pass dis t’icket ’scusin’ dem call’um lukkuh we call’um ’puntop
Toogoodoo. En’ ’cause dis nigguh bin Beefu’t, him fuh ’spute ’long me
en’ tell me how fuh call rokkoon’ name w’en uh binnuh ketch rokkoon
befo’ ’e daddy hab ’e maamy! Ef ’e cyan’ call rokkoon’ name, uh keep’um
yuh ’tell t’unduh roll!”
“_Rokkoon!_” conceded the chapfallen captain, and he passed, somewhat
chagrined at the outcome of his picketing experiment.
The outposts were recalled, the other negroes aroused from among the
roadside bushes where they had been resting, and the full company
assembled for drill. The outfit was heavily officered, and the captain
allowed them to take turns at putting the men through their paces.
At last they were turned over to Mingo Brown, a pompous corporal, so
puffed up with “a little brief authority” that most of the negroes
grinned in his face, and some openly guffawed, “eh, eh, Buh Mingo
swonguh fuh sowl!” The men, a ragged line, were ranged on one side of
the road, and, facing them on the other, Mingo drew a great cavalry
sabre and began to cut such anthropoidal antics before high heaven,
that three gentlemen, returning from a successful hunt, reined in their
horses a few yards away and paused to see the fun.
“’Tenshun! ’Tan’up ’traight, oonuh man! Oonuh stan’ crookety sukkuh
wurrum fench w’en dem staa’t fuh t’row off ’e riduh fuh tayre’um down
fuh moobe cowpen!
“Shoulduh, _aam!_ Pit oonuh muskick ’puntop oonuh shoulduh en’ hol’um
’traight. You mus’be t’ink dem duh hoe, enty? Fo’ man fuh stan’ side
en’ side fuh mek one t’ickness. Faw-wud, _maa’ch! ’Top!_ Weh de debble
oonuh gwine? Uh done tu’n oonuh head fuh face Toogoodoo Bridge, en’,
please Gawd, oonuh w’eel sukkuh mule hab cucklebuhr een ’e yez, ’en fuh
gone Adam’ Run billage!” Sure enough, as the execution of the command
would have taken them over hunters and pack, they had reversed the
order and started in the opposite direction.
“Fuh true, bubbuh, enty you see Mas’ Rafe en’ Mas’ Tom en’ dem duh
paat’? Nigguh fuh maa’ch obuh buckruh, enty?”
“Buckruh, de debble! Enty de Freedmun Bruro mek we fuh free? Uh free
tell uh fool! Prizzunt, _aam!_”
Some were shouldered, others ordered, a few “presented” with the butt
of the piece against the waist and the bayonet sticking out at right
angles to the body. “’Tenshun! Da’ man f’um Slann’ Ilun’ wuh duh
’tan’up close da’ ’tump fuh hol’ ’e gun een alltwo ’e han’. Him mus’be
t’ink suh gun duh oshtuh rake! Groun’, _aam!_” And the whole perspiring
line squatted and laid their pieces on the ground, rising just as the
hunters gathered up their reins and rode along the line, while the
hounds, with lofty tails, trotted after them, sniffing scornfully at
the warriors’ legs as they passed.
“Huddy, Mas’ Rafe. How ole Missis en’ dem?”
“Mas’ Tom, you look nyung mo’nuh Mas’ Rafe.”
“Yaas, suh. Phyllis him well, suh, tengk Gawd.”
“Mas’ Dick, you sho’ hab uh hebby buck,” as the great velveted horns
of a fine buck tied behind the hunter’s saddle brushed against him.
And all down the line, their hands being free, men touched their
little monkey caps or tugged at their kinky forelocks and scraped
their feet, in token of the kindly respect in which, spite of freedom
and franchise, muskets and uniforms, and the poisonous propaganda
of the Freedman’s Bureau, they yet held those known throughout the
countryside as having been kindly masters to their slaves, and just and
liberal employers of the freedmen.
“Mas’ Rafe, please suh, gimme some tubackuh,” and the outstretched hand
received a generous share of the contents of the donor’s pouch.
“Da’ duh my maussuh,” said the recipient proudly, filling his pipe as
the hunters rode away.
“Cump’ny fawm two t’ickness’ een de rank,” shouted Mingo savagely.
“_Don’ look at de buckruh, look at yo’ officer!_” and, turning to the
smoker, he added: “Me yent hab no maussuh. _Uh free ez uh buzzut!_”
“Yaas, bubbuh. Buzzut free en’ buzzut black, but buzzut ent free ’nuf
fuh light ’puntop nutt’n’ ’cep’n’ ’e dead, en’ nigguh ent free ’nuf fuh
mek buckruh fuh bex!”
