_CAPTAIN LYSANDER'S JOKE._
Since the time when she lost her best feather-bed and her boarder, the
worthy widow Sprowl had suffered serious pecuniary embarrassment. She
missed sadly the regular four dollars a week, and the irregular
gratuities, she had received from Penn. So much secession had cost her,
without yielding as yet any of its promised benefits. The Yankees had
not stepped up with the alacrity expected of them, and thrust their
servile necks into the yoke of their natural masters. The slave trade
was not reopened. Niggers were not yet so cheap that every poor widow
could, at a trifling expense, provide herself with several, and grow
rich on their labor. In the pride of seeing her son made what she called
a "capting," and in the hope of enjoying some of the golden fruits of
his valor, she had given him her last penny, and received up to the
present time not a penny from him in return. In short, Lysander was
ungrateful, and the widow was a disappointed woman.
So it happened that the sugar-bowl and tea-canister were often empty,
and the poor widow had no legitimate means of replenishing them. In this
extremity she resorted to borrowing. She borrowed of everybody, and
never repaid. She borrowed even of the hated Unionists in the
neighborhood, and confessed with bitterness to her son that she found
them more ready to lend to her than the families of secessionists.
Again, on the morning of the events related in the last chapter, she
found herself in want of many things--tea, sugar, meal, beans, potatoes,
snuff, and tobacco; for this excellent woman snuffed, "dipped," and
smoked.
"Where shall I go and borry to-day?" said she, counting her patrons, and
the number of times she had been to borrow of each, on her fingers.
"Thar's Mis' Stackridge. I hain't been to her but oncet. I'll go agin,
and carry the big basket."
With her basket on her arm, and an ancient brown bonnet (which had been
black at the time of the demise of the late lamented Sprowl,) on her
head, and a multitude of excuses on her tongue, she set out, and walked
to the farmer's house. This had one of those great, shed-like openings
through it, so common in Tennessee. A door on the left, as you entered
this covered space, led to the kitchen and living-room of the family.
Here the widow knocked.
There was no response. She knocked again, with the same result. Then she
pulled the latch-string--for the door even of this well-to-do farmer had
a latch-string. She entered. The house was deserted.
"Ain't to home, none of 'em, hey?" said the widow, peering about her
with a disagreeable scowl. "House wan't locked, nuther. Wonder if Mis'
Stackridge and the childern have gone to the mountains too? And whar's
old Aunt Deb?"
Her first feeling was that of resentment. What right had Mrs. Stackridge
to be absent when she came to borrow? As she explored the pantry and
closets, however, and became convinced that she was absolutely alone in
a well-provisioned farm-house, her countenance lighted up with a smile.
"I can borry what I want jest exac'ly as well as if Mis' Stackridge war
to home," thought the widow.
And she proceeded to fill her basket. She helped herself to a pan of
meal, borrowing the pan with it. "I'll fetch home the pan," said she,
"when I do the meal,"--exposing her craggy teeth with a grim smile. "If
I don't before, I'm a feared Mis' Stackridge'll haf to wait for't a
considerable spell! What's in this box? Coffee! May as well take box and
all. Bring back the box when I do the coffee. Wish I could find some
tobacky somewhars--wonder whar they keep their tobacky!"
Now, the excellent creature did not indulge in these liberties without
some apprehension that Mrs. Stackridge might return suddenly and
interrupt them. Perhaps she had not followed Mr. Stackridge to the
mountains. Perhaps she had only gone into the village to buy shoes for
her children, or to call on a neighbor. "If she should come back and
ketch me at it,--why, then, I'll tell her I'm only jest a borryin', and
see what she'll do about it. The prop'ty of these yer durned
Union-shriekers is all gwine to be confisticated, and I reckon I may as
well take my sheer when I can git it. Thar's a paper o' black pepper,
and I'll take it jest as 'tis. Thar's a jar o' lump butter,--wish I
could tote jar and all!--have some of the lumps on a plate anyhow!"
She had soon filled her basket, and was regretting she had not brought
two, or a larger one, when a handsome, new tin pail, hanging in the
pantry, caught her eye. "Been wantin' jest sich a pail as that, this
long while!" And she proceeded to fill that also.
Just as she was putting the cover on, she was very much startled by
hearing footsteps at the door.
"O, dear me! What shall I do? If it should be Mr. Stackridge! But it
can't be him! If it's only Mis' Stackridge or one of the niggers, I'll
face it out! They won't das' to make a fuss, for they're
Union-shriekers, and my son's a capting in the confederate army!"
Thump, thump, thump!--loud knocking at the door.
"My, it's visitors! Who can it be?" She set down her pail and basket.
"I'll act jest as if I had a right here, anyhow!"
She was hesitating, when the string was pulled, and two strangers,
stout, square built, with foreign looking faces, carrying muskets, and
dressed in confederate uniform, entered.
