ANOTHER OX GORED.
There was a caller who begged to see Mr. Le Moyne for a few minutes.
Descending to the sitting-room, Hesden found there Mr. Jordan
Jackson, who was the white candidate for the Legislature upon the
same ticket with a colored man who had left the county in fright
immediately after the raid upon Red Wing. Hesden was somewhat
surprised at this call, for although he had known Mr. Jackson from
boyhood, yet there had never been more than a passing acquaintance
between them. It is true, Mr Jackson was a neighbor, living only
two or three miles from Mulberry Hill; but he belonged to such an
entirely different class of society that their knowledge of each
other had never ripened into anything like familiarity.
Mr. Jackson was what used to be termed a poor man. He and his father
before him, as Hesden knew, had lived on a little, poor plantation,
surrounded by wealthy neighbors. They owned no slaves, and lived,
scantily on the products of the farm worked by themselves. The
present occupant was about Hesden's own age. There being no free
schools in that county, and his father having been unable, perhaps
not even desiring, to educate him otherwise, he had grown up almost
entirely illiterate. He had learned to sign his name, and only
by strenuous exertions, after his arrival at manhood, had become
able, with difficulty, to spell out words from the printed page
and to write an ordinary letter in strangely-tangled hieroglyphics,
in a spelling which would do credit to a phonetic reformer. He
had entered the army, probably because he could not do otherwise,
and being of stalwart build, and having great endurance and native
courage, before the struggle was over had risen, despite his
disadvantages of birth and education, to a lieutenancy.
This experience had been of advantage to him in more ways than one.
Chief among these had been the opening of his eyes to the fact that
he himself, although a poor man, and the scion of a poor family,
was, in all the manly requisites that go to make up a soldier,
always the equal, and very often the superior, of his aristocratic
neighbors. Little by little, the self-respect which had been
ground out of him and his family by generations of that condition
of inferiority which the common-liver, the self-helper of the South,
was forced to endure under the old slave _regime_, began to
grow up in his heart. He began to feel himself a man, and prized
the rank-marks on his collar as the certificate and endorsement of
his manhood. As this feeling developed, he began to consider the
relations between himself, his family, and others like them, and
the rich neighbors by whom they were surrounded and looked down
upon. And more and more, as he did so, the feeling grew upon him
that he and his class had been wronged, cheated--"put upon," he
phrased it--in all the past. They had been the "chinking" between
the "mud" of slavery and the "house-logs" of aristocracy in the
social structure of the South--a little better than the mud because
of the same grain and nature as the logs; but useless and nameless
except as in relation to both. He felt the bitter truth of that
stinging aphorism which was current among the privates of the
Confederate army, which characterized the war of Rebellion as "the
poor man's war and the rich man's fight."
So, when the war was over, Lieutenant Jordan Jackson did not return
easily and contentedly to the niche in the social life of his native
region to which he had been born and bred. He found the habit of
leadership and command very pleasant, and he determined that he
would rise in the scale of Horsford society as he had risen in the
army, simply because he was brave and strong. He knew that to do
this he must acquire wealth, and looking about, he saw opportunities
open before him which others had not noticed. Almost before the smoke
of battle had cleared away, Jordan Jackson had opened trade with
the invaders, and had made himself a prime favorite in the Federal
camps. He coined money in those days of transition. Fortunately,
he had been too poor to be in debt when the war broke out. He was
independently poor, because beyond the range of credit.
He had lost nothing, for he had nothing but the few poor acres of
his homestead to lose.
So he started fair, and before the period of reconstruction began
he had by thrifty management accumulated quite a competency. He
had bought several plantations whose aristocratic owners could no
longer keep their grip upon half-worked lands, had opened a little
store, and monopolized a considerable trade. Looking at affairs as
they stood at that time, Jordan Jackson said to himself that the
opportunity for him and his class had come. He had a profound
respect for the power and authority of the Government of the United
States, _because_ it had put down the Rebellion. He had been
two or three times at the North, and was astounded at its collective
greatness. He said that the colored man and the poor-whites of
the South ought to put themselves on the side of this great, busy
North, which had opened the way of liberty and progress before them,
and establish free schools and free thought and free labor in the
fair, crippled, South-land. He thought he saw a great and fair future
looming up before his country. He freely gave expression to these
ideas, and, as he traded very largely with the colored people, soon
came to be regarded by them as a leader, and by "the good people
of Horsford" as a low-down white nigger, for whom no epithet was
too vile.