“OLD HARRISON”
A few years after the war old John Harrison came into the coast country
from somewhere beyond Caw Caw Swamp. He boasted a strain of Indian
blood, and he showed it in his pigeon-toed walk and the red, coppery
tint that stained his bronzed face. Six feet tall and powerfully
built, he carried his fifty-odd years lightly, although his high,
heavy shoulders were somewhat hunched from the heavy burdens to which
they were accustomed for, a noted “pot hunter,” he thought nothing of
“packing” a hundred and fifty-pound buck five or ten miles through the
forest. During the close season for game he was not averse to working,
and had quite a local reputation as a shingle-maker and rail-splitter.
His speech was the ordinary “cracker” dialect of the low-country with a
suggestion of the Gullah, but he clipped his words, and when excited,
his sentences ran into a quick crescendo, almost unintelligible and
defying reproduction in print.
When he came to Pon Pon he was allowed to clear a small field in a
distant part of the plantation, a mile away from the “big house,”
now only a beautiful ruin, with ivy, woodbine, and Lamarque roses
clambering 50 feet in the air over the 200-year-old chimneys of English
brick. On his “new ground,” old Harrison built a large and trim-looking
log cabin, and here he took up residence with his motherless children,
two small girls and a straight and strapping son of 18, who helped his
father with his work, but not in the chase, for Harrison hunted alone,
sometimes, with a single well-trained hound, disappearing for two or
three days at a time, to return laden with venison or wild turkeys
which were sold at the railway station. His dog, like those of most of
the “pot hunters” who follow the chase on foot, was trained to silence,
and never gave tongue. A small bell was attached to his collar and he
was seldom out of sight of his master, who could tell by the movement
of his ears and tail when the animal had found a trail, and when the
lifting of the ears and the more rapid wagging of the tail indicated
the near approach to the myrtle thicket where the deer lay in his bed,
both barrels of the muzzle-loader were cocked and Harrison usually got
a shot as the deer “jumped.”
Ben Summers, a large black negro in late middle-age, was a “locus”
preacher in the neighborhood and, a jackleg carpenter, worked as well
as preached. Throughout his life he had been partial to wives, having
been more or less affiliated with six or seven, whom he put away and
took back again, with no more ceremony than his change of mind. Unruly
and insubordinate as a slave, he became “swonguh” with freedom, and
was more or less insolent, save to his former master’s family. He was
regarded as a rascal by whites and blacks, and when a calf or a shoat
was missed in the community, Ben was not infrequently suspected of
having shared the meat, either as a participant in the slaughter, or as
a welcomed guest at the banqueting board of the thief.
One of Ben’s wives had achieved a son by a former husband, before Ben
took her over, and this stepson had acquired a wife, a husky, cornfed
wench, an Amazon in strength and fierceness. Soon after her marriage,
old Ben, a rough-talking, brutal fellow, who tyrannized over the women
of his entourage, undertook to discipline this step-daughter-in-law
with physical chastisement. Cutting a hickory, he proceeded to
manhandle her as he had been accustomed to use his wives. She accepted
two or three blows, and then turned upon him so swiftly that he was
swept off his feet and mauled almost into unconsciousness. After he had
been patched up and rehabilitated, and the first bitterness of defeat
had worn off, he really liked to tell the story, laying the unction to
his soul that only his Christian spirit had stayed his hand and saved
the life of the virago.
“Ben, you are a big strong man, why did you let that woman beat you?”
