A HOUSE WARMING.
A skilled artisan in the employment of the local authorities had been
for many days surveying and diagramming, until a certain area of the old
plantation remote from the mansion was arranged in geometrical figures,
scientifically corespondent to each other, and there were curves and
angles artistically precise. If the reader will place before him a
miniature flag of the Turkish empire, the alignment of the tenements of
the negroes will be seen, the concave line of the crescent indicating
the position of the modest little houses of the freedmen, and the star
the position of the stately mansion of Mr. Alexander Wiggins, a former
slave of Colonel Seymour.
Up to the time of this unblushing trespass upon the private domain of
Colonel Seymour, and indeed afterwards, the negroes, like rodents, had
burrowed in colonies in old dank cellars and where ever else they could
find rest and shelter. This unhappy condition, post-dating the surrender
at Appomattox, had a demoralizing effect upon them. They became
spiritless and languid, or else vicious and vindictive. They felt that
freedom was an illusion, an ignis fatuus that they had been recklessly
pursuing, that lured them further into an impenetrable morass. In the
excited state of their ignorant minds they had been indulging feverish
and extravagant projects; chimerical notions of wealth and
aggrandizement, and again like inert bodies they would drop lifelessly
into the very depths of despair. It is impossible just now for the most
active imagination to conceive a condition of human society more
wretched. The sympathies of the old masters were moved; their humanity
shocked; their very hearts grieved at the injustice done under the
direction of the freedman's bureau in this violent and forced state of
things.
"An outrage," exclaimed the Colonel, "long matured, maliciously devised,
and boldly perpetrated. Fanatics! you have emancipated by fraud and
violence the slaves you affect to pity; you have doomed them to beggary,
outlawry, prostitution and crime! You have filled them with discontent
and made them to feel a chain they never felt before, and turned against
them the care and consideration of their own masters, while your red
squadrons of fanaticism are careering wildly through our plantations, so
lately scourged by the hurricane of war; you the minions of a power
confessedly omnipotent. Will you, too, destroy the Doric edifice of our
morals, the Corinthian porticoes of our religion, stifle the
denationalizing stream until it swells in great tides of blood? When the
incendiary is lightning his torch, and the vultures are looking on with
felon eyes, may the holy memories of the past give you pause."
Thus spoke the old man in the eloquence of high-wrought feeling, for his
country; for the poor negroes who, like bats and owls, were peopling
dens and holes of darkness in this "land of the free and home of the
brave."
On the night of the 15th of September the elegant mansion of Mr.
Wiggins, the pampered slave of Laflin, lay smiling and smirking in
beautiful frescoes from turret to foundation stone; astral lamps hung in
rich festoons, shimmered from dome and window and verandah, lighting up
the broad pebbly avenues that rayed out from the central vestibule.
It was a night of surprises, of merriment, of revelry, of rivalries;
when the bat and owl came out of their hollow, the cat out of its lair,
the negro out of his cabin, the ku-klux out of his skin. It was a night
that punctuated reconstruction with a red-hot iron, and dropped its dead
ashes upon a score of hearth-stones. It was a night that stealthily
removed the fifth wheel from the chariot of the bosses and dropped its
inert body into the road.
Ah! there were surprises! Corporal Ephraim Gillum was to take unto
himself a wife, and Priscilla Pinxly, a spinster, was to take unto
herself husband. No doleful Jeremiads in this carnival; no forbidding of
banns; no scandal on religion; no trespass on the law. "Ef dat ar white
gal is a mine ter jine hersef ter dat cullud gemman, who's ergwine ter
hender?"
There were ferns and smilax, hollies and magnolias; there was an altar
embellished with carnations, red and white; who shall say it was
profaned by this ceremonial? There were heavily groined parlors reposing
in velvety carpets, bric-a-brac and rugs. Here were the minions of
reconstruction in red, white and blue, the favorites of this
institutional era; here were the animated beauties of the town
bedizened, bejeweled and beflowered; here was the pompous celebrant in
patent-leather slippers and dress coat, Elder Tuttle, paying court to
the ladies.
