I
Uncle Wellington Braboy was so deeply absorbed in thought as he walked
slowly homeward from the weekly meeting of the Union League, that he let
his pipe go out, a fact of which he remained oblivious until he had
reached the little frame house in the suburbs of Patesville, where he
lived with aunt Milly, his wife. On this particular occasion the club
had been addressed by a visiting brother from the North, Professor
Patterson, a tall, well-formed mulatto, who wore a perfectly fitting
suit of broadcloth, a shiny silk hat, and linen of dazzling
whiteness,--in short, a gentleman of such distinguished appearance that
the doors and windows of the offices and stores on Front Street were
filled with curious observers as he passed through that thoroughfare in
the early part of the day. This polished stranger was a traveling
organizer of Masonic lodges, but he also claimed to be a high officer in
the Union League, and had been invited to lecture before the local
chapter of that organization at Patesville.
The lecture had been largely attended, and uncle* Wellington Braboy had
occupied a seat just in front of the platform. The subject of the
lecture was "The Mental, Moral, Physical, Political, Social, and
Financial Improvement of the Negro Race in America," a theme much dwelt
upon, with slight variations, by colored orators. For to this struggling
people, then as now, the problem of their uncertain present and their
doubtful future was the chief concern of life. The period was the
hopeful one. The Federal Government retained some vestige of authority
in the South, and the newly emancipated race cherished the delusion that
under the Constitution, that enduring rock on which our liberties are
founded, and under the equal laws it purported to guarantee, they would
enter upon the era of freedom and opportunity which their Northern
friends had inaugurated with such solemn sanctions. The speaker pictured
in eloquent language the state of ideal equality and happiness enjoyed
by colored people at the North: how they sent their children to school
with the white children; how they sat by white people in the churches
and theatres, ate with them in the public restaurants, and buried their
dead in the same cemeteries. The professor waxed eloquent with the
development of his theme, and, as a finishing touch to an alluring
picture, assured the excited audience that the intermarriage of the
races was common, and that he himself had espoused a white woman.
Uncle Wellington Braboy was a deeply interested listener. He had heard
something of these facts before, but his information had always come in
such vague and questionable shape that he had paid little attention to
it. He knew that the Yankees had freed the slaves, and that runaway
negroes had always gone to the North to seek liberty; any such equality,
however, as the visiting brother had depicted, was more than uncle
Wellington had ever conceived as actually existing anywhere in the
world. At first he felt inclined to doubt the truth of the speaker's
statements; but the cut of his clothes, the eloquence of his language,
and the flowing length of his whiskers, were so far superior to anything
uncle Wellington had ever met among the colored people of his native
State, that he felt irresistibly impelled to the conviction that nothing
less than the advantages claimed for the North by the visiting brother
could have produced such an exquisite flower of civilization. Any
lingering doubts uncle Wellington may have felt were entirely dispelled
by the courtly bow and cordial grasp of the hand with which the visiting
brother acknowledged the congratulations showered upon him by the
audience at the close of his address.
The more uncle Wellington's mind dwelt upon the professor's speech, the
more attractive seemed the picture of Northern life presented. Uncle
Wellington possessed in large measure the imaginative faculty so freely
bestowed by nature upon the race from which the darker half of his blood
was drawn. He had indulged in occasional day-dreams of an ideal state of
social equality, but his wildest flights of fancy had never located it
nearer than heaven, and he had felt some misgivings about its practical
working even there. Its desirability he had never doubted, and the
speech of the evening before had given a local habitation and a name to
the forms his imagination had bodied forth. Giving full rein to his
fancy, he saw in the North a land flowing with milk and honey,--a land
peopled by noble men and beautiful women, among whom colored men and
women moved with the ease and grace of acknowledged right. Then he
placed himself in the foreground of the picture. What a fine figure he
would have made in the world if he had been born at the free North! He
imagined himself dressed like the professor, and passing the
contribution-box in a white church; and most pleasant of his dreams, and
the hardest to realize as possible, was that of the gracious white lady
he might have called wife. Uncle Wellington was a mulatto, and his
features were those of his white father, though tinged with the hue of
his mother's race; and as he lifted the kerosene lamp at evening, and
took a long look at his image in the little mirror over the mantelpiece,
he said to himself that he was a very good-looking man, and could have
adorned a much higher sphere in life than that in which the accident of
birth had placed him. He fell asleep and dreamed that he lived in a
two-story brick house, with a spacious flower garden in front, the whole
inclosed by a high iron fence; that he kept a carriage and servants, and
never did a stroke of work. This was the highest style of living in
Patesville, and he could conceive of nothing finer.
