ONE mornin’ we wuz all a settin’ out on the big piazza, for it wuz a
cloudless day, and it wuz exceedingly pleasant out there.
Snow wuz a settin’ to one side a playin’ with her little dolly that I
had carried down to her—a nice one, with real hair, and very round
blue eyes and red cheeks.
I bought it at Loontown, at a expense of over seventy-five cents, and
dressed it myself, with a little of Philury’s help about the boddist
waist.
Its dress wuz pink cambrick trimmed heavy with white linen lace—it wuz
some I had on a nightcap, but it wuz so firm it had wore the nightcap
out. It wuz a very good and amiable-lookin’ doll when we had got it all
trimmed off, and Snow thought her eyes on it.
She had named it to once Samantha Maggie Tirzah Ann.
“After the hull caboodle on us,” as Josiah said; but at my request she
called it Dolly.
Good land! I thought I never could hear her a goin’ round a talkin’
about Samantha Maggie Tirzah Ann. The idee! It would have been too much
for her.
Wall, she wuz a settin’ a playin’ with Dolly, and anon sort o’ lookin’
up and talkin’ to somebody she didn’t see. Wuzn’t it queer how she
would always do this, and smile confidential at ’em, and wave her
little white hand to ’em sometimes, as if in greetin’ or good-bye?
Queer, but pretty in her, so I always thought.
I wish I knew who she had in her mind when she done it, or if she see
anybody or hearn anybody. For once in a while she would sort o’ lift up
her little smilin’ face and seem to listen—listen.
Wall, she wuz a beautiful child—and every child has its pretty ways
and its dretful curius ones, its angel traits and its tuther ones.
Bless their sweet hearts, wherever they be! I love the hull on ’em, and
can’t help it.
Boy wuz a layin’ in his little crib, and Genieve wuz a settin’ by it
a mindin’ the child. And my son and daughter, Thomas Jefferson and
Maggie, wuz a settin’ near each other (that is where they would always
be if they had their own way).
Thomas J. was readin’ a little to her out of a new book that come in
a box of books the night before, and Maggie wuz a sewin’ on a little
white dress for Boy.
[Illustration: “A PERFECT DAGON.”]
Cousin John Richard wuz partly a layin’ down on a bamboo couch with a
lot of pillows to his back—he had had a dretful backache for a day
or two. But he wuz a lookin’ some more comfortable than he had, and not
quite so wan, but he wuz still fur wanner than I loved to see him. I
myself wuz a knittin’ and occasionally a liftin’ my eyes to look over
the path that led to the village, for my companion had walked down
there to get a pair of new suspenders.
I knew it wuzn’t time for him to get back yet; but such is woman’s
love, I kep’ watch of the track on which I expected to see the beloved
form approachin’ bimeby.
That man is almost my idol.
It hain’t right to worship a human creeter I know; and then agin,
sometimes, when I would meditate on the wickedness of my bein’ so
completely wrapped up in him, I have tried to exonerate myself by this
thought:
The children of Israel wuz commanded not to worship anything that wuz
like anything else in heaven or on earth. And I have sometimes felt
that I would get clear on that head if I knelt to him every day and
burned incense under him, and made a perfect Dagon of him.
For my dear companion is truly onlike anything I ever see or hearn on;
his demeaners is different, and his acts and his talk under excitement.
And his linement looks fur different from any other folks’es linements.
But I am a digressin’, and to resoom.
We sot there as happy as a nest full of turkle doves, when all of a
sudden the girl come up with a card on a little silver server, and
handed it to Maggie as if it wuz a cracker or a cup of tea, and Maggie
took it and read out:
“Colonel Seybert.”
And Thomas J. spoke up and told the girl to ask the Colonel out there
where we wuz; and so she did, and sot him a chair by Thomas J., out
amongst the rose-vines.
He come in as polite as ever, and accosted us all in a very genteel
way. He had brought Maggie a great bunch of orchids, and said “the
Madam had sent them to her with her compliments.”
He meant his wife—he most always called her so.
The posys he brought wuz very rare. They grow on air mostly, and only
have the very slightest soil to connect ’em with the earth.
And from all accounts (I thought to myself) that wuz the way that his
angel of a wife lived herself. Almost all of the roots of her sweet
nater wuz in heaven. Jest enough connection with this world so all
could see the brightness and bloom and size of the divine flower of
holiness that sprung up out of her lone, unhappy life.
Maggie took the flowers and thanked him, and told him to tell Mrs.