Here was the bride, a very spare lady in the forties, with fishy eyes
and gold spectacles. Here was the groom, as black as an antarctic
midnight, reposing uncomfortably in a celluloid collar that cut a
transverse line through both cheeks, dressed in blue uniform with yellow
epaulets upon his shoulders as large as sunflowers; here were the bats
and owls, human earth burrowers, who were not wanted at the wedding
supper, peeping slyly in the windows; here was Mrs. Parthenia Wiggins
in silks and satins, and her lord in satins and silks; here was Joshua
an octogenarian in regimentals, looking like a revolutionary drum major
in masquerade, greeting the happy hostess with the exclamation:--"Pend
pon it, your ladyship, I smelt dat barbeku clean clar to my house fore
it was kilt," pausing now and then in his circuit around the supper
table, to cut "de pigon whing;" here was old Hannah, in hoops and
frills, "er following Joshua, frustated lak, kase some gal or udder mout
run erway wid him unbeknownist to her;" here was old Ned "er settin in
der chimney corner all by his lone lorn sef;" and then here was a
skeleton at the feast, a spectre at the banquet, who greeted neither
host, groom or bride----a living knight of the "White Camelia." Then
there was a pause; then there was a proclamation by the host: "All hands
eround fur de fust kertillien," and there was a voluntary shuffling of
slippered, sandalled and booted feet. Then the music struck up and all
went merry as a marriage bell. Castanets and cymbals, cornets and
trombones, distributed huge chunks of melody, chopped off the "Star
Spangled Banner," "Rally around the flag boys," "The Girl I left behind
me," and "Brudder Ephrum got de coon and gone on."
As the dance went on and on in the great hall the Kuklux slipped out of
the shadows and into the parlor and concealed himself behind the
embowered altar. Ned, at his suggestion, stole into the dining room, and
taking the cover off of the basted pig, brought it out and gave it to
the hideous creature, and still the dance went on. With uplifted hand
Mr. Wiggins cried "Tention ladies und gemman's. All you who's inwited to
the weddin follow me to the parlor," and the band struck up "Johnny get
your gun." "Come parson, you shassay in fust," and the parson struck
out in an Irish reel, and the crowd followed like flotsam upon a current
of water, tossing here and there, up and down, automatically, to the
music.
"Now breddin und sistern," exclaimed the parson in a nasal sing-song,
"range erlong side de haltar whilst I spaciate upon dis weddin. Now den,
fustly und foremustly, who gin dis bride away?"
"I does" replied Mr. Wiggins, pompously stepping to the front.
"Well, den, I'll persede wid de sallymony. Fustly und foremostly, I'm
agwine in my sebenty seben year, please God I lives to see de harvest
moon, und I has been a exhauster, und locus preacher, und surkus rider,
und slidin elder fust und last, und I've jined black ones und yallow
ones und yallow ones und black ones, und now I'm agwine ter jine a white
und black one togedder in de yoke of bondage, und in the bonds of
purgertory, ef I haint upset fore I gits froo by de kommisserys ob de
debbil."
"Land sakes alive!" ejaculated Joshua, as he brought his hollow jaws
together with a resounding crash, "Don't talk about de kommissery,
parson; I'm hungry rite now."
"Now den, ef der is any pusson or debbil, here or here erbout, who is
agwine to nullify dis weddin, I commands dem ter hold dere peace foreber
mo."
Instantly a hooded figure of gigantic stature, clad in a gown of
dragons' tongues, with small red lanterns burning in the socket of his
eyes, arose behind the parson. The audience, first paralyzed with fear,
now gave shriek after shriek which filled the house, as he gave an
unearthly yell and with the basted pig cudgelled the black parson over
the head as he leaped with a frantic cry into the bosom of the
spectacled bride, and then through glass and shutter out of the window.
"Kuklux! Kuklux!" shrieked the terrified negroes, as in desperation they
fled out of the house.
Joshua, in his frantic efforts to escape, ran his head against a heated
stove and red hot coals of fire were scattered over rug, carpet and
floor. As the last society lady somersaulted out of the window, great
tongues of fire were lapping up frieze and cornice, and facade, and the
cresent and star disappeared in a ghastly cincture of fire.
