SUPERSTITIONS REGARDING K. K. K.
Impressions after a K. K. K. Raid--Will Morning never
come?--Conjectures Regarding the Subject in the Minds of those who
should have been Prepared to Render an Opinion--What Superstitious
People thought--The Mill Council--Boys and Colored Men--K. K. K.
Arraigned on various Charges, and Acquitted for Want of
Testimony--The Subject an Enigma--Man a Superstitious
Animal--Education the Best and a Poor Antidote.
On the immemorial night referred to Crow Hide slept uneasily, for besides
an indefinable something in the air, that brooded over men's spirits like
a spell from the other world, there were strange sounds from without
creeping into hallways and banging at the doors of apartments; dogs were
disconsolate, and whined incessantly; barn-yard echoes stole in on every
breeze; and the moon-beams, falling into windows, and past the forms of
sleepers, by their jerky, undecided motion, said, as plainly as words, "We
are dissatisfied with ourselves." Children tossed their arms about wildly
as they slept, and when wakened, requested that their couches might be
removed from the neighborhood of windows. A weird somnambulism took
possession of the forms of men and women, leading them to doors and
windows, and sometimes rents in the wall, where they awoke to find
themselves in listening attitudes, and to listen. Horses neighed, cattle
lowed, and chains which might have been attached to watch-dogs, but were
not, made the circuit of buildings, or were tossed against the boundaries
of closes.
Would morning never come? Girls and timid boys revolved this query in
their minds, building a faint hope thereon; but when they held their
breaths and listened, they found, as their fears had informed them, that
the clock pendulums, hammering away at the seconds, made no gap in time.
Others, who felt no certain fear, but a boding uneasiness, thought to
count the moments on their fingers while the gloom lasted; but so
frequently were they interrupted by strange sounds from without, that they
found themselves ever recurring to the point where they began. Even the
chickens on their roosts were witch-ridden, and crowed lustily for day,
when the half-grown moon had not yet passed meridian.
But "the longest lane has its turn," at one or both ends, and when the
shadows slept, and the gray messengers of morn tripped along the eastern
hills, the enchanter's wand was lifted from its hills and valleys, and
Crow Hide, unclosing its eyes, gave thanks. Now a breath of peacefulness
had come upon its affairs, and so radiant seemed the morning skies, and so
innocent of evil the sweet landscapes lying bathed in dew-sparkles, that
there were few who looked abroad without being inspired with doubts of
the existence of the latter, even as an abstraction. Even those who had
been controlled by the most abject emotions while the terrors of the night
lasted, when morning came, stood up boldly for a common sense solution of
the mystery. Those who had all their lives been troubled with
superstitious fears, and were in danger of becoming imbued with the error
in its grosser forms, by the aid of such experiences as that through which
they had recently passed, admitted the possibility of this. If, therefore,
it did not come as a positive revelation, it was a relief to all to be
informed, as they were at an early hour, that the initials of the monster
haunt who during the night had managed to reflect as many individualities
as there were farm-houses in the district were K. K. K. But though this
was accepted as a fact by all, seeing that no other theory was advanced,
yet the question remained, did it furnish a satisfactory solution of the
mystery, or, indeed, any solution whatever? According to the neighborhood
version, the Ku-Klux themselves were about as intangible examples of
ghostliness as were ever wrapped in loose-fitting bombazine; and if so,
wherein was gossip made the wiser? The very difficulty which the most
scholarly person would experience in seeking out the words indexed by the
famous K(u) K(lu) K(lan), was enough to evince to the world that there was
something radically wrong with its genealogy.
On the morning in question, the chore emissaries (boys and negroes) of the
farms for miles around had assembled at the neighborhood mill, awaiting
their turns of grinding, and when rumor brought the subject into the mill
council, the conflict of opinion, involving original arguments advanced
and the weight of authorities adduced, became truly Brobdignagian. The
night raiders had been seen by some of the party, and of this number all
had crossed the boundaries of persuasion, and were absolutely convinced
regarding some physical (if the term may be used) peculiarity of the
ghostly phalanx.
An urchin of twelve summers, who confessed to _sub rosa_ practices while
the paternal premises were being raided, but nevertheless claimed to get
one eye squarely on them as they rounded a hill, one and three-quarters of
a mile distant, was convinced that the heads of the rear files (front not
visible) extended above the tops of the trees. This statement was
delivered with much earnestness of manner, and at its conclusion all the
saints and martyrs in the calendar were invited to give it their
indorsement.