Seybert how much she prized her kind thoughtfulness, and how sorry she
wuz to hear of her continued ill health.
That woman, from all I hear, hain’t long for this world.
Wall, they all passed the time of day in politeness and general
conversation, till—for my life I can’t hardly tell how it begun—but
I believe Col. Seybert had had some trouble with his colored help—but
anyway and tenny rate, Col. Seybert launched out into a perfect tirade
of abuse of the black race.
He didn’t notice Genieve a settin’ there no more’n a ice-cold avalanche
would stay its course for a idlewiss blossom—no; it would crunch right
along down and crush the blossom without any pity or compunction.
Good land! you don’t look for pity, or consideration, or any other of
the soft, warm-souled graces in a avalanche of snow and ice, or the
nater of a bad man.
But I jest think my eyes of Genieve, and so duz Maggie and all on
us, and we every one on us tried to turn the conversation into more
peaceful channels.
Why, I myself brung up religion, turnips, catnip, the tariff, the
Dismal Swamp, and oranges, a tryin’ to get his mind off.
And Maggie brung up as many, if not more’n I did, and Thomas J. the
same, and etcetery.
And even little Snow, seemin’ to understand what wuz incumbent on
her to do as a little lady, brung up the doll and showed her to the
Colonel, and called her by her hull name, Samantha Maggie Tirzah Ann.
As for Cousin John Richard, we didn’t expect no outlay of strength from
him, feelin’, as he did, in pain all the time.
But Maggie, seein’, I spoze, our efforts wuz futiler than we could
hope, tried to make another diversion by orderin’ in a pitcher of
drink made from the juice of oranges and pineapples, very sweet and
delicious. But he drinked it right off and went on; it seemed to jest
refresh him and renew his strength to talk—we see he couldn’t be
stopped nohow.
And seein’ he wuz a neighbor, and seein’ that Genieve sot there jest
as calm as a mornin’ in June, and didn’t seem to care a mite about his
talk, why, we had to let him take his swing and talk his talk out.
But before several minutes had passed I jest found myself a soarin’
up onbeknown to myself, and I felt that I must, if he went on much
longer, jest wade in and give him a piece of my mind, and I felt that I
shouldn’t scrimp him in the piece nuther.
Why, his talk wuz scandalous.
He talked as if the blacks wuz of no more consequence than so many
black ants on a ant-hill, and it seemed as if he would love to jest
walk right over ’em and crush ’em all down under his heel.
Why, he showed such a deadly horstility, and contempt, and scorn to ’em
and to everything connected with ’em, that at last I had to speak out.
And sez I, “If you feel like that, I shouldn’t think you would oppose
’em in their skeme of colonization.” (I knew jest how bitter he had
been about his brother Victor goin’, and the rest of his laborers.)
Sez I, “I should think, if you had such a opinion of ’em, the sooner
you could get rid of the hull caboodle of ’em the better you would like
it.”
He fairly scowled, he looked so mad.
But the thought of Genieve sort o’ boyed me up, and duty, and I didn’t
care for his black looks, not a mite.
And I felt that bein’ a visitor myself, I could branch out and argue
with him to a better advantage to the laws of horspitality than
if I wuz master or mistress of the house. So, as I sez, seein’ him
determined to cut and slash, I jest boldly waded in.
But, good land! of all the talk, he did go on and talk about the deep
and stupendous folly of colonization.
Why, he brung up every argument he could think on aginst the idee, and
piled ’em up in front of me. But I jest sot there calmly a knittin’, a
seamin’ two and one, and a not bein’ skairt by any of ’em.
And pretty soon—I spoze it wuz seein’ that I looked as calm as a
summer day—he sort o’ curbed himself in, as it were, and begun to talk
some calmer and composeder.
And sez he, “If there wuz no other insurmountable objection, look at
the expense, the enormous cost of taking the blacks to Africa and
supporting ’em there till they could become self-supporting.”
And I sez, “Will it make the conundrum any easier to get the answer
to, to wait till the black people are twice as numerous? They obey the
Bible strictly when it tells ’em to multiply and replenish the earth.
In less than twenty years they will outnumber the white race here by a
million or more. What will be done then?”
“Keep them under,” sez he. “Let them keep their place, the place the
Lord designed them for, as servants to the white man. And then,” sez
he, “one white man could control a hundred of the beasts.”
But I sez, “To say nuthin’ of the right or wrong of that matter, that
day has gone by. They have tasted the air of freedom, and that sweet
air always blows out the flower of liberty, not slavery. You can’t
put ’em back in their chains agin. Education and culture and the
Emancipation Proclamation has forever done away with that.