"Mrs. Stackridge?" said they, in a heavy Teutonic accent.
"Ye--ye--yes--" stammered the widow, trying to hide the guilty basket
and pail behind her skirts. "What do you want of Mis' Stackridge?"
One of the strangers said to the other, in German, indicating the
plunder,--
"This is the woman. She is getting provisions ready to send to her
husband in the mountains."
"Let us see what there is good to eat," said the other.
Mrs. Sprowl, although understanding no word that was spoken, perceived
that the borrowed property formed the theme of their remarks.
"Have some?" she hastened to say, with extreme politeness, as the
Germans approached the provisions.
"Tank ye," said they, finding some bread and cold meat. And they ate
with appetite, exchanging glances, and grunting with satisfaction.
"O, take all you want!" said the widow. "You're welcome to anything
there is in the house, I'm shore!"--adding, within herself, "I am so
glad these soldiers have come! Now, whatever is missing will be laid to
them."
"You de lady of de house?" said the foreigners, munching.
"Yes, help yourselves!" smiled the hospitable widow.
"You Mrs. Stackridge?" they inquired, more particularly.
"Yes; take anything you like!" replied the widow.
"Where your husband?"
"My husband! my poor dear husband! he has been dead these----"
She checked herself, remembering that the soldiers took her for Mrs.
Stackridge. If she undeceived them, then they would know she had been
stealing.
"Dead?" The Germans shook their heads and smiled. "No! He was here last
night. He was seen. You take dese tings to him up in de mountain."
"Would you like some cheese?" said the embarrassed widow.
"Tank ye. Dis is better as rations."
Mrs. Sprowl returned to the pantry, in order to replace the provisions
she had so generously given away, and prepared to depart with the basket
and pail; inviting the guests repeatedly to make themselves quite at
home, and to take whatever they could find.
"Wait!" said they. Each had a knee on the floor, and one hand full of
bread and cheese. They looked up at her with broad, complacent, unctuous
faces, smiling, yet resolute. And one, with his unoccupied hand, laid
hold of the handle of the basket, while the other detained the pail.
"You will tell us where is your husband," said they.
"O, dear me, I don't know! I'm a poor lone woman, and where my husband
is I can't consaive, I'm shore!"
"You will tell us where is your husband," repeated the men; and one of
them, getting upon his feet, stood before her at the door.
"He's on the mountain somewhars. I don't know whar, and I don't keer,"
cried the widow, excited. There was something in the stolid, determined
looks of the brothers she did not like. "He's a bad man, Mr. Stackridge
is! I'm a secessionist myself. You are welcome to everything in the
house--only let me go now."
"You will not go," said the soldier at the door, "till you tell us. We
come for dat."
On entering, they had placed their muskets in the corner. The speaker
took them, and handed one to his comrade. And now the widow observed
that out of the muzzle of each protruded the butt-end of a small
cowhide. Each soldier held his gun at his side, and laying hold of the
said butt-end, drew out the long taper belly and dangling lash of the
whip, like a black snake by the neck.
The widow screamed.
"It's all a mistake. Let me go! I ain't Mis' Stackridge"
Nothing so natural as that the wife of the notorious Unionist should
deny her identity at sight of the whips. The soldiers looked at each
other, muttered something in German, smiled, and replaced their muskets
in the corner.
"You tell us where is your husband. Or else we whip you. Dat is our
orders."
This they said in low tones, with mild looks, and with a calmness which
was frightful. The widow saw that she had to do with men who obeyed
orders literally, and knew no mercy.
"I hain't got no husband. I ain't Mis' Stackridge. I'm a poor lone
widder, that jest come over here to borry a few things, and that's all."
"Ve unterstan. You say shust now you are Mrs. Stackridge. Now you say
not. Dat make no difruns. Ve know. You tell us where is your husband, or
ve string you up."
This speech was pronounced by both the foreigners, a sentence by each,
alternately. At the conclusion one drew a strong cord from his pocket,
while the other looked with satisfaction at certain hooks in the
plastering overhead, designed originally for the support of a kitchen
pole, but now destined for another use.
"Don't you dast to tech me!" screamed the false Mrs. Stackridge. "I'm a
secessionist myself, that hates the Union-shriekers wus'n you do, and
I've got a son that's a capting, and a poor lone widder at that!"
"Dat we don't know. What we know is, you tell what we say, or we whip
you. Dat's Captain Shprowl's orders."
"Capting Sprowl! That's my son! my own son! If he sent you, then it's
all right!"
"So we tink. All right." And the soldiers, seizing her, tied her thumbs
as Lysander had taught them, passed the cords over the hook as they had
passed the clothesline over the crossbeam the night before, and drew the
shrieking woman's hands above her head, precisely as they had hauled up
Toby's. They then turned her skirts up over her head, and fastened them.