* * * * *
Peter Burleson, aged fifteen, who saw the party ride out of the village
cemetery (a whim of the raiders, inducing the belief that they had
undergone a partial hibernation amid these surroundings), was able to
state something as to its numbers in keeping with the above. According to
this witness, the weird force was composed of two battalions and a
squadron, or about two thousand men and horses, exclusive of a section of
artillery, and an indefinite number of pack-mules. The horses composing
the procession were deep black in color, emitted columns of smoke and
flame from their nostrils (_vide_ pictorial papers), and varied in height
from a lamppost to a telegraph pole. Of the raiders themselves he would
say nothing (under the impression, doubtless, that the theme had been
exhausted); but as to the "rig" they wore, he was morally certain that an
inverted churn constituted the head-dress, a wagon sheet of mammoth
pattern the shoulder-garb, and army canteens (probably bisected and thus
made to do double duty) the button ornaments.
Observing something at this point in the countenances of his auditors
which he did not quite like, he availed himself of their knowledge of
dictionary superlatives in an exhortation of some length, and concluded by
submitting as his wish that he be "hung, drawn, and quartered," and such
further disposition made of his remains as the skeptics of the crowd might
propose.
It is really a subject of regret with the writer to be compelled to state
that, notwithstanding the remarkable strength of emphasis employed by this
young man, the beautiful consistency of his narrative (its parts we mean),
and his apparent desire to anticipate and provide against attacks of this
character, that his evidence was discredited in some leading points, if
not altogether overthrown, by the testimony of the witness who followed.
This was Jerry Stubbs, a mill-boy oracle, and a youth whose antecedents
were otherwise good. His first onset was directed against the figures of
his predecessor, which were given a very crooked appearance indeed, when
placed against the fact that the entire raid--artillery, baggage-wagons,
horse, foot, and buttons--had been self-immured in the paternal horse-lot
(80 x 100 feet) of the said Stubbs, for the space of from one to twenty
minutes, or considerably more, or a great deal less--could not be exact as
to time. He had likewise made a critical examination into the equestrian
belongings of the raid, and the horses were not black, but white; and
finally, he felt morally assured, despite the confident utterances of
those who had preceded him, that the raiders were not mounted, but rode in
covered ambulances.
When the witness had concluded, there was a general clamor of dissent; a
dozen voices were heard attempting to speak at once; and when, by courtesy
of the hearers, each had been allotted a chance at the salient features of
his narrative, perhaps no one was better convinced than J. S. himself that
he had seen none of the occurrences which he had attempted to relate.
Oliver (colored), the miller, was, perhaps, a more reliable witness than
any of those who had preceded him, not simply because he had greater
experience of men and things, but his opportunities of informing himself
on the occasion referred to had been likewise superior. He had not only
seen the raiders, but had actually been interviewed by them. He slept in
the mill, and during the night had been aroused from his sleep could not
tell how, nor exactly when, but did not doubt that the agency was
supernatural. Proceeding to the door, he saw what he supposed to be
"sperrits," mounted on what he thought resembled horses, though he
afterwards satisfied himself of the fallacy of the latter conclusion. He
could not take observations with any degree of system, however, as he was
kept busy carrying water from the tank to the "thirsty sperrits," who had
made this call, it thus seems, with a selfish end in view. One of the
party, after having replenished his boilers to the tune of a bucketful,
loosened his belt and called for more, remarking aside to him, and
apparently in extenuation of the act, that it was the first he had quaffed
since being condemned to death by fate and the enemy's bullets at Shiloh.
He confessed to having become somewhat alarmed at this; but when, a moment
later, another individual of the party, mistaking him for the mill owner,
offered sympathies in view of the fact, as he alleged, that the party had
drank the creek in two, at a point a few miles nearer its source, his
courage failed him, and here his narrative suddenly breaks off.
This witness was sharply cross-questioned by the attorneys, who had by
this time volunteered on both sides of the controversy, but could not be
prevailed on to amend or otherwise detract from the material allegations
set forth in his examination. Neither would he add anything thereto--a
healthy sign which the defence did not fail to appropriate and magnify.