“You can never make ’em slaves agin, but you can be their slaves.
The white race, so long dominant, if it still cultivates the habits
of tyranny, and cruelty, and injustice, it can be made slaves to the
dominant black race; for it is, as you well know, only a question of a
few years when they will outnumber the white people here.
“And which would you ruther have, the black shadow growin’ deeper
and deeper every year on this continent, and sectional hatred and
race prejudice, and fear, and distrust, and jealousy, and alarm,
and a constant variance all the time, onrest, and despair, and
helplessness—which would you ruther have, them cruel spirits to camp
down by you for good, and a growin’ worse all the time, or to make a
big effort and heave the load off for good, and clear the air of all
the bad atmosphere of internal and inevitable war, and let Peace settle
down on this onhappy land agin? For it would be jest as great a relief
to the oppressor as to the oppressed. Lots of good folks South have all
their life groaned under this problem of what to do with this burden
laid upon their backs by their ancestors.
“They wanted to do right, but didn’t see their way clear. They wanted
to solve this problem, but it wuz too big for ’em.”
Then Maggie, bless her sweet soul, spoke up, and sez she, “_I_ believe
in the great power of Christianity and education.”
And Col. Seybert sez, “They have got too much education now; that is
what ails the brutish upstarts. In the old times, when they couldn’t
read nor write nor put on any of their cursed airs, you could get along
as well again with them.”
Cousin John Richard bent on him a look that held in each eye a hull
Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments, besides lots of Gospel,
and pity, and a sort of contempt too.
It wuz a strange look.
But I wouldn’t demean myself by even answerin’ him, but replied to my
daughter, and sez:
“I don’t see how any one can help thinkin’ that Christianity and
education are the best solutions of this problem that can possibly
be found if the black man remains here,” or wherever he is, I added
reasonably, in my own mind.
“These, with an educated sufferage, that includes the best of black and
white, male and female, bond and free, is, in my opinion, the only hope
of this Nation under these circumstances.
“But,” sez I, “religion, though it can do almost anything, yet there
are some things it hain’t never done, and I don’t spoze ever will do:
it hain’t never took the spots offen a leopard’s back or made a jackal
coo like a dove or a serpent walk upright, or a turkle dove mate with a
tiger.
“The One who made all nater and true religion, who holds the heavens
and earth and seas in His hands, has laid down certain laws ever sence
the creation of the world. And it is perfectly impossible for us to
break down them laws, or climb over ’em, or creep under ’em.
“There they are, firm, immutible, not to be stirred one jot or tittle
by all the strength that can be brought to bear aginst ’em. And
Hypocrisy and Cant hain’t a goin’ to help any by sayin’ that Religion
is a doin’ sunthin’ that it can’t do.
“So, what can we do? All we have got to do in this matter is to
acknowledge them laws and submit to ’em; ignorin’ ’em or walkin’ by
’em with our heads up in the air a pretendin’ we don’t see ’em don’t
amount to anything at all, only we are liable to stumble and fall down
ourselves.
“And one of these laws is the inherient difference between the black
and the white races.
“There is no use a arguin’ on it and a sayin’ that it is onreasonable,
and it ort to be overcome, etc.
“Who sez it is reasonable? I don’t. It would be awful convenient
sometimes if water would run up hill; but it won’t. And I have to
accept the plain fact and lug the water up hill in a pail. For me to
stand on top of the hill and holler for it to come up would be foolish.
I might yell all my life, and couldn’t start a drop up hill, and my
lungs would be tired out for nuthin’. And you might think sometimes
that a good old childless cat might adopt a mouse; but she won’t, only
in one way. Mebby it hain’t Christian in her, but she wuz made that
way. If she accepts it at all, it will be inside of her. I can’t help
it, and she can’t. She wuz made that way before the mountains wuz
formed, like as not.
“Religion can do much, but it never has made black white or put the
nater of a eagle into a snail, or the virtues of a angel under the hide
of a bear.
“And the spellin’ book is extremely desirable and good, and highly
worthy, and to be praised. But then there are things too strong for
education to overcome. For instance, to draw up the simely that I have
drawed before—it hain’t poetick, but one which is familiar to men or
wimmen: Education can’t put a number seven foot into a number three
shoe.
“No, it can’t be did, and education may orate to them big toes in Greek
or Latin, and it may read essays to ’em in words of seven or eight
syllables, and quote all the poets to ’em, livin’ or dead, but it
hain’t a goin’ to quell ’em down, and make ’em any smaller. It hain’t a
goin’ to get ’em into that shoe.