As Jake the Kuklux was passing near the cabin of Joshua the next
morning, on his way to the dark recesses of the swamp, he heard groans
and incoherent exclamations that caused him to knock at the door and ask
what was the matter. No answer came, but the groans were louder and more
frequent. He opened the door and entered. Joshua was lying on the bed
swathed in red flannel and Hannah, with a bandanna tied around her head,
was tossing to and fro in an old rickety chair, holding her jaw in both
hands.
"Hello!" exclaimed the Kuklux, "What ails you folkses."
"Who dat a woicing dat lamentashun?" cried Joshua. "Go lang away wid yu
white man, I aint agwine to be pestered," he continued.
"Hi there Aunt Hannah, what ails you?"
"Oh my Lord!" exclaimed Hannah, amid her groans. "Go lang way frum heer
I haint agwine to put mysef on ekality wid no low down white trash lak
you is." And Hannah kept sea-sawing in the rickety chair. Jake took a
slouching stride toward the fire-place and making the letter V with his
fingers spat in the fire and accidentally overturned a stew pan in which
two or three small catfish were cooking.
"Fo my King! white man," exclaimed Hannah wrathfully, "What hes yu gon
und dun now? I wishes yu would stay outen dis house. Now whar is
Joshaway agwine to git his supper er me udder?"
This lamentation caused Joshua to unswathe the bandage about his eyes
and he groaned louder and longer. "Dem was de onliest mouffel ob wittles
in dis house, und now me und Hannah hes got ter suck de fingers twell de
good Lord send us mo," he exclaimed mournfully.
"You lay dar spectin de Lord to send you mo, und you will be stark naked
as a picked ginny hen," said Hannah.
Jake squinted his right eye as he drawled out:
"You knows Aunt Hannah dat de Lord does feed his lambs, don't you."
"How cum Joshaway enny of his lambs? Mouter say he is de debbils old
billy gote," answered Hannah savagely.
"Kase I is one of his lambs," said Joshua. "How cums I goes to Filadelfy
meeting-house ebery fourth Sunday, und how cums I courages de moners,
und how cums I goes to de baptizin und totes de passons gown? Tell me
dat."
"Ugh! Ugh!" grunted Hannah; "I nebber seed de lams cutting up sich
shines in a grate house lak yu dun las nite; yu went to de weddin,
didn't yu Joshaway? Und yu seed de kommissery ob de debbil; did yu see
de Lord's lambs dare? und yu set yo mouf for de barbeku, didn't yu, und
yu seed a harrykane too, didn't yu?"
"Oh, yu go erlong way frum here," said Joshua, "I natally spises dese
heer biggity niggers dat is tarnally butting up agen de good Lord's
jedgements. You is fell frum grace, dat's what yu done," replied Joshua
deprecatingly.
"Is?" ejaculated Hannah. "Und yu fell frum something last nite. What was
dat?"
"Now dat dere tantalizing nigger thinks I fell outen de window, but I
clumb down de jice, dat is what I dun," angrily replied the old negro.
"When you seed de bride und de passon und de tother lams lak yu,
Joshaway? tell me dat!" continued old Hannah provokingly.
"Nuff sed Hannah, yu dun und sot my po hed er akin wusser. You is de
debbils own billy gote not me."
Reaching down into his greasy haversack the Kuklux brought out a great
chunk of barbecue, and flourished it around old Joshua's head like a
musician's baton.
"Dar now Hannah, what I tole yu, you sees whar my fafe is, don't yu?"
said Joshua smiling. "Don't de Scriptur sez how dat ef yu hes fafe, ef
yu hes fafe," he repeated with emphasis, "you can tote away mountains,
tell me dat?"
"It mout," answered Hannah quizzically, "und den agin it mout'nt. Do hit
say anyfing erbout barbyku?" continued Hannah, "Tell me dat."