Uncle Wellington slept later than usual the next morning, and the
sunlight was pouring in at the open window of the bedroom, when his
dreams were interrupted by the voice of his wife, in tones meant to be
harsh, but which no ordinary degree of passion could rob of their native
unctuousness.
"Git up f'm dere, you lazy, good-fuh-nuffin' nigger! Is you gwine ter
sleep all de mawnin'? I 's ti'ed er dis yer runnin' 'roun' all night an'
den sleepin' all day. You won't git dat tater patch hoed ovuh ter-day
'less'n you git up f'm dere an' git at it."
Uncle Wellington rolled over, yawned cavernously, stretched himself, and
with a muttered protest got out of bed and put on his clothes. Aunt
Milly had prepared a smoking breakfast of hominy and fried bacon, the
odor of which was very grateful to his nostrils.
"Is breakfus' done ready?" he inquired, tentatively, as he came into the
kitchen and glanced at the table.
"No, it ain't ready, an' 't ain't gwine ter be ready 'tel you tote dat
wood an' water in," replied aunt Milly severely, as she poured two
teacups of boiling water on two tablespoonfuls of ground coffee.
Uncle Wellington went down to the spring and got a pail of water, after
which he brought in some oak logs for the fire place and some lightwood
for kindling. Then he drew a chair towards the table and started to sit
down.
"Wonduh what 's de matter wid you dis mawnin' anyhow," remarked aunt
Milly. "You must 'a' be'n up ter some devilment las' night, fer yo'
recommemb'ance is so po' dat you fus' fergit ter git up, an' den fergit
ter wash yo' face an' hands fo' you set down ter de table. I don' 'low
nobody ter eat at my table dat a-way."
"I don' see no use 'n washin' 'em so much," replied Wellington wearily.
"Dey gits dirty ag'in right off, an' den you got ter wash 'em ovuh
ag'in; it 's jes' pilin' up wuk what don' fetch in nuffin'. De dirt don'
show nohow, 'n' I don' see no advantage in bein' black, ef you got to
keep on washin' yo' face 'n' han's jes' lack w'ite folks." He
nevertheless performed his ablutions in a perfunctory way, and resumed
his seat at the breakfast-table.
"Ole 'oman," he asked, after the edge of his appetite had been taken
off, "how would you lack ter live at de Norf?"
"I dunno nuffin' 'bout de Norf," replied aunt Milly. "It 's hard 'nuff
ter git erlong heah, whar we knows all erbout it."
"De brother what 'dressed de meetin' las' night say dat de wages at de
Norf is twicet ez big ez dey is heah."
"You could make a sight mo' wages heah ef you 'd 'ten' ter yo' wuk
better," replied aunt Milly.
Uncle Wellington ignored this personality, and continued, "An' he say de
cullud folks got all de privileges er de w'ite folks,--dat dey chillen
goes ter school tergedder, dat dey sets on same seats in chu'ch, an'
sarves on jury, 'n' rides on de kyars an' steamboats wid de w'ite folks,
an' eats at de fus' table."
"Dat 'u'd suit you," chuckled aunt Milly, "an' you 'd stay dere fer de
secon' table, too. How dis man know 'bout all dis yer foolis'ness?" she
asked incredulously.
"He come f'm de Norf," said uncle Wellington, "an' he 'speunced it all
hisse'f."
"Well, he can't make me b'lieve it," she rejoined, with a shake of her
head.