“And when folks talk too much about the sudden miracles that education
and Christian teachin’ is going to do to the black race, and seem to
expect ’em to become perfect all to once, I want to ask ’em why it
hain’t made our own race perfect?
“The white race has had the benefit of Christianity and Education for
hundreds of years, and all the means of culture, and it hain’t hendered
’em from bein’ as mean as the Old Harry to the black man, and they
despise and wrong the negro jest as much to-day as if St. Paul had
never preached or Jesus had not died for the world.”
(I meant some on ’em—I didn’t mean all; but I wuz kinder carried away
by my own eloquence.)
“Now,” sez I, “it is a settled thing, and can’t be got round, this
inherient, instinctive difference between the black and white races—if
they would, they never _can_ amalgamate and be a united people.
“I have said it and repeated it time and agin, and it is true every
time, and will keep on bein’ true ‘after my poor, feeble, falterin’
tongue lies silent in the grave.’”
I sez this in a kinder him axent, very strikin’ and touchin’, but Col.
Seybert wuzn’t touched nor struck by it, as I could see; but I kep’ on
all the same.
“As I have said, time and agin, this law has stood ever sence creation;
and so what is the use of thinkin’ it can be broke up by writin’ on a
little slip of paper at Washington, D. C.?
“Good land! angels and principalities, and powers, and things present
and things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creeter has
never made any difference in that law, nor never will.
“And then how silly to think a little mite of paper, made out of old
rags and straw, mebby, and wrote over with a few man-made words by
a steel pen, is a goin’ to overcome this law and vanquish it! Why,
it can’t be done. And your talk, and my talk, and talk from all the
pulpits and legislators in the world is only a few whiffs of air a
blowin’ over this law—a refreshin’ of it, so to speak.
“Now, this is a settled thing, and it only remains for us to deal with
it the best way we can.”
Col. Seybert, I believe, wuz fairly browbeat and stunted to hear such
remarkable eloquence from a female; but he wouldn’t demean himself by
ownin’ it—in fact, he wanted to give me a rebuke for venturin’ out of
what he considered a woman’s spear.
He did not dain a reply to me, but he kinder wheeled round in his chair
and accosted Cousin John Richard. He hadn’t said a word to him—only
when he wuz introduced to him he passed the usual compliments. But
he had hearn about him a sight, I know, and his labors amongst the
freedmen, and I spoze mebby half of his mean talk had been aimed at
that good creeter a layin’ there on the lounge with a rug over his feet
and three plasters onto his dear achin’ back.
And then he didn’t want to hear me talk any more—I could see that, and
he branched right off onto another branch of the subject, and sez he to
John Richard:
“I should think your preaching would have some effect if you are a
preacher of Christ. You ought to teach the niggers to depend on the
consolation of the Gospel, and you ought to preach the Gospel of Peace;
and that means, I should think, to have the niggers obey their masters,
and so save war and bloodshed, instead of inciting them to rebellion
and putting absurd ideas into their heads about colonization and a
country of their own.” He spoke in a dretful sneerin’, disagreeable
tone, that madded me more’n considerable; but John Richard’s face wuz
as serene as new milk, and he answered calmly, in a voice kinder low
from sickness, but clear as a silver bell:
“The Book says, ‘There is a time for peace and a time to resist
oppression.’”
And I spoke up agin, bein’ bound to take John Richard’s part, and keep
him from talkin’ all I could, sick as he wuz, and them plasters all a
drawin’.
I sez, “No doubt the colonies wuz preached to to set down in chains and
enjoy religion, and give up all idees of independence; but our old 4
fathers couldn’t be made to feel so. They seemed to feel that the time
had come when the Lord wuz a goin’ to lead ’em out into freedom. And
they felt they wuz a preachin’ the Gospel of Liberty and Freedom, the
backbones of Christianity, when they struck out for Independence.”
[Illustration: A KU-KLUXER.]
Cousin John Richard looked real satisfied to me, though wan, as I went
on, and sez he:
“Yes, to resist intolerable and unjust laws has always been considered
lawful and right.”
“But,” sez Col. Seybert, “the Bible commands you, if you are smitten on
one cheek to turn the other also.”