This also they had been instructed to do by Lysander. It was, you will
say, shameful; for this woman was free and white. Had she been a slave,
with a different complexion, although perhaps quite as white, would it
have been any the less shameful? Answer, ye believers in the divine
rights of slave-masters!
"Now you vill tell?" said the phlegmatic Teutons, measuring out their
whips.
"Go for my son! My son is Capting Sprowl!" gasped the stifled and
terror-stricken widow.
"Dat trick won't do. You shpeak, or we shtrike."
"It is true, it is true! I am Mrs. Sprowl, and my husband is dead, and
my son is Capting Sprowl, and a poor lone widder, that if you strike her
a single blow he'll have you took and hung!"
"If he is your son, den by your own son's orders we whip you. He vill
not hang us for dat. You vill not tell? Den we give you ten lash."
Blow upon blow, shriek upon shriek, followed. The soldiers counted the
strokes aloud, deliberately, conscientiously, as they gave them, "Vun,
two, tree," &c, up to ten. There they stopped. But the screams did not
stop. This punishment, which it was sport to inflict upon a faithful old
negro, which it would have been such a good joke to have bestowed upon
the wife of a stanch Unionist, was no sport, no joke, but altogether a
tragic affair to thy mother, O Lysander!
Then she, who had so often wished that she too owned slaves, that when
she was angry she might have them strung up and flogged, knew by fearful
experience what it was to be strung up and flogged. Then she, who
sympathized with her son in his desire to see every man, woman, and
child, that loved the old Union, served in this fashion, felt in her own
writhing and bleeding flesh the stings of that inhuman vengeance.
Terrible blunder, for which she had only herself to thank! Robbery of
her neighbor's house--the dishonest "borrowing," not of these ill-gotten
goods only, but also of her neighbor's name--had brought her, by what we
call fatality, to this strait.
Fatality is but another name for Providence.
The soldiers waited for a lull in the shrieks, then put once more the
question.
"You tell now? Where is your husband? No? Den you git ten lash more.
Always ten lash till you tell."
A storm of incoherent denial, angry threats, sobs, and screams, was the
response. One of the soldiers drew her skirts over her head again, and
gave another pull at the cords that hauled up her thumbs, while the
other stood off and measured out his whip.
Just then the door opened, and Captain Sprowl looked in.
"How are you getting on, boys?"
The question was accompanied by an approving smile, which seemed to say,
"I see you are getting on very well."
"We whip her once. We give her ten lash. She not tell."
"Very well. Give her ten more."
The widow struggled and screamed. Had she recognized her son's voice?
Muffled as she was, he did not recognize hers. Nor was it surprising
that, in the unusual posture in which he found her, he did not know her
from Mrs. Stackridge.
He stood in the door and smiled while the soldier laid on.
"Make it a dozen," he quietly remarked. "And smart ones, to wind up
with!"
So it happened that, thanks to her son's presence, the screeching victim
got two "smart ones" additional.
"Now uncover her face. Ease away on her thumbs a little. I'll question
her mys--Good Lucifer!" exclaimed the captain, finding himself face to
face with his own mother.
Twenty-two lashes and the torture of the strung-up thumbs had proved too
much even for the strong nerves of Widow Sprowl. She fell down in a
swoon.
Lysander, furious, whipped out his sword, and turned upon the soldiers.
They quietly stepped back, and took their guns from the corner. He would
certainly have killed one of them on the spot had he not seen by the
glance of their eyes that the other would, at the same instant, as
certainly have killed him.
"You scoundrels! you have whipped my own mother!"
"Captain," they calmly answered, "we opey orders."
"Fools!"--and Lysander ground his teeth,--"you should have known!"
"Captain," they replied, "if you not know, how should we know? We never
see dis woman pefore. We come. We find her taking prowisions from de
house. We say, 'She take dem to her husband in de mountains.' We say,
'You Mrs. Stackridge?' She say yes to everyting. We not know she lie. We
not know she steal. We not say, 'You somepody else.' We opey orders. We
take and we whip her. You come in and say, 'Whip more.' We whip more.
Now you say to us, 'Scoundrels!' You say, 'Fools!' We say, 'Captain, it
was your orders; we opey.'"
Having by a joint effort at sententious English pronounced this speech,
the brothers stood stolidly awaiting the result; while the captain,
still gnashing his teeth, bent over the prostrate form of his mother.
"Bring some water and throw on her! you idiots!" he yelled at them.
"Would you see her die?"
They looked at each other. "Water?" Yes, that was what was wanted. They
remembered their practice of the previous evening. One found a wooden
pail. The other emptied upon the floor the contents of the tin pail the
widow had "borrowed." They went to the well. They brought water. "To
throw on her?" Yes, that was what he said. And together they dashed a
sudden drenching flood over the poor woman, as if the swoon were another
fire to be extinguished.
