Young Owens got up about nine o'clock next morning, and while making his
toilet put some questions to his personal attendant, a rather bright
looking young mulatto of about his own age.
"Tom," said Dick.
"Yas, Mars Dick," responded the servant.
"I 'm going on a trip North. Would you like to go with me?"
Now, if there was anything that Tom would have liked to make, it was a
trip North. It was something he had long contemplated in the abstract,
but had never been able to muster up sufficient courage to attempt in
the concrete. He was prudent enough, however, to dissemble his feelings.
"I would n't min' it, Mars Dick, ez long ez you 'd take keer er me an'
fetch me home all right."
Tom's eyes belied his words, however, and his young master felt well
assured that Tom needed only a good opportunity to make him run away.
Having a comfortable home, and a dismal prospect in case of failure, Tom
was not likely to take any desperate chances; but young Owens was
satisfied that in a free State but little persuasion would be required
to lead Tom astray. With a very logical and characteristic desire to
gain his end with the least necessary expenditure of effort, he decided
to take Tom with him, if his father did not object.
Colonel Owens had left the house when Dick went to breakfast, so Dick
did not see his father till luncheon.
"Father," he remarked casually to the colonel, over the fried chicken,
"I 'm feeling a trifle run down. I imagine my health would be improved
somewhat by a little travel and change of scene."
"Why don't you take a trip North?" suggested his father. The colonel
added to paternal affection a considerable respect for his son as the
heir of a large estate. He himself had been "raised" in comparative
poverty, and had laid the foundations of his fortune by hard work; and
while he despised the ladder by which he had climbed, he could not
entirely forget it, and unconsciously manifested, in his intercourse
with his son, some of the poor man's deference toward the wealthy and
well-born.
"I think I 'll adopt your suggestion, sir," replied the son, "and run
up to New York; and after I 've been there awhile I may go on to Boston
for a week or so. I 've never been there, you know."
"There are some matters you can talk over with my factor in New York,"
rejoined the colonel, "and while you are up there among the Yankees, I
hope you 'll keep your eyes and ears open to find out what the rascally
abolitionists are saying and doing. They 're becoming altogether too
active for our comfort, and entirely too many ungrateful niggers are
running away. I hope the conviction of that fellow yesterday may
discourage the rest of the breed. I 'd just like to catch any one trying
to run off one of my darkeys. He 'd get short shrift; I don't think any
Court would have a chance to try him."
"They are a pestiferous lot," assented Dick, "and dangerous to our
institutions. But say, father, if I go North I shall want to take Tom
with me."
Now, the colonel, while a very indulgent father, had pronounced views on
the subject of negroes, having studied them, as he often said, for a
great many years, and, as he asserted oftener still, understanding them
perfectly. It is scarcely worth while to say, either, that he valued
more highly than if he had inherited them the slaves he had toiled and
schemed for.
"I don't think it safe to take Tom up North," he declared, with
promptness and decision. "He 's a good enough boy, but too smart to
trust among those low-down abolitionists. I strongly suspect him of
having learned to read, though I can't imagine how. I saw him with a
newspaper the other day, and while he pretended to be looking at a
woodcut, I 'm almost sure he was reading the paper. I think it by no
means safe to take him."
Dick did not insist, because he knew it was useless. The colonel would
have obliged his son in any other matter, but his negroes were the
outward and visible sign of his wealth and station, and therefore sacred
to him.
"Whom do you think it safe to take?" asked Dick. "I suppose I 'll have
to have a body-servant."
"What 's the matter with Grandison?" suggested the colonel. "He 's handy
enough, and I reckon we can trust him. He 's too fond of good eating,
to risk losing his regular meals; besides, he 's sweet on your mother's
maid, Betty, and I 've promised to let 'em get married before long. I 'll
have Grandison up, and we 'll talk to him. Here, you boy Jack," called
the colonel to a yellow youth in the next room who was catching flies
and pulling their wings off to pass the time, "go down to the barn and
tell Grandison to come here."
"Grandison," said the colonel, when the negro stood before him, hat in
hand.
"Yas, marster."
"Have n't I always treated you right?"
"Yas, marster."
"Have n't you always got all you wanted to eat?"
"Yas, marster."