“Then why don’t you do it?” sez I, all wrought up. “Your race has
had centuries of Christianity to civilize and Christianize it, and
why don’t you set a example to the ignorant ones? Mark out a sampler
that they can foller on and copy. Why don’t your Regulators and your
Ku-Kluxers turn their right cheeks? I’d love to have ’em turn ’em to me
a spell,” sez I darkly.
Col. Seybert kinder snorted out sunthin’ that I didn’t quite hear. I
believe, and always shall, that there wuz a cuss word in it; but I
didn’t care, and before I could speak agin, Cousin John Richard’s calm
voice riz up a sayin’:
“You say this race is totally ignorant and brutish, and yet you expect
high qualities from them—extraordinary virtues. You expect patience
more perfect than long years of training has given the white race. You
expect endurance, nobility, forbearance, forgiveness of injuries and
wrongs—in fact, you expect the goodness of angels and the wisdom of
Solomon, and expect an insolvable problem to be solved by those you
rank with your cattle.
“It is a strange thing,” sez Cousin John Richard, as he lay back agin
on his cushions. But I went up and gin him a spoonful of spignut before
I let him speak agin.
Col. Seybert waved off John Richard’s noble rebuke, and went on on his
old ground:
“Your teachers and preachers have overrun the South ever since the War,
with your carpet-bags full of Bibles and hymn-books, and tracts, and
spelling-books. Why don’t you sit down now and wait and see the fruit
of your labors ripen about you instead of encouraging them in this
preposterous idea of colonization?”
But Cousin John Richard sez gently but strongly:
“Perhaps this is the fruit that the Lord of the harvest is causing to
spring up from the seeds planted in the hearts of this people. Perhaps
the full ripening of this fruit depends upon the sunshine of another
and a calmer sky.”
“Yes,” sez I, “who knows but this race, who stood harmless and patient
durin’ the War, while the first half of their chains wuz bein’ struck
offen ’em, who showed such a spectacle of remarkable magnanimity and
wisdom that the hull world admired and wondered, and who used their
first weak strength to fight for the safety of the race that had held
them in bondage—the race that could do this,” sez I, “has got the
strength and the divine nobility and wisdom to get their full liberty
in a nation of their own without the sound of a gun or the liftin’ of
an arm in warfare.
“They will do it, too,” sez I, carried away and enthused by the thought
of how this people had stood still and see the salvation of the Lord.
Sez I, “They will not turn into a brutal, bloodthirsty mob now, after
‘Thus far the Lord hath led them on.’”
I repeated these last words in my melodius him axents; but Col. Seybert
wuzn’t melted by it—no, indeed.
He went on in witherin’ axents aginst the idee of colonization; sez he
in conclusion:
“If there was not any other insurmountable objection to the project,
the expense would be so enormous that the Government never would nor
never could undertake it.”
“As to the never could, we might leave that out,” sez I, “and deal
with the never would. For the never could hain’t true. If a war should
break out to-morrow between this country and England, do you believe
that this country never could furnish the means to carry it on? Why, it
would seem the easiest thing in the world to raise millions on millions
of dollars.
“It would seem the only thing and the right thing to do to imegiatly
and to once raise ten times the amount that would be necessary to take
the hull black race to the Congo Valley and support ’em there for a
year.
“They would do this because public safety demanded it; and I can tell
’em plain that they will most probable see the day, and pretty soon
too, that the public safety demands ’em to do as they’d ort to in this
case.
“Who got the black race here? They didn’t want to come—no, fur from
it. This nation got ’em here; and now, as the two races can’t live
together in peace, and the land is gettin’ too small for both of ’em,
if the white race don’t want to leave the country themselves, let ’em
carry this people back to the land they stole ’em from.
“They wouldn’t all go; it hain’t probable nor possible to suppose such
a thing.
“There are many who would be perfectly willin’ to remain here, and
who would perhaps be better off by doin’ so—many aged ones who would
choose to stay here and go to heaven from the land of their adoption,
many who have a flourishin’ business, and are doin’ well here, and who
do not wish an immediate change.
“But the Race Problem would be solved if the main body of the host
passed over into the New Republic. The few that remained would not
endanger the commonwealth, and would most likely, in the fulness of
time, and as the glowin’ story of the New Republic reached their ears,
be gathered into the Land of Promise, to become leaders there, and
helpers of the weak.”
Sez Col. Seybert, “They would starve there. They are a low, degraded,
helpless, lazy set. They had rather lay in the sun and do nothing than
to work.”
As Col. Seybert said this he lay back in his chair in a still more lazy
and luxurious manner, and stretched out his long legs in the sun.