“Gin’ul, lemme tell you de trute, Gawd bin wid me dat day. You know,
all me life uh bin uh strong man. Uh nebbuh hab no man fuh outdo me fuh
wu’k, eeduhso fuh fight, en’ uh bin nyuse fuh lick ’ooman en’ t’ing all
me life. W’en ’ooman ent sattify me wid ’e wu’k, eeduhso ’e mannus, uh
lick’um fuh mek’um mannusubble. W’en my wife Sarah’ son John’ wife come
een my house dat day, ’e sassy ’tell ’e mek me bex. Uh nebbuh tek sassy
f’um no ’ooman, uh dunkyuh ef ’e big ez cow, en’ da’ gal big ’ooman fuh
true. So uh cut one ’tick en’ uh graff’um by ’e sleebe en’ biggin fuh
lick’um. Gin’ul, de ’ooman tu’n on me en’ box me same lukkuh him duh
man. Blood bin een me yeye! Uh ’membuh de time w’en uh could’uh box’um
en’ kick’um alltwo one time, en’ ef uh ebbuh leh de _foot_ folluh de
_han’_, uh would uh kill’um _dead_. But Gawd hol’ me han’ en’ me foot,
alltwo, Gawd tell me fuh peaceubble, en’ spayre de ’ooman life. Gin’ul,
me don’ want no ’ooman life ’pun me han’. Enty you know, suh, ef uh
had uh kick dat ’ooman ’e would uh dead? Gawd tek’care uh ol’ Ben dat
day. Da’ ’ooman t’ink suh him lick me, Gin’ul, but enty you know suh
him oughtuh tengk Gawd fuh sabe’um? Ef uh didn’ bin hab ’lij’un, da’
’ooman’ cawpse would’uh gone Jacksinburruh een one oxin cyaa’t weh ’e
come f’um. All de time ’e binnuh box me, uh bin study ’bout how da’
’ooman’ cawpse would’uh look ef uh had uh hit’um like de time w’en uh
nyuse to be uh Ben! En’ uh study ’pun him husbun’, my wife Sarah’ boy
John, en’ uh study ’pun John’ maamy, en’ uh t’ink ’bout how dem will
mo’n ef uh kill dis ’ooman, en’ wid Gawd’ help uh hab strengk ’nuf fuh
hol’ me han’. Gin’ul, w’enebbuh uh look ’puntop de’ dead ’ooman een me
mine’, uh tengk Gawd eb’ry day fuh hol’ me han’!”
Once a fine shoat strayed too near to Ben’s little field and soon found
its way into the old man’s larder, where it was found by a search
party in charge of old Harrison. An examination showed that the animal
had been shot with duck shot, and shot of the same size having been
found in the undischarged barrel of the negro’s double-barrel, Ben
was arrested and sent to Walterboro jail and Harrison was summoned
as a witness. Harrison was fond of a dram and looked forward to the
approach of court week which would bring him a visit to the county seat
with witness fees of 50 cents a day and mileage. Walterboro was 35
miles away, and five cents a mile both ways meant $3.50, which loomed
large in the mind of the old hunter. On the Saturday night before the
convening of court, he prepared a week’s rations of cornbread, bacon
and baked sweet potatoes, and early Sunday morning filled a great
knapsack, and, with his long gun on his shoulder, walked all the way to
the county seat. On the following day the pig thief was duly arraigned,
the jury organized, and old Harrison, loaded to the muzzle with
Walterboro whiskey, to which he had been treated by the youngsters who
liked to hear him talk, came to the witness stand, a 20-pound knapsack
of provisions around his shoulders and his long gun in his hand. His
direct testimony was:
“Sunday mornin’ bin over t’ Cap’n Elliott’s, coz mostly Sunday mornin’
ef uh goes by th’ house Cap’n gennully gives me uh pow’ful drink, en’
uh allus likes me dram. W’en uh got through me dram, uh was walkin’
’long by ol’ Ben’s house, en’ uh heerd uh gun shoot. Uh meet some boys
and went to th’ house en’ fin’ th’ shoat en’ fin’ number two duck shot
een ’im. Uh fin’ ol’ Ben’s gun in the corner, one barrel been fired,
en’ uh drawed th’ load of t’other barrel en’ fin’ number two duck shot,
same size ez een th’ shoat. Then uh told Cap’n, he give me ’nother
dram, we ’rested ol’ Ben in th’ pulpit where he was preachin’ to a raft
uh niggers, en’ we send him to Walterboro.”
Then came the cross-examination. The young lawyer for the defense
baited old Harrison to the great amusement of the court room.
“What do you know about duck shot?” he was asked. “I don’t believe you
know the size of a duck shot.”
“Uh don’t know de size uv uh duck shot! _Course_ uh knows de size uv
uh duck shot. Bin hunt’n’ all me life, bin shoot’n’ _duck shot_ all me
life.”
“If you know the size of a duck shot, take this pencil and let the jury
see you draw one on the court house wall.”
Harrison rose with bleary eyes and a fatuous smile on his bronzed
face. Unable to read or write, he held the pencil as a small boy
holds a sizzling firecracker, but he was game and stepped up to the
wall primed with the confidence born of ignorance. Judge, jury and
spectators craned their necks to see the performance. The draftsman
stuck close to the wall and moved the pencil slowly and laboriously
over the whitewashed surface. When at last he stepped back and turned
around proudly to reveal his work, the court house exploded with
laughter, from Judge Wallace on the bench, to the tipstaff at the
door, for the tipsy old hunter’s outline of a duck shot was about
eight inches long and five inches wide and bore a striking resemblance
to the continent of Africa. He returned to the witness chair. Taking
the shouts of merriment as tributes to the accuracy of his sketch, he
looked scornfully at the young lawyer.