"Oh, go long, nigger," tartly answered Joshua; "I haint ergwine ter
argify de question no mo wid a debilish nigger dat actally mistrusts de
bible; yu is dun und sot in yo ways, und all Filadelfy church aint
ergwine ter save yu, nudder."
"Not ef it is ergwine ter preach dat dar kind ob fafe. I wudn't put no
pendence in de slidin elder ef he was to say pine plank dat dat dar
barbyku is in de bible."
"Don't de scriptur say how dat a passel ob horgs broke er loose outen de
gap und run down er hill und choked up de sea? Tell me dat? Und what
does yu make barbeku outen? Catfishes I spose!" asked Joshua
contemptuously.
Hannah turned her back upon the old negro with the observation, "You is
er black satan kotin de scriptur."
And all the time the musician's baton was marking curves around old
Joshua's head, and Joshua's hollow eyes, as if under the spell of a
mesmerist, were moving mechanically right and left, left and right,
while his great mouth was yawning like a cavern in a red marl pit.
"Boss," he exclaimed, "ef yu eber specks tu giv me ary mouful ob dat ar
barbyku, fur de Lawd's sake drap hit rite inter dis heer mouf," and he
brought his old jaws together with a resounding crash, like an alligator
biting at a leaping frog.
The ku-klux, without further teasing, gave the big chunk of meat to
Joshua, who devoured it like a starved dog.
"Haint yu ergwine ter give me nun?" asked Hannah.
Joshua slowly replied between bites,
"Yu is got er gripin misery now, Hanner, und ef yu wuz ter your dis
peppery stuff und tuck wid a gripin pain, I'd neber hear de eend ob it.
De nex time I'm ergwine ter give yu a grate big hunk, perwidin yu haint
got no gripin misery ur nuffin," he continued as he gnawed the last
piece of gristle from the bone.
"Boss," he observed, as he wiped his capacious mouth, "ef I hadn't bin
ticed erway by dat nigger sea-sawin ober dar, I wudn't er bin in dis
heer fixment. De women fokeses fotched de debil in dis heer wurld, und
bress de Lawd when dey is ceasded dey is ergwine ter take him erlong wid
dem. Does yer see how slak-sided I'se got? Look at dese ole holler eyes;
yu kin jamby play marbles in dem. I'm ergwine rite strate back ter ole
marser, lak dat progigle man in de scriptur, und I'm ergwine ter tell
him he mout hab my freedom. I'd ruther hab de tarrifyin fever dan be a
franksized woter. I wishes ole Laflin had er died fo' he wuz born,
upsottin de niggers, und dey ergwine erbout lak ragged ruffins, wid
nuffin ter do but beatin drums und wotin yaller tickets. Dar aint narry
grane o' rest nite nor day. Peers lak Hanner she gits sick de wery
wustest time in de wurld, und when she aint ailin she's tarnally moufin
erbout no meal in de gum und no catfish es in de stew-pan. De Lawd knows
dis ole stractified nigger hes sucked misery long ernuff. I haint neber
node ole marser ter turn his back on nobody, und es fur Miss Alice, her
purty white hans is wide open all de time, und she do say 'Uncle
Joshaway' de hebenliest I eber seed."
With these heartfelt expressions the old negro maintained a dead
silence, and Hannah, like the Temanite of old, essayed to answer,
"Yu needn't blame it all on me, dat yu needn't. Enybody er seein yu er
wourin up dat grate big hunk o' meat mout hab node yu wuz er horgish
nigger, und hit maks no diffunce who parishes so yo stumick is full. Er
lyin dar now er pickin yo ole snags und er hikkerpen es full es er dorg
tick, und me er settin here er fairly rackin wid mizry."
"Hush Hannah," interrupted Joshua, "nuff is nuff, ef yu had er wourd dat
barbyku und tuck defly sick, dar wudn't been no sleep in dis house dis
nite. 'Twant kase I hankered fo dat leetle grain ob fresh meat dat I
didn't wide wid yu, twas kase I knowd it was gwine gin yo stummick."
"Bress God," answered Hannah, "you's er powerful doctor, er puttin yo
mouf on sick folkses dat is peert und harty," and Hannah began
sea-sawing again.