Nevertheless, he grew in wealth, for he attended to his business
himself, early and late. He answered raillery with raillery,
curses with cursing, and abuse with defiance. He was elected to
conventions and Legislatures, where he did many foolish, some bad,
and a few wise things in the way of legislation. He knew what he
wanted--it was light, liberty, education, and a "fair hack" for
all men. How to get it he did not know.
He had been warned a thousand times that he must abandon this way
of life. The natural rulers of the county felt that if they could
neutralize his influence and that which went out from Red Wing, they
could prevent the exercise of ballatorial power by a considerable
portion of the majority, and by that means "redeem" the county.
They did not wish to hurt Jordan Jackson. He was a good enough man.
His father had been an honest man, and an old citizen. Nobody knew
a word against his wife or her family, except that they had been
poor. The people who had given their hearts to the Confederate
cause, remembered too, at first, his gallant service; but that had
all been wiped out from their minds by his subsequent "treachery."
Even after the attack on Red Wing, he had been warned by his friends
to desist.
One morning, he had found on the door of his store a paper containing
the following words, written inside a little sketch of a coffin:
[Illustration: JORDAN JACKSON, If you don't get out of here in
three days, you will go to the bone yard. K.K.K.]
He had answered this by a defiant, ill-spelled notice, pasted just
beside it, in which he announced himself as always ready to meet any
crowd of "cowards and villains who were ashamed of their own faces,
at any time, night or day." His card was English prose of a most
vigorous type, interspersed with so much of illiterate profanity as
to satisfy any good citizen that the best people of Horsford were
quite right in regarding him as a most desperate and dangerous
man--one of those whose influence upon the colored people was to
array them against the whites, and unless promptly put down, bring
about a war of races--which the white people were determined never
to have in Horsford, if they had to kill every Radical in the county
in order to live in peace with their former slaves, whom they had
always nourished with paternal affection and still regarded with
a most tender care.
This man met Hesden as the latter came out upon the porch, and with
a flushed face and a peculiar twitching about his mouth, asked if
he could see him in private for a moment.
Hesden led the way to his own room. Jackson then, having first shut
the door, cautiously said:
"You know me, Mr. Le Moyne?"
"Certainly, Jackson."
"An' you knew my father before me?"
"Of course. I knew old man Billy Jackson very well in my young
days."
"Did you ever know anything mean or disreputable about him?"
"No, certainly not; he was a very correct man, so far as I ever
heard."
"Poor but honest?"--with a sneer.
"Well, yes; a poor man, but a very correct man."
"Well, did you ever know anything disreputable about _me?_"
keenly.
"Well--why--Mr. Jackson--you--" stammered Hesden, much confused.
"Out with it!" angrily. "I'm a Radical?"
"Yes--and--you know, your political course has rendered you very
unpopular."
"Of course! A man has no right to his own political opinions."
"Well, but you know, Mr. Jackson, yours have been so peculiar
and so obnoxious to our best people. Besides, you have expressed
them so boldly and defiantly. I do not think our people have any
ill-feeling against you, personally; but you cannot wonder that
so great a change as we have had should excite many of them very
greatly. You should not be so violent, Mr. Jackson."
"Violent--Hell! You'd better go and preach peace to Eliab Hill.
Poor fellow! I don't reckon the man lives who ever heard him say
a harsh thing to any one. He was always that mild I used to wonder
the Lord didn't take him long ago. Nigger as he was, and cripple
as he was, I'd ruther had his religion than that of all the mean,
hypocritical, murdering aristocrats in Horsford."
"But, Mr. Jackson, you should not speak in that way of our best
citizens."
"Oh, the devil! I know--but that is no matter, Mr. Le Moyne. I
didn't come to argue with you. Did you ever hear anything agin' me
outside of my politics?"
"I don't know that I ever did."
"If you were in a tight place, would you have confidence in Jordan
Jackson as a friend?"
"You know I have reason to remember that," said Hesden, with feeling.
"You helped me when I could not help myself. It's not every man
that would care about his horse carrying double when he was running
away from the Yanks."
"Ah! you remember that, then?" with a touch of pride in his voice.
"Yes, indeed! Jackson," said Hesden, warmly.
"Well, would you do me a good turn to pay for that?"
"Certainly--anything that--" hesitating.
"Oh, damn it, man, don't strain yourself! I didn't ask any questions
when I helped you!"