(What wuz he doin’ himself, I’d like to know? Talk about laziness! the
idee!)
And I sez, “Wall, it’s easier for most folks to rest than it is for ’em
to work. As to their entire helplessness and ignorance, twenty-five
years ago there wuz never an escapin’ Union prisoner who found a
negro so low and ignorant that he could not help him to escape; or so
destitute of resources and influence that he could not command the help
of other black men.
“In fact, there wuz a great silent army kep’ up under the surface, a
systematic underground railroad, maintained and controlled in the most
efficient and prudent manner by this despised people all through the
War. Twenty-five years of partial education and partial freedom has
not weakened this foresight and caution.
[Illustration: “PILOT A HELPLESS UNIONIST.”]
“If they could carry on this secret and most dangerous enterprise right
under the eyes of their enemies without violence or bloodshed, if they
could, under peril of detection and death, pilot a helpless Unionist
through a network of dangers—Confederate soldiers, spies, pickets,
false friends, and foes—out into safety, it seems as if they might
conduct their own selves through the environing camps of ignorance and
need, out into safety and prosperity.
“Specially, as they would be out from under the paralyzin’ gaze of
enemies, out where they wuz breathin’ free air, and amongst friends.
“I have been spozin’,” sez I, “that the Nation should do as it ort to,
and when it borrys a thing take it back home agin, jest as I would do
if I borryed a cat of Miss Gowdey, or Josiah would do if he borryed a
horse.
“We should carry ’em back when we got through with ’em, specially if we
stole ’em (though you wouldn’t ketch us at it).
“I have been spozin’ that Uncle Sam should rig out a few ships and
put some money in his pockets, and take back a few shiploads of this
people, and start ’em to livin’ in the beautiful Congo Valley.
“I should think as much agin of him if he would. And he would think
more of himself, I would bet.
“He would stand riz up in the eyes of the other admirin’ nations of the
world as a man that wuz honest and laid out to do as he had ort to do,
and as he would be done by.
“Why, if Uncle Sam had been stole away from his home and his faithful
Columbia, and had been worked to death, and whipped, and abused every
way, wouldn’t he be glad to be took back to his own home agin, and
wouldn’t he expect the ones that stole him to do it?
“Yes, indeed.
“Then why hain’t he willin’ to do as he would be done by?
“But as I say, I have been spozin’ this, that Uncle Sam should turn
honest and do this; but some think the colored people would do it
themselves.
“They have amassed millions of dollars sence the War, in the face of
the almost intolerable drawbacks put upon ’em. You will find thousands
of ’em ownin’ their houses and lands; you will find thousands and
thousands of wealthy ones; you will find a hundred thousand graduates
of schools and colleges, and fillin’ every station—lawyers, clergymen,
senators, and every place where merit can win, and the law couldn’t
keep them down—they have found their way. That don’t look like entire
helplessness and ignorance, duz it? for they have done all this with
the tide settin’ full aginst ’em, right in the face of class prejudice,
and unjust laws, and customs, and rivalry, and hatred.”
“Well, of course,” sez Col. Seybert, “there are some intelligent
niggers, and industrious ones; but look at the mass, the ignorant,
depraved, totally incompetent ones.”
And I sez, “There has been a few in our own race, ignorant, shiftless,
lazy, and depraved, who has learnt the colored men to be vicious for
200 years. And as for laziness, it seems as if there _had_ to be some
drones amongst the hive of busy workers. Nater has seemed to plan it so
for some reason, I can’t tell why, nor Josiah can’t.
“Now, with our bees, there are sights of drones that don’t do
nuthin’—only steal and eat up what the workers work so hard for.
“I don’t see why it is so; it is one of Nater’s mysterys.
“And in all communities there has got to be some lazy, shiftless
hangers-on. And the strong will have to do till the end of time, so far
as I can see, what the Bible tells ’em to: ‘Bear the burdens of the
weak.’
“I don’t know as there will ever be any change,” sez I, lookin’
dreamily off beyend Col. Seybert into the everlastin’ strangeness of
things present and things to come—“I don’t know as there will ever be
any change in that particiler, for the Bible sez expressly:
“‘The poor you always have with you.’
“And always means always, I spoze; and poor means poor in every sense
of the word, I have calculated.
“And that text applies to black and white folks alike.
