IT wuz dretful sudden, as we count suddenness. But then we don’t know
down here in this dark Earth Valley, with high mountains a towerin’ up
on each side on us that we can’t see through—we can’t really tell what
to call the onexpected, or the expected.
I spoze if we wuz high enough up to see the light and beauty of the
Divine Plan, we shouldn’t call anything the onexpected.
But it seemed dretful sudden to us that Miss Seybert should be took
down voyalent with a fever that wuz a prevailin’ round Eden Centre, and
should die off the second day after the attack.
And for all the world it would seem as if havin’ waited on her through
all time, and she laid out to go on a doin’ it through all eternity,
old Phyllis, Victor’s mother, jest follered right on after her the next
day.
Some say she took the disease a hangin’ over her bed and a waitin’ on
her.
But anyway, she passed away the very next day, and wuz buried right at
the feet of her beloved “Miss Alice.”
Col. Seybert wuz away on one of his annual wild-cat excursions, so her
wishes wuz carried out. And she had her old friend nigh her through the
long sleep, jest as she always had had her durin’ her fitful sleep for
years. But they both slept well now, and wuzn’t no more to be disturbed
by drunken abuse nor mournful forebodings. No, they slept sound and
sweet.
Victor mourned deep, deep for ’em both—it would be hard to tell which
he mourned for most.
But after the first shock of his heart-felt grief had passed away, he
felt that the last ties had been broke now that bound him to this land.
He felt that God had showed him more plain by this dispensation what He
wanted him to do.
And as everything wuz ripe for the exodus, and he felt that he could
not remain an hour under Col. Seybert’s roof, now that the necessity
for his remainin’ had been removed, everything pointed to an immediate
departure for Africa.
The party who wuz to go with him wuz all ready, eager, resolute,
prepared, only waitin’ for the word of their leader.
And he wuz ready to go. But first he must be married to the light of
his eyes, the desire of his heart. And under the circumstances of the
case we could not counsel any great delay.
And though, as I said, Victor wuz a mourner, and a deep mourner for his
mother and sister mistress, still it wuz mebby partly for that reason
that he wuz so happy in the thought of havin’ a sweet wife and a sweet
home of his own.
And it wuz a pretty sight to witness the love of Victor and Genieve.
And though we all hated to lose her, we wuz happy in the thought of her
happiness and her approachin’ marriage.
As for me, though mebby I didn’t say so much, I did the more. I wuz
a knittin’ some of the very finest linen edgin’ out of number ninety
thread to trim a hull suit of underclothes for her. And if any one
would examine close the fineness of the thread, they could see the
delicacy and tenderness of my feelin’s for her, and the strength.
I had bought some of the very finest muslin I could get to make the
garments of. So, as I say, if I didn’t say so much, mebby I did the
more, and acted.
Maggie and Thomas J. wuz goin’ to get her a bedroom set in pretty light
wood, and Maggie wuz embroiderin’ some beautiful covers for the bureau,
and washstand, and table.
It wuz a pattern of pink and pale blue mornin’ glories on a sort of a
cream-colored ground.
They wuz goin’ to be lovely.
Little Snow wanted to do sunthin’, and I told her she should.
So I, myself, cut her out some little linen napkins, and let her fringe
out the edges, and I laid out to orniment ’em myself for her in cat
stitch. Cat is a very handsome stitch.
And as I sez, we wuz all happy in witnessin’ Genieve’s happiness, which
wuz glowin’ and radiant, and Victor’s calm, deep bliss. For he could
not undo the past. And the Bible sez a man shall leave all and cleave
to his wife. And he wuz only a followin’ the Skripter.
He had been a good son, no better could be found—a good, faithful
helper and friend to his mistress; and I felt that he could leave ’em
in their peaceful graves and walk off into the Eden road of his happy
love with no reflections, and with the desire of his heart.
Col. Seybert wuz ragin’, as we knew, at the thought that his trusty
servant wuz goin’ to leave him. He wuz invaluable to him in so many
ways. He had no other man in his employ so trustworthy; no one else
who would take care of his business durin’ the frequent intervals when
he wuz incapable of it; no one else who wuz so honest, so reliable, so
intelligent; for Victor wuz one who would do his duty, and do a good
day’s work, if he wuz workin’ for Nero or the Old Harry himself, though
you wouldn’t ketch him a workin’ for this last-named personage—no,
indeed.
Col. Seybert raged over the idee of Victor’s leavin’ him; he had always
ruled everything about him, bent everything to his wishes.
And now “this black dog,” as he named Victor in his scornful wrath, had
dared to defy him. And worse still, the very best and most intelligent
of his hands, nearly all the younger ones, had been influenced by
Victor’s purpose and teachin’s, and wuz makin’ preparations to leave
this sin-cursed South, that had held only misery and humiliation for
them, and join him in his colony in Africa.