"Mr. Jackson," said Hesden, with dignity, "I merely wished to say
that I do not care at this time to embroil myself in politics. You
know I have an old mother who is very feeble. I have long regretted
that affairs are in the condition that they are in, and have wondered
if something could not be done. Theoretically, you are right and
those who are with you. Practically, the matter is very embarrassing.
But I do not hesitate to say, Mr. Jackson, that those who commit
such outrages as that perpetrated at Red Wing disgrace the name
of gentleman, the county, and State, the age we live in, and the
religion we profess. That I _will_ say."
"And that's quite enough, Mr. Le Moyne. All I wanted was to ask
you to act as my trustee."
"Your trustee in what?"
"There is a deed I have just executed conveying everything I have
to you, and I want you to sell it off and dispose of it the best
you can, and send me the money."
"_Send_ it to you?"
"Yes, I'm going away."
"Going away? Why? You are not in debt?"
"I don't owe a hundred dollars."
"Then why are you doing this? I don't understand."
"Mr. Le Moyne," said Jackson, coming close to him and speaking in
a low intense tone, "I was _whipped_ last night!"
"Whipped!"
"Yes."
"By whom?"
"By my own neighbors, in the sight of my wife and daughter!"
"By the Ku Klux?"
"That's what they call themselves."
"My God, it cannot be!"
"Cannot?" The man's face twitched nervously, as, dropping his hat,
he threw off his light coat and, opening his shirt-collar and
turning away his head, showed his shoulder covered with wales,
still raw and bleeding.
"My God!" cried Hesden, as he put up his hand and started back in
horror. "And you a white man?"
"Yes, Mr. Le Moyne," said Jackson, turning his face, burning with
shame and indignation, toward his high-bred neighbor, "and the
only reason this was done--the only thing agin me--is that I was
honestly in favor of giving to the colored man the rights which
the law of the land says he shall have, like other men. When the
war was over, Mr. Le Moyne, I didn't 'give up,' as all you rich
folks talked about doing, and try to put up with what was to come
afterward. I hadn't lost nothing by the war, but, on the contrary,
had gained what I had no chance to git in any other way. So I
jest looked things square in the face and made up my mind that it
was a good thing for me, and all such as me, that the damned old
Confederacy was dead. And the more I thought on't the more I couldn't
help seein' and believin' that it was right and fair to free the
niggers and let them have a fair show and a white man's chance--votin'
and all. That's what I call a fair hack, and I swear, Mr. Le Moyne,
I don't know how it may seem to you, but to my mind any man that
ain't willing to let any other man have that, is a damn coward!
I'm as white as anybody, and hain't no more reason to stand up for
niggers than any of the rest of the white people--no, nor half as
much as most of 'em, for, as fur as I know, I hain't got no relations
among 'em. But I do say that if the white folks of the South can't
stand up to a fair fight with the niggers at the polls, without
cuttin', and murderin', and burnin', and shootin', and whippin',
and Ku Kluxin', and cheatin', and swindlin', they are a damned
no-'count people, and don't deserve no sort of show in the world--no
more than a mean, sneakin', venomous moccasin-snake--there!"
"But you don't think--" Hesden began.
"Think? Damn it, I _know_!" broke in Jackson. "They said if
I would quit standin' up for the niggers, they'd let me off, even
after they'd got me stripped and hung up. I wouldn't do it! I didn't
believe then they'd cut me up this way; but they did! An' now I'm
goin'. I'd stay an' fight, but 'tain't no use; an' I couldn't look
a man in the eye who I thought tuk a hand in that whippin' without
killin' him. I've got to go, Le Moyne," he said with clenched fists,
"or I shall commit murder before the sun goes down."
"Where are you going?"
"God knows! Somewhere where the world's free and the earth's fresh,
and where it's no crime to have been born poor or to uphold and
maintain the laws of the land."
"I'm sorry, Jackson, but I don't blame you. You can't live here in
peace, and you are wise to go," said Hesden, extending his hand.
"Will you be my trustee?"
"Yes."
"God bless you!"
The angry, crushed, and outraged man broke into tears as he shook
the hand he held.
There was an hour or two of close consultation, and then Hesden Le
Moyne looked thoughtfully after this earnest and well-meaning man,
who was compelled to flee from the land for which he had fought,
simply because he had adopted the policy and principles which the
conquering power had thrust into the fundamental law, and endeavored
to carry them out in good faith. Like the fugitive from slavery in
the olden time, he had started toward the North Pole on the quest
for liberty.