“But as I have said prior and heretofore, if the colored people have
done so well in the last twenty-five years, in spite of all the burdens
and hindrances of race prejudice and the weights that unjust laws
impose on ’em, by the hatred and envy of them that can’t bear to see
their prosperity—if they have done so well in the chill and the dark,
as you may say, what can’t they do when they come out in the light and
the warmth of a place where sure rewards wait upon honest labor—where
the atmosphere is helpful, and inspirin’, and hopeful, instead of icy,
and draggin’ down, and chokin’, and stiflin’.
“Where their color is fashionable, and not a badge of disgrace.
“Where their rulers will be them that love ’em and seek their best
good, their own people, their peers, only wiser and more helpful than
they be—as the Declaration of Independence sez free men must be, in a
free land, judged by their peers, their equals.
“Where there will not be dishonest members of an alien and dominant
race to step in and steal their first poor earnings in the name of law
or might, or both.
“Where their daughters, if beautiful, will be free from their ruler’s
lust, and their small possessions safe from his avarice.
“If in the last quarter of a century in this persecuted, hampered state
they have been able to accumulate, in one of the worst States of the
Union for them, six million dollars’ worth of property, what can they
do in the next twenty years, when their labor and their persons will
be protected by the law, and they will be encouraged by wise advice,
and their intellects and reason enriched and broadened by education and
means of culture?”
Genieve’s dark, beautiful eyes jest brightened and glowed as I talked;
she fairly hung onto my words, as I could see.
“But,” sez Col. Seybert, “they don’t want to go.”
Thomas J. leaned back in his chair in deep enjoyment of his Ma’s talk,
as I could see plain; and he says to Col. Seybert:
“How do you know they don’t want to go?”
[Illustration: “SET DOWN IN OUR SWAMP.”]
“Because I do know it,” sez he. “They say they are not Africans now,
but Americans; they have a right here; they have just as good right
here now as we have.”
“Wall, I don’t dispute that idee,” sez I.
“I have got a right to go and set down in our swamp and set there;
but I should be dretful apt to get all covered with mud and mire, I
couldn’t see nuthin’ but dirt and slosh; the bad, nasty air would make
me deathly sick, to say nuthin’ of my bein’ bit to death by muskeeters
and run over by snakes and toads, etc.
“It hain’t a question of right—nobody could dispute that I would have
a right to stay there if I wuz a minter; but the question is, would it
be as well for me as it would to move up on the higher ground out of
the filth, and darkness, and sickly, deathly air and influences, etc.,
etc., etc.?”
Col. Seybert waved off these noble and convincin’ remarks of mine, and
kep’ on a sayin’ his former say. And he spoke the words in the axent of
one who has settled the matter and put on the final argument.
“They don’t _want_ to go, that is a reason nobody can get round.”
He looked triumphant, as if he had settled the hull matter; but he
hadn’t.
I sez, “I d’no whether they do or not; you say they don’t, somebody
else may say they do. But anyway, I don’t know as that is much of a
reason,” sez I; for my mind is such that as I hearn Col. Seybert’s big,
swellin’ talk, my mind seemed to look at the matter from Genieve’s and
Victor’s eyes more and more—I am made so, jest so sort o’ curius.
But I am all made now, and can’t help it; I have got to take myself as
I am.
And I sez, “I don’t know as that is very much of a reason about their
not wantin’ to go. I don’t believe there has ever been any blows struck
for freedom and liberty sence the world begun but what there has been
some that the blows wuz a bein’ dealt for, to hang onto the axe-helve
and beg the choppers to stop.
“There has always been them who had, as Mr. Shakespeare sez, ‘Ruther
endure the ills they have than fly round to others that they don’t know
so much about,’ sort o’ oncertain.
“Strikin’ blows for freedom hain’t like cuttin’ down a tree. You know
what you are a strikin’ when you hit into a maple or a ellum. The axe
hits aginst sunthin’ solid, and the chips fly.
“But strikin’ out for freedom is sometimes a hittin’ out aginst
emptiness in the dark. You know your cause is good, you know you are
a fightin’ for the most precious thing in the world, but you can’t
exactly see before you, and you don’t feel anything solid, and you
don’t see the chips fly—it is sort o’ oncertain and resky.
“You can’t seem to see the immediate result of your blows. And so it
hain’t no wonder to me that lots of weak ones, and skairt ones, and
so-called prudent ones, cry out and hang onto the axe and try to stop
the noble chopper’s hands. They don’t want a change. The old Torys
in the Revolution didn’t want a change. It wuz strikin’ out in the
darkness and bringin’ dangers and war onto their heads. They didn’t
want to go away from English rule.