These fellows obeyed orders literally--a merit which Lysander now failed
to appreciate. He swore at them terribly. But he did not countermand his
last order. Accordingly they proceeded stoically to bring more water.
Lysander had got his mothers head on his knee, and she had just opened
her eyes to look and her mouth to gasp, when there came another double
ice-cold wave, blinding, stifling, drowning her. Too much of water hadst
thou, poor lone widow!
Lysander let fall the maternal head, and bounded to his feet, roaring
with wrath. The brothers, imperturbable, with the empty pails at their
sides, stared at him with mute wonder.
"Captain, dat was your orders. You say, 'Pring vasser and trow on.' We
pring vasser and trow on. Dat is all."
"But I didn't tell you to fetch pailfuls!"
This sentence rushed out of Lysander's soul like a rocket, culminated in
a loud, explosive oath, and was followed by a shower of fiery curses
falling harmless on the heads of the unmoved Teutons.
They waited patiently until the pyrotechnic rain ceased, then answered,
speaking alternately, each a sentence, as if with one mind, but with two
organs.
"Captain, you hear. Last night vas de house afire. You say, 'Pring
vasser.' We pring a little. Den you say to us, 'Tarn you! why in hell
you shtop?' And you say, 'Von I tell you pring vasser, pring till I say
shtop.' Vun time more to-day you say, 'Pring vasser,' and you never say
shtop. You say, 'Trow on.' We trow on. Vat you say we do. You not say
vat you mean, dat is mishtake for you."
It is not to be supposed that Lysander listened meekly to the end of
this speech. He had caught the sound of voices without that interested
him more; and, looking, he saw Mrs. Stackridge returning, with her
children.
The Pepperill young-one had faithfully done her errand; and the farmer's
wife, believing something important was meant by it, had hastened to
accept the singular and urgent invitation. But, arrived at the poor
man's shanty, she was astonished to find Mrs. Pepperill astonished to
see her. They talked the matter over, questioned the child, and finally
concluded that Daniel had said something quite different, which the
child had misunderstood.
"Well," said Mrs. Stackridge, after sitting a-while, "I reckon I may as
well be going back, for I've left only old Aunt Deb to home, and she's
scar't to death to be left alone these times; thinks the secesh
soldiers'll kill her. But I tell her not to be afeared of 'em. I ain't!"
So this woman, little knowing how much real cause she had to be afraid,
returned home with her family. When near the house she met Gaff and
Jake, negroes belonging to the farm, who had been in the field at work,
running towards her, in great terror, declaring that they heard somebody
killing Aunt Deb.
"Nonsense!" said she; and in spite of their assurances and entreaties,
she marched straight towards the door through which the captain saw her
coming.
"Clear out!" said Lysander to the soldiers. "Go to your quarters. I'll
have your case attended to!" This was spoken very threateningly. Then,
as soon as they were out of hearing, he said to Mrs. Stackridge, "I'm
sorry to say a couple of my men have been plundering your house. Them
Dutchmen you just saw go out. Worse, than that, my mother was going by,
and she came in to save your stuff, and they, it seems, took her for
you, and beat her. You see, they have beat her most to death," said
Lysander.
"Lordy massy!" said Mrs. Stackridge.
"Do help me! do take off my clo'es! a poor lone widder!" faintly moaned
Mrs. Sprowl.
"When I got here," added the captain, "she had fainted, and they had
used her basket to pack things in, as you see, and filled this pail,
which they emptied afterwards, so as to bring water and fetch her to.
Scoundrels! I'm glad they ain't native-born southerners!"
"And where is Aunt Deb?" said Mrs. Stackridge, hastening to raise the
widow up.
"I dono'; I hain't seen her. O, dear, them villains!" groaned Mrs.
Sprowl. "I was just comin' over to borry a few things, you know."
"Going by; she wasn't coming here," said Lysander.
"Going by," repeated the widow. "O, shall I ever git over it! O, dear
me, I'm all cut to pieces! A poor forlorn widder, and my only son--O,
dear!"
"Her only son," cried Lysander in a loud voice, "couldn't get here in
time to prevent the outrage. That's what she wants to say. I leave her
in your care, Mrs. Stackridge. She was doing a neighborly thing for you
when she came in to stop the pillaging, and I'm sure you'll do as much
for her."
And the captain retired, his appetite for woman-whipping cloyed for the
present.
"Where is Aunt Deb?" repeated Mrs. Stackridge. "Aunt Deb!" she called,
"where are you? I want you this minute!"
"Here I is!" answered a voice from heaven, or at least from that
direction.
It was the voice of the old negress, who had hid herself in the
chambers, and now spoke through a stove-pipe hole from which she had
observed all that was passing from the time when the widow entered with
her empty basket.