"And as much whiskey and tobacco as was good for you, Grandison?"
"Y-a-s, marster."
"I should just like to know, Grandison, whether you don't think yourself
a great deal better off than those poor free negroes down by the plank
road, with no kind master to look after them and no mistress to give
them medicine when they 're sick and--and"----
"Well, I sh'd jes' reckon I is better off, suh, dan dem low-down free
niggers, suh! Ef anybody ax 'em who dey b'long ter, dey has ter say
nobody, er e'se lie erbout it. Anybody ax me who I b'longs ter, I ain'
got no 'casion ter be shame' ter tell 'em, no, suh, 'deed I ain', suh!"
The colonel was beaming. This was true gratitude, and his feudal heart
thrilled at such appreciative homage. What cold-blooded, heartless
monsters they were who would break up this blissful relationship of
kindly protection on the one hand, of wise subordination and loyal
dependence on the other! The colonel always became indignant at the mere
thought of such wickedness.
"Grandison," the colonel continued, "your young master Dick is going
North for a few weeks, and I am thinking of letting him take you along.
I shall send you on this trip, Grandison, in order that you may take
care of your young master. He will need some one to wait on him, and no
one can ever do it so well as one of the boys brought up with him on the
old plantation. I am going to trust him in your hands, and I 'm sure
you 'll do your duty faithfully, and bring him back home safe and
sound--to old Kentucky."
Grandison grinned. "Oh yas, marster, I 'll take keer er young Mars
Dick."
"I want to warn you, though, Grandison," continued the colonel
impressively, "against these cussed abolitionists, who try to entice
servants from their comfortable homes and their indulgent masters, from
the blue skies, the green fields, and the warm sunlight of their
southern home, and send them away off yonder to Canada, a dreary
country, where the woods are full of wildcats and wolves and bears,
where the snow lies up to the eaves of the houses for six months of the
year, and the cold is so severe that it freezes your breath and curdles
your blood; and where, when runaway niggers get sick and can't work,
they are turned out to starve and die, unloved and uncared for. I
reckon, Grandison, that you have too much sense to permit yourself to be
led astray by any such foolish and wicked people."
"'Deed, suh, I would n' low none er dem cussed, low-down abolitioners
ter come nigh me, suh. I 'd--I 'd--would I be 'lowed ter hit 'em, suh?"
"Certainly, Grandison," replied the colonel, chuckling, "hit 'em as hard
as you can. I reckon they 'd rather like it. Begad, I believe they
would! It would serve 'em right to be hit by a nigger!"
"Er ef I did n't hit 'em, suh," continued Grandison reflectively, "I 'd
tell Mars Dick, en _he 'd_ fix 'em. He 'd smash de face off'n 'em, suh,
I jes' knows he would."
"Oh yes, Grandison, your young master will protect you. You need fear no
harm while he is near."
"Dey won't try ter steal me, will dey, marster?" asked the negro, with
sudden alarm.
"I don't know, Grandison," replied the colonel, lighting a fresh cigar.
"They 're a desperate set of lunatics, and there 's no telling what they
may resort to. But if you stick close to your young master, and remember
always that he is your best friend, and understands your real needs, and
has your true interests at heart, and if you will be careful to avoid
strangers who try to talk to you, you 'll stand a fair chance of getting
back to your home and your friends. And if you please your master Dick,
he 'll buy you a present, and a string of beads for Betty to wear when
you and she get married in the fall."
"Thanky, marster, thanky, suh," replied Grandison, oozing gratitude at
every pore; "you is a good marster, to be sho', suh; yas, 'deed you is.
You kin jes' bet me and Mars Dick gwine git 'long jes' lack I wuz own
boy ter Mars Dick. En it won't be my fault ef he don' want me fer his
boy all de time, w'en we come back home ag'in."
"All right, Grandison, you may go now. You need n't work any more
to-day, and here 's a piece of tobacco for you off my own plug."
"Thanky, marster, thanky, marster! You is de bes' marster any nigger
ever had in dis worl'." And Grandison bowed and scraped and disappeared
round the corner, his jaws closing around a large section of the
colonel's best tobacco.
"You may take Grandison," said the colonel to his son. "I allow he 's
abolitionist-proof."