“But the noble band of choppers kep’ on a hackin’ the tree of tyranny
till it crashed down and they walked over its prostrate trunk into
freedom; and the weak ones wuz glad enough when the dangers wuz all
past, and they sot down under the joy bells of 1776 and leaned their
backs up aginst Bunker Hill, and enjoyed themselves first rate.
“The Israelites didn’t want a change. They didn’t want to go out of the
land of bondage. Lots of livin’ ties united ’em to the land of their
birth, and lots of onseen ones too. The graves of their ancestors,
and memories, and loves, and joys, and sorrows all hung onto their
heart-strings, and they didn’t want to go.
“But Moses wuz in the right on’t. And they come out at last into a land
flowin’ with milk and honey.
“And they wuz glad they went.
“The Unbelievers didn’t want Jesus for a King and a Ruler—they didn’t
want a change. They fit aginst God’s plan for ’em, and conquered, so
they thought. But they didn’t, and now the world is glad on’t, as it
stands under the glow a fallin’ from the glorious twentieth century.
“Ask the United Christian Nations of the World if it hain’t a blessed
change. Ask ’em if they hain’t glad they went out of the superstitions
and bondage of the old dispensation, out into the glorious liberty of
the Gospel, out under the blessed rule of the Prince of Peace.
“No, Col. Seybert, I don’t think it is much of a reason, even if it
is true, to say that the negroes don’t want to go. In all these cases
I have brung up—and I might go on a bringin’ ’em up and a layin’ ’em
down in front of you for hours and hours if it would do any good—but
in all on ’em, as in these supreme cases I have mentioned, what
difference did it make in the end whether the majority wuz willin’ or
not to be saved, only in the discouragement and trouble it made the
noble few who see clear from the beginnin’ to the end?
[Illustration: “HE HASTENED OFF.”]
“What difference did their onwillingness make? The best, the right wuz
done. The minority wuz wise and the majority wrong, as is dretful apt
to be the case in this world. And the people wuz led through darkness,
and sorrow, and onwillingness out into the broad sunshine. Led through
Jordan’s stormy waves, out into ‘Canaan’s fair and happy land, where
their possessions lay.’”
I had fell into that kinder melodius axent of mine almost entirely
onbeknown to me, for it wuz from a him that I wuz quotin’. But it
didn’t seem to impress Col. Seybert as I wanted it to.
He looked at his watch, and sez he:
“I have got a pressing engagement in just five minutes by my watch; I
will bid you good-day.”
And he hastened off, and Thomas Jefferson laughed, and sez he:
“You talked him out, mother; but,” sez he, “I didn’t know as you
believed so strongly in colonization; I never heard you talk just in
this way before.”
“Wall,” sez I, “the Race Problem is such a enormous conundrum that it
is hard to know jest how to get the right answer to it. But,” sez I,
“I wuz a talkin’ jest now from Genieve’s platform, I wuz a viewin’
the subject from her standpoint, and from Victor’s, and also,” sez I,
glancin’ to where that dear man lay, lookin’ pleasant as ever, “from
Cousin John Richard’ses;” and I added, “considerable from my own.” And
sez I, a turnin’ to Genieve where she sot quietly with Boy in her arms,
“You don’t feel any oncertainty as to this conundrum, do you? You see
your way clear to a right answer?”
“Yes,” sez she. And her eyes wuz as clear as two wells of pure water on
which the stars wuz a shinin’.
“Yes, I _know_ what is best and what _will_ take place in God’s own
time.”
There it wuz, no more doubt in her mind about the negroes havin’ a
country and a nation of their own some time than there wuz to Moses as
he stood on the mountain-top and looked over Jordan’s stormy banks
into the land that should be the home of his weary and sorrowful people.
Genieve stood upon some invisible mountain-top; we couldn’t see this
rise of ground, our eyes wuz too weak, but her feet wuz placed there.
And she see over the rollin’ billows of turbulent factions, and
swellin’ hatred, and mistaken zeal, and perils from friends, and perils
from foes, and perils from high places, and perils from low ones, and
the black waters of ignorance, and laziness, and discontent, and old
habits and customs a breakin’ up and a dashin’ their spray here and
there, and all the horror and woe and danger of an uprisin’ and a
exodus—she see over all these swellin’ waves into the fair country
that lay beyend.
We couldn’t see the calm sunshine that lit the Promised Land, but we
could see a faint glow from its radiance in Genieve’s inspired eyes.
She didn’t say much, but her look spoke volumes and volumes.
[Illustration: “TO KISS SNOW AND BOY GOOD-NIGHT.”]