Col. Seybert knew, through his spy Burley, that they wuz secretly
and quietly makin’ preparations to leave him and go to the New
Republic—some of them to go with Victor and his party, some of them to
go with the next party fitted out.
[Illustration: HIRAM WIGGINS’S TWO DAUGHTERS.]
Deep in his heart and loudly to his chosen friends did Col. Seybert
curse Victor—his long-sufferin’ brother, as I would and did call him
in my mind—I _would_.
Why, good land! if Victor had been translated to the court of some
mighty kingdom and been proclaimed king, wouldn’t Col. Seybert have
claimed relationship with him pretty quick?
Yes, cupidity and ambition would have propped him up on both sides, and
he would have proclaimed the fact through his brother’s kingdom that
he wuz brother to the king.
Wall, if he wuz his brother under one set of circumstances, I say he
wuz under any other.
He wuz his half-brother; if every other evidence had failed to assure
the relationship, the portrait of old Gen. Seybert down in the long
drawin’ room of Seybert Court would have proclaimed the fact to a
gainsaying world. He wuz a fur truer son to Gen. Seybert than Reginald
wuz. For by all the ties of congenial tastes, mind, and spirit, he wuz
the courtly old Southerner’s true son and heir.
Reginald had always been and always would be true son and heir of Hiram
Wiggins, the manufacturin’ tailor. Although as relationships go in this
world, he wuz only his grandnephew.
But he had laid claim, and wuz the only possessor of all his crafty,
cruel, brutal, aggressive nature, his low habits and tastes, his
insolent, half bold, half meachin’ manners.
Hiram Wiggins’es own children wuz two old maid daughters, so meek they
could hardly say their souls wuz their own.
They worked samplers, copied from their mothers, and regulated their
behavior on this model, which wuz a eminently Christian one, and did
much good in a modest, unassumin’ way with the wealth their father had
heaped up. They wuz the children of their mother, and their cousin
Reginald, true son of their father.
But I am a eppisodin’, and to resoom.
Col. Seybert, like all men of his class, had some choice spirits that
copied his manners and carried out his plans. And among them all who
toadied to him and carried out his base plans, the foremost one wuz
Nick Burley, as we have said prior and before this.
He hated Victor as much as Col. Seybert did. One of the causes of
Burley’s dislike was what feeds enmity so often in base natures—Victor
wuz so superior to him that Burley wuz always oncomfortable in his
presence.
To be with a young man who neither drank, swore, nor tore the
characters of women to tatters, and boasted of great deeds in love and
valor, wuz to Burley incomprehensible. What wuz mysterious must be
wrong.
And then Victor evidently shunned the society of Burley, and avoided
him whenever he could. And as Burley wuz a white man and Victor “a
damned nigger,” such a state of things wuz not to be borne.
Col. Seybert had, we may be sure, fanned the coals of hatred to a
still greater heat, till at last they wuz at a white glow, and Nick
Burley wuz ready to do any act that Col. Seybert recommended, anything
for vengeance and “to show that cussed black dog not to feel above a
gentleman and a white man.”
And Col. Seybert and Burley had subtly played upon the ignorance and
superstition of the lower black element about them, so they had come to
look upon Victor as their enemy and the enemy of his people.
He who had all his life long sought only the good of his race, planned
through long, wakeful nights for their advancement, and had labored
early and late for an education, mainly for the reason that he could
help them better—so ignorant wuz they that they could see nothin’ of
this, and looked at him through the hate-prejudiced eyes of his enemies.
His preachin’ to his people to be patient under their wrongs and to
return good for evil; his warnings to them aginst their habits of
lawlessness, and laziness, and theft; his pleadings with them to turn
in their evil ways and try to become decent citizens; his admonitions
that their future lay in their own hands, and they could become, by the
grace of God and by hard work and education, whatever they chose to be,
had been mistaken by these more ignorant ones. And subtly wrought upon
by Col. Seybert and Burley, they looked upon Victor as one who, while
he taught them lessons of patience, and meekness, and unselfishness,
wuz himself carryin’ on a secret plan for their humiliation and his own
personal wealth and ambition.
Victor knew something of this secret antagonism towards him from the
lower black element and his revengeful white enemies, but he hardly
knew how strong it wuz.
And so the mills of the gods wuz turnin’ slowly but surely, and
slavery, and oppression, and class hatred, and personal spite, and
bitterness, and social contempt, and ignorance wuz gettin’ ready to be
ground out into the food whereby Vengeance and Horror should be sated.
Very quickly but very surely wuz the preparations goin’ on for Victor’s
departure for the colony.
Nearly all of them who wuz goin’ with him had been able to get a little
money ahead.
On an average, they had about five hundred dollars each.
