ one limus cootuh grab de hook en’
uh ketch _him_ en’ t’row’um’way, en’ den uh ketch ’nuf fish, en’ uh
gone Yamassee en’ sell’um, en’ uh binnuh walk duh paat’, en’ uh meet
one gal duh walk duh paat’, name ’Riah Wineglass, en’ uh yeddy’um befo’
uh shum, ’cause ’e mek one soun’ w’en ’e walk sukkuh cow foot crack
w’en him duh run, en’ w’en uh _yiz_ shum close, ’e frock duh bunch out
all roun’um sukkuh cootuh ’tring out ’puntop’uh log, en’ uh ax’um,
’gal, wuh you got fuh fifty cent?’ en’ ’e say ’e yent got nutt’n’ fuh
fifty cent but ’e hab ’nuf fuh seb’nty fi’ cent, en’ I tell’um ’lemme
shum,’ en’ ’e hice ’e frock, en’ him hab one t’ing onduhneet’ him
frock, dem call’um bloomuh, uh nubbuh see shishuh debble’ub’uh t’ing
befo’ sence uh bawn! ’E hol’ ’bout t’ree-fo’ bushel, en’ ’e mek outuh
grano sack, en’ britchiz duh ’e farruh en’ frock duh ’e murruh, en’
’e stan’ sukkuh alltwo. Den de gal graff een da’ t’ing wunnuh call’um
so, en’ ’e full’uh de pyo’ killybash ’long Fus’ X, en’ ’e ketch’out
one en’ gimme, en’ uh gone off en’ drink’um, en’ fus’ t’ing uh know uh
yent know _nutt’n’_, ’tell de counstubble fin’ me dis mawnin’, en’ las’
night w’en uh bin een one strance, some dem Macfussn’nbil nigguh’ t’ief
one new shu’t off me back, en’,” said Billybedam, “uh tengk Gawd uh
did’n’ bin hab on uh new _britchiz_!”
A SHORT CUT TO JUSTICE
Ever since the days of Solomon, the courts and tribunals of the
law in all lands have sought short cuts to justice, but one of the
straightest and strangest in the history of jurisprudence was achieved
by one Daniel W. Robinson, colored, sometime Magistrate or Trial
Justice of the sovereign State of South Carolina, for the Bailiwick of
Jacksonboro, in lower Colleton County.
Under the trying days of Reconstruction in South Carolina, the white
men and boys living in the so-called “black belt,” comprising the
coastal counties of the State, were constantly seeking to lure the
black voters into the fold of Democracy, with but indifferent success,
for the wary freedman, under the secret instructions given him by the
leaders of his own race and the white-skinned spoilers, native and
alien, who controlled his political activities for their own profit,
was hard to wean away from the idols set up for him within “the awful
circle” of the Republican fold.
These poor, deluded negroes, absolutely dependent upon their former
masters, the landholders, for food, for clothing, for shelter, for
remunerative work--often for free medicines and medical treatment in
communities where there were no doctors and no drug stores--though
making profuse lip service for benefits received, forgot them all on
election day when, under the influence of the knaves who manipulated
them, they turned away from their best friends and, hurdled at the
polls like sheep, voted blindly the ballots put into their hands by the
corruptionists.
At one of these elections the Republican ballot was headed with the
national flag in colors, swathed around the ample loins and spreading
hips of the figure of Liberty, with the legend “Union Republican
ticket.” One of these flamboyant affairs was secured from the printer
a day or two before the election and the Democratic tickets were also
printed in red ink with a rooster at the top, in the hope that some
of the negroes might accept and vote them for Republican ballots. One
of these rooster ballots was offered an old darkey at the polls by a
Democratic negro worker, but the wary old fellow had been rehearsed in
his lesson too well, and he rejected it indignantly, saying: “No, man!
uh yent want da’ t’ing! Gimme da’ ticket fuh wote wuh hab de gal wid de
Balmuhral sku’t wrop roun’um!” And he got it.
Then came ’76 and the “Straight-Out” campaign. Every white man and boy
who could raise two or three dollars to buy a few yards of flannel,
sported a red shirt, usually put together by the loving hands of some
member of his family, but, occasionally, fearfully and wonderfully
made by a sweetheart or feminine acquaintance--some perhaps “a little
more than kin,” but all “less than kind.” The boys, however, upon whom
had been wished the needlework activities of their lady friends, wore
them jauntily nevertheless, absolutely indifferent to the want of
co-ordination of “seam and gusset and band.”
As the campaign progressed and enthusiasm increased, an occasional
courageous black, taking his life in his hands and braving the hatred
and ostracism of his fellows, even of his church and his family, would
boldly put on a red shirt and ride with the whites to political
meetings or rallies. One of these, old Clitus Wilson, a life-long
Democrat, who, as his master’s body servant, fought with him in the
battle of Gettysburg, flaunted his red shirt bravely and defiantly.