"An' you would n' lack ter go up dere an' 'joy all dese privileges?"
asked uncle Wellington, with some degree of earnestness.
The old woman laughed until her sides shook. "Who gwine ter take me up
dere?" she inquired.
"You got de money yo'se'f."
"I ain' got no money fer ter was'e," she replied shortly, becoming
serious at once; and with that the subject was dropped.
Uncle Wellington pulled a hoe from under the house, and took his way
wearily to the potato patch. He did not feel like working, but aunt
Milly was the undisputed head of the establishment, and he did not dare
to openly neglect his work.
In fact, he regarded work at any time as a disagreeable necessity to be
avoided as much as possible.
His wife was cast in a different mould. Externally she would have
impressed the casual observer as a neat, well-preserved, and
good-looking black woman, of middle age, every curve of whose ample
figure--and her figure was all curves--was suggestive of repose. So far
from being indolent, or even deliberate in her movements, she was the
most active and energetic woman in the town. She went through the
physical exercises of a prayer-meeting with astonishing vigor. It was
exhilarating to see her wash a shirt, and a study to watch her do it up.
A quick jerk shook out the dampened garment; one pass of her ample palm
spread it over the ironing-board, and a few well-directed strokes with
the iron accomplished what would have occupied the ordinary laundress
for half an hour.
To this uncommon, and in uncle Wellington's opinion unnecessary and
unnatural activity, his own habits were a steady protest. If aunt Milly
had been willing to support him in idleness, he would have acquiesced
without a murmur in her habits of industry. This she would not do, and,
moreover, insisted on his working at least half the time. If she had
invested the proceeds of her labor in rich food and fine clothing, he
might have endured it better; but to her passion for work was added a
most detestable thrift. She absolutely refused to pay for Wellington's
clothes, and required him to furnish a certain proportion of the family
supplies. Her savings were carefully put by, and with them she had
bought and paid for the modest cottage which she and her husband
occupied. Under her careful hand it was always neat and clean; in summer
the little yard was gay with bright-colored flowers, and woe to the
heedless pickaninny who should stray into her yard and pluck a rose or a
verbena! In a stout oaken chest under her bed she kept a capacious
stocking, into which flowed a steady stream of fractional currency. She
carried the key to this chest in her pocket, a proceeding regarded by
uncle Wellington with no little disfavor. He was of the opinion--an
opinion he would not have dared to assert in her presence--that his
wife's earnings were his own property; and he looked upon this stocking
as a drunkard's wife might regard the saloon which absorbed her
husband's wages.
Uncle Wellington hurried over the potato patch on the morning of the
conversation above recorded, and as soon as he saw aunt Milly go away
with a basket of clothes on her head, returned to the house, put on his
coat, and went uptown.
He directed his steps to a small frame building fronting on the main
street of the village, at a point where the street was intersected by
one of the several creeks meandering through the town, cooling the air,
providing numerous swimming-holes for the amphibious small boy, and
furnishing water-power for grist-mills and saw-mills. The rear of the
building rested on long brick pillars, built up from the bottom of the
steep bank of the creek, while the front was level with the street. This
was the office of Mr. Matthew Wright, the sole representative of the
colored race at the bar of Chinquapin County. Mr. Wright came of an "old
issue" free colored family, in which, though the negro blood was present
in an attenuated strain, a line of free ancestry could be traced beyond
the Revolutionary War. He had enjoyed exceptional opportunities, and
enjoyed the distinction of being the first, and for a long time the only
colored lawyer in North Carolina. His services were frequently called
into requisition by impecunious people of his own race; when they had
money they went to white lawyers, who, they shrewdly conjectured, would
have more influence with judge or jury than a colored lawyer, however
able.
Uncle Wellington found Mr. Wright in his office. Having inquired after
the health of the lawyer's family and all his relations in detail, uncle
Wellington asked for a professional opinion.
"Mistah Wright, ef a man's wife got money, whose money is dat befo' de
law--his'n er her'n?"