“Ain’t I tell ye uh know’d d’size uv uh duck shot? Bin shoot’n’ duck
shot all me life. _Course_ uh knows d’size uv uh duck shot!” And there
was more laughter.
The negro was convicted, and sent to the penitentiary for two years,
but was soon leased to a railroad contractor, and, becoming a “trusty”
and a cook, had an easy time. When he returned to Pon Pon he resumed
his place in the pulpit without the slightest loss of caste, and often
referred to his sojourn in the Capital City, telling many stories to
the members of his flock about “de time w’en uh bin penitenshus,” or
“w’en uh bin Cuhlumbia.”
One Christmas morning old Harrison came to the house with the
portentous information that he intended to marry the widow Pendarvis,
was then on his way to her habitation seven or eight miles away, and
would bring back his bride the same evening.
“Dat whut uh yaim t’do Cap’n. Uh knows hits pow’ful resky t’marry uh
widder, coz dey allus knows toomuch, but uh needs uh ’ooman to clean
up en’ do about d’house, en’ look after d’children, en’ de widder
Pendarvis is uh right peart creeter, en’ she ain’t got uh lazy bone
een her, so uh reck’n uh’ll resk it. Den, she’s got a son, John Henry,
’bout d’age uh my William. John Henry he ain’t much account, but uh
needs anuther han’ en’ uh reck’n uh kin make out wid John Henry, so uh
yaims to tek d’widder.”
The old adventurer was fitted out with a white shirt and a
handkerchief, a pocketful of Christmas candies and a couple of stiff
snifters, and so, fortified, he started toward the widow, stepping
high, gun on shoulder. “Uh allus totes m’gun. Y’never knows whut
y’gwine t’see.”
So the widow Pendarvis was duly acquired and proved a faithful and
useful spouse, but old Harrison soon reached the conclusion that he had
been gold-bricked in John Henry. “He ain’t no manner uv account. Ain’t
wuth d’powder’n shot it ud’take t’kill’im! W’en uh married d’widder,
uh didn’ aim t’git much uv uh bargin in John Henry, he was jus’ kinder
throw’d een fuh good measure like, but now uh wisht he mout uh bin
throw’d out.”
A year or two later William Harrison was walking the woods one day, and
from a shallow grave at the edge of a negro’s field, his dogs dug up
the hide and head of a stolen cow which the thief had buried to hide
the ear-marks and the brand. The negro was sent to jail to await trial
and William was subpœnæd as the chief witness. Old Harrison protested.
“’Taint uh bit uh use t’sen’ William t’Walterboro fuh fifty cents uh
day, w’en ’e’s makin’ seventy-five cents uh day now. W’y don’t yuh take
my stepson John Henry Pendarvis fer uh witness? He ain’t a workin’ en’
he’ll be glad t’git d’fifty cents uh day.” It was explained to the old
hunter that as John Henry had not found the telltale hide and head, and
knew nothing about the case, he could not be accepted as proxy. “Don’t
make uh bit uh diff’unce. William kin tell John Henry whut he found en’
John Henry kin go t’Walterboro en’ swear to it. John Henry he’s a noble
liar, en’ he kin lie en’ stick to’t. Them Walterboro lawyers can’t
shake him.”
After awhile, bad health came upon the former widow, and in taking
palliatives to relieve her pain, she became addicted to opium and spent
all she could scrape for the drug at the village store. At last the
neighborhood doctor warned her husband, “Harrison, if you don’t look
out, some day your wife will take an overdose of laudanum and go up the
spout.”
“Well, Doctor, ’tain’t fuh me to go ag’in her! She’s bin’uh noble
’ooman in ’er time. She’s never had uh lazy bone een ’er body. She’s
bin uh pow’ful hand to do about, en’ she’s bin as peart uh ’ooman as
ever was wropped up in that much hide, but she’s gitt’n kinder poorly
now, she ain’t whut she used to be, she ain’t much account now, she
can’t scrub no mo’, she’s got de rheumatism in de jints, so, Doctor,
if she aims to go, uh reck’n d’best thing to do is to let her take a
pow’ful dost en’ _let ’er go_!” So--poor, tired soul--she went.