Another was Paul Jenkins, a thrifty, property-owning negro, whose
courageous work in the first Hampton campaign was remembered by the
whites, who elected him county commissioner soon after the Democrats
came into power. Paul, a wiry, coal-black negro, was once beset by
several members of the Grant family, “Free-Issue” mulatto Republicans,
and cruelly beaten. In the courts of radicalism there was no redress
for a negro Democrat, but Paul bided his time and, meeting one of the
Grants alone, retaliated so vigorously that the mulatto was laid up for
a week. The victim went before Trial Justice Robinson, over the river
at Jacksonboro, and swore out a warrant, charging Paul with aggravated
assault and battery.
Paul, summoned to appear on the following Saturday, came in great
trouble to a stripling planter of the neighborhood who willingly
accompanied him to see that the Democrat got justice, and to go on his
bond in case he should be sent up to a higher court.
On Saturday morning the deep and swift Edisto, lacking a ferry,
was crossed in a shallow bateau, the saddle-horses, held by their
bridles, swimming alongside, and the accused and his protector soon
appeared before the august Court, sitting in a small shanty, facing an
imposing layout of writing materials and a copy of the statutes. The
young planter told the Court that he had come over with Paul to look
after his interests and see that he got justice. The Court responded
graciously that he was “glad to welcome the distinguished counsel from
across the river” and took pleasure in extending to him the courtesies
of his Court.
A jury was asked for and Justice Robinson, calling up some of the idle
negroes who hung about his office, selected five elderly darkeys, all
of them as black as crows. To these five jurors the magistrate added
“the distinguished counsel from across the river,” whom he graciously
requested to consent to serve as foreman. In the interest of justice
the request was complied with.
Grant, the aggrieved, appeared as prosecuting witness, “tore a passion
to tatters” in describing the sudden and furious onslaught made upon
him by the black Democrat, and rantingly demanded justice. Paul simply
told the story of the attack made upon him by the Grant family and
admitted his retaliation, which he held was justifiable, and the jury
withdrew to a vacant room nearby which was indicated as the place of
deliberation.
The foreman was given a primitive split white-oak chair with a rawhide
seat, while his five dusky associates ranged themselves like roosting
buzzards upon a teetering bench, whose supports, two short boards
sawed into the semblance of legs at the bottom, were placed so close
together that the utmost skill was required on the part of the sitters
to maintain their equilibrium, for if the central section rose, both
end men had to sit tight until they could rise simultaneously, else the
laggard would be in jeopardy.
And now the jurors were ready for the case. Paul, having beaten his
man fairly and in righteous retaliation, was entitled to an acquittal
and to this end the foreman directed his efforts. As a preliminary,
Paul was called to the shanty window, provided with sixty cents, and
despatched to Arnold’s store for a quart of corn whiskey. Upon his
return with the pallid pop-skull, there was an excited shifting of
five seats on the shaky bench and five pairs of eagerly expectant
eyes rested their kindly regard upon the messenger of Bacchus as he
withdrew, leaving his fate in their hands.
The lone and crafty Caucasian, playing Iago to five Othellos, picked
out a gorilla-like old codger on the near end of the bench as the
dominant personality among them, and extending the flask told him to
take a drink and serve his fellows. Hacklus Manigo jumped up with such
alacrity, and was followed so quickly by the negroes who sat next him,
that the near end of the bench, relieved of their combined weight, flew
up, and the two remaining jurors tumbled ignominiously and indignantly
to the floor. The grumbling of the fallen and the derisive guffawing of
the risen, ceased suddenly, however, as eight saucered and fascinated
eyes fastened upon old Manigo’s Adam’s apple which moved up and down
his neck in perfect unison with the “glug, glug,” of the liquid
flowing so easily down his throat. The drinker’s ocular and auricular
demonstration of hydraulics was too much for his associates, who cried
out in indignant protest. “Tek’care, man! We’own dey een da’ t’ing!”
“Cap’n, please, suh, mek’um tek ’e mout’ off da’ bottle. ’E gwine drink
eb’ry Gawd’ drap!”
Manigo, having absorbed almost one-fourth of the contents of the flask,
gave it into the nearest of the eager hands held out to receive it,
drew his coat sleeve with a great swipe across his wet and glistening
mouth, gave a grateful grunt, “umh, da’ t’ing _good_! Tengky, Boss,
tengky, suh!” accompanied by an elaborate scrape of the foot and a low
obeisance, and took his seat in the center of the bench, where he was
soon flanked by the four, whose watchful eyes, each upon the other, had
not permitted their attainment of Manigo’s state of exaltation.