Some had more than this, and wuz takin’ out wife, or children, or
parents, who had less; so that the actual amount each member of the
colony would have would be about five hundred dollars.
Victor had planned that, with careful and prudent management in that
warm climate, where no extra amount wuz needed for fuel or heavy
clothin’, where food of a certain kind could be obtained almost by
pickin’ it off the trees about them, where a very simple and cheap
cabin would be all the shelter and protection they might need—
He thought that this money, in the hands of intelligent and prudent
managers, would keep the colony fed and clothed, buy necessary tools
and stock, and keep them in comfort till they could raise crops in
their own home.
Father Gasperin, the good missionary who had labored all his life
amongst the black people, wuz goin’ with them, and he, havin’ the love
and confidence of them all, Victor had made chief adviser and treasurer
of the company.
Father Gasperin had a good deal of influence with them high in
authority (he had renounced a high name and estate to dwell amongst
and labor for the poor and lowly). He had made all the necessary
arrangements with parties in Africa, and the site of the location wuz
already chosen.
When Cousin John Henry decided to cast in his lot with the colonists,
Victor wuz overjoyed, for he felt that the good he would accomplish
could hardly be estimated in teachin’, and preachin’, and helpin’ the
colony in every way.
Their future home wuz a beautiful valley lyin’ between two low, heavily
wooded mountain ranges, and a clear river runnin’ through it to the sea.
A sheltered, lovely spot, but with pure air flowin’ in from the east
and the west along the course of the sparklin’ river.
[Illustration: “A CLEAR RIVER RUNNING THROUGH.”]
This river they looked to as bein’ for the present their highway out to
the nearest town, some twenty miles away.
And already in his mind Victor saw the white sails of their boats
bearin’ away the fruit of their hands to be exchanged for articles of
necessity and comfort.
He could see the little wharf where these boats should come back laden
with comforts for his people and news from the great world.
He imagined Genieve and himself standin’ at the door of their tiny
cottage, in the golden sunset or the golden dawn, lookin’ down this
sparklin’ highway fringed with glistenin’ palm-trees.
He could almost hear the song of the gayly hued birds as they called
out to their mates in the glossy foliage overhead.
Here wuz home, here wuz peace, here wuz independence for a
long-enslaved and tortured people.
Hard work he knew there must be, and perhaps hard fare for a time; but
the reward would be so sweet that it would sweeten toil. It would not
be like the hopeless, onthanked-for, onrewarded drudgery for them who
returned insults and curses for patient labor, and too often blows and
stingin’ lashes.
Felix and Hester wuz makin’ all preparations to go with Victor. On him
Victor counted as one who could be relied upon to help the weaker ones,
to be a guide and an example of what the black man could do and be.
For Felix, so far as he knew, had not a drop of white blood in his
veins, and he wuz faithful, honest, hard-workin’ and intelligent.
Three times he had had his home broken up and his earnings stolen from
him by this cursed, unslain spirit of slavery.
But he had agin, by his industry and frugality and by Hester’s help,
earned and laid by the sum Victor thought necessary for each colonist
to possess, and he and Hester wuz ready to make another start in the
New Republic.
He had decided not to build another home in the soil guarded by the
American eagle.
He knew the fowl to be largely boasted about as bein’ the first and
noblest bird beneath the skies. But he felt that he had been pecked
by its too sharp bill, he had been clawed by its talons, he had been
wearied by its loud, boastin’, resonant voice.
No, he would make no more homes under the skies where that eagle built
its nest.
He wuz ready for a newer republic.
He felt that he would ruther dare the soft embraces of the biggest
African serpents than be enfolded about by our beneficent civilization.
He wuz embittered, that wuz a fact. But when we see what he had gone
through, I don’t know as anybody could blame him.
But anyway, he wuz ready to go.
And so the days rolled by one after another, as they always will,
whether you are gay or sorrowful, whether the hours seem weighted down
with lead or tipped with fleet sunbeams.
And to Genieve and Victor all sadness and shadows lay fur away like
a faint cloud in the horizon, almost unseen and forgotten in the
clear sunshine of their happiness. For true love will make happiness
everywhere. Everything looked prosperous, and I had got my edgin’ done,
and Maggie and I had made the nice linen garments and ornimented ’em
with the lace.
They looked beautiful.
Little Snow’s work on the napkins wuz done, and the cat stitch almost
completed—a few stitches only of the cat remained to do, then they
would be done.
Maggie had completed her pretty embroidered covers, and they lay folded
up on top of a pretty sashay-bag of sweet perfumery in the bureau-draws
of the handsome chamber set, and that wuz all packed away in a strong
box ready for the voyage.
The weddin’ dress had come home all finished, even to the pretty lace
in the neck and sleeves.
It wuz white mull, and I knew Genieve would look like a picture in it.
[Illustration: “EVERYTHING WUZ READY.”]