A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE
Twenty-five years ago, old Jane was the very efficient cook at
the Pawley’s Island hotel. A widow woman of fifty-odd, her black
countenance, with its aquiline nose and sharp chin, was shrewd and
witchlike.
“Old maids” are seldom met with among the low-country negroes, most of
the women achieving matrimony, or having matrimony thrust upon them,
at an early age in communities where marrying and unmarrying are but
the merest incidents in their social and economic lives--and they are
largely socio-economic relations,--“Uh haffuh hab wife fuh cook fuh me
en’ wash me clo’es, enty?” “Uh haffuh hab man fuh wu’k fuh me en’ min’
me, enty?”--“and so they were married.”
Often, however, in early life, less frequently in middle age, women
are, for the moment, unmarried, or, as one might more correctly say,
unaffiliated, and if one of these “unaffiliations” should last long
enough to constitute more than a very brief intermission in the
matrimonial program, one, if of the fiercer sex, incurs the odium
supposedly attaching to “oldmaidenhood.”
Jane had in her time looked upon husbands in yellow and brown and
black, and had almost run the chromatic scale in temperament as in
pigmentation. The sharps had irritated, the flats had wearied her--the
“naturals,” being neither too sharp nor too flat, were, like the small
wee bear’s belongings, “just right,” and Jane, like Chaucer’s Wife of
Bath, thanked the Lord for them while they lasted. “But pleasures are
like poppies spread,” and, as in Georgetown colored circles husbands
don’t always “stay put,” one by one Jane’s poppies--perhaps she
thought them snap-dragons--folded their petals and their tents, and,
forsaking the dusky companionship of the old love, flitted away to
present freedom and prospective enslavement to the new--for there’s
always a new--“ef rokkoon only hab one tree fuh climb, dog ketch’um,”
being an axiom among them. As Jane couldn’t trot in double harness,
she single-footed successfully for several years--so successfully,
indeed, that she developed a fine scorn for the opposite sex. “Dem ent
wut,” she thought, and “_dem ent wut_,” she said, whenever men were
mentioned. In her solitude she found solace in industry, and, working
at odd jobs during the winter, supplemented her summer earnings at the
hotel and soon acquired enough to buy “uh piece uh groun’” (the coast
negroes never speak of land) and built thereon a comfortable cabin,
near which, within a wattled clapboard fence, she enclosed a plot where
she grew the easy-going squashes and beans in summer, and Georgia
collards--the holly-hocks of the vegetable garden--in winter.
Jane’s domain was on the mainland in the flat pine woods thick sown
with clumps of the dark green tropical-looking saw-palmettoes, and
bordered the marsh-fringed inlet or tidal lagoon, beyond which, half
a mile distant, lay the broad ocean beach, the rolling sand dunes and
the dwarf live-oak and cedar scrub of “the Island.” Here, nestling
among the thickets, and sheltered under the protecting shoulders of
the hills, were the summer cottages of the Islanders, and here, too,
just opposite Jane’s cottage, stood the hotel, where all through the
summer days she fried whiting, boiled sheepshead, deviled crabs, and
did sundry other things to the sea-food that the fishermen constantly
brought to her kitchen. Jane’s riparian rights permitted her a landing
where, moored to a primitive little pier, she kept the flat-bottomed
skiff in which morning and evening she crossed the unvexed waters that
lay between her home and her work.
Esau, a trifling, ramshackle, youngish negro, made an easy living by
fishing, crabbing and doing odd jobs about the Island community. He
was venturesome, as most saltwater negroes are, and often in the early
mornings ran his leaky skiff through the breakers at the mouth of
the inlet, and rowing--or wafted, when the wind favored, by a rag of
a sail--adventured out to sea five miles from the beach, dropped an
anchor made of two condemned iron pots tied together, and fished upon
the blackfish rocks in the broiling sun till noon, returning to shore
to sell the good fish to the Islanders and, later, eat the culls and
odds and ends himself. On other days, when the East wind warned him
that the fish wouldn’t bite, he bogged about the little creeks and runs
of the marsh, or along the edge of the lagoon, and caught crabs by the
basketful, which usually found a ready market.
Bringing his fish often to the hotel, Esau was on pleasant
conversational terms with old Jane, and she often handed him out
toothsome bits of “buckruh bittle” that fell from the overflowing
table. In return for these gastronomic courtesies, Esau would chop
wood, split kindling, or do other manly things that chivalrous colored
bucks not infrequently perform for the females outside of their own
family circles.