One other witness remained to be examined, and while his testimony
possessed that trait which shone so conspicuously in the allegations of
all those who had preceded him, viz., a tendency to found his own airy
fabric on the spot he had rendered untenable for that of his predecessor,
it was in the main reliable; and if, as was urged against it, its facts
were produced at a late hour, it was altogether attributable to the
witness's modesty, and the fact--which was now elicited for the first
time--that, notwithstanding he had been standing on his head
(metaphorically) for the opportunity, and his well-known dexterity in
wielding syntactical figures of speech, he had been unable to explode his
items fast enough to anticipate those who had occupied the time.
This boy, Dick Shuttail (white), age not known to self or parents, had
obtained a view of the Kluxes from the airy depths of the family rag-box,
situated in the rear garret, and he was, therefore, able to speak with
emphasis on certain points which had been barely touched upon by
less-favored observers. He testified that the raiders were mounted on
elephants or camels; could not distinguish certainly, but his bias led him
to say the former, and that these beasts were branded on the side with
three corn-droppers (K. K. K.), or, more probably (as suggested by a
hearer), one corn-dropper three times. The raiders were veritable spooks,
as, in the place where eyes, mouth, and nose should have been roundly
visible, the crows had supped, and instead of hair, they were driven to a
subterfuge which closely resembled an inferior article of mosquito bar,
worn, however, _a la pompadour_. Their saddle-bags, loaded, most probably,
with munitions of war, were borne in front of them, and their uniforms
were ornamented not with buttons, but spangles of bright hue and
extraordinary size.
He was going on to relate that the horses they rode were neither black nor
white, but br----, when he was interrupted by hisses from his audience,--a
circumstance which either aided memory, or sharpened his introspective
organs, for almost immediately afterwards he hung his head, and, covering
by this movement a very sour expression of countenance, retired from view.
To say, notwithstanding, the beautiful start he made, and the high
dramatic turn he was giving the events of his narrative up to the fatal
moment of collapse, that this witness's testimony went absolutely for
nothing, and that his explanation, tendered at some length and supported
by all those texts of mill-boy verity which had been successfully adduced
by his rivals respectively, was rejected by an indignant auditory, is to
anticipate the reader.
When, at length, the mill-wheel had performed its last revolution, and the
mill boys, astride their sacks of flour, dispersed to their homes, it was
with the solemn conviction that some great mystery had dawned upon their
young lives, to whose after developments they must look for that rational
sequel which had thus far been denied them. Hundreds there were in this
and other localities of the South who, while they rejected the idea of a
Ku-Klux phantom, were equally slow in accepting the current theories which
dissociated them and their plans from all preternatural agencies.
In every man's breast there is more or less of that mysterious element
which, under proper conditions of time and place, sees ghosts in shadows,
and hears them in the faintest echo. These attributes (if the term be
admissible) implanted in the breast of the child at its birth, though
weeded with ever so careful a hand during the years of training, still
retain some tendril hold, which no process of metaphysics can uproot, and
which in the future years send out fruit-bearing branches that make and
unmake human destiny. Of the majority of human kind, it may be said that
their lives and possible achievements are covered under a great incubus of
superstitious thought and feeling. And if, at some late period of
existence they take the tide at a favorable turn and struggle up into the
pure surroundings of an honest life, the effort frequently comes too late,
for they see in this change only some postponed dispensation of _luck_ in
their favor, and so are worse bondmen than before.
Some men there are who will even confess to you that they are governed by
these strange impulses in what they term the "trifling details of life,"
but as men who admit "trifling details" into their lives rarely attain to
a higher life than is constituted by the sum of these, their admission
covers a greater scope than they probably intended. Others, equally
candid, adopt a different mode of imparting the same confidence, and
naively tell you that in "the more _important_ concerns of life" they are
indebted for guidance to an unseen agency. But as these men wholly mistake
the meaning of the adjective they use, adjusting it to such retail
considerations as flow from their daily business or dwell at the bottom of
their post-prandial cup, we must take their confession to include both
froth and sediment, the top and bottom of so many human lives.
After having devoted much thought to this subject, and made many empirical
journeys along the route which leads to men's confidences, without being
suspected of any such deep-laid treason as that which we here confess in
the light of a laudable undertaking, it is our candid opinion that if the
unsuperstitious of earth were doomed to fall by the knife of some avenging
Elijah, the bodies of the slain would no more constitute a Waterloo than
fifty swallows would make a tolerable month of July. So that when we say
this Ku-Klux breeze blew consternation to many timid hearts, both young
and old, great and small, in Crow Hide, we only state in a small way what
might have been true, under slightly amended conditions, of the best
educated of the _oi polloi_ of the largest cities of the greatest
republics.