WALL, it wuzn’t more than a few days after the marriage and departure of
Peter and Melinda Ann, when I got a letter from Cousin John Richard—he
wuz then in South Carolina, hard at work agin, literally follerin’ the
example of Him who went about doin’ good.
The letter wuz writ in pure friendship, and then he wanted to find out
the ingredients of that spignut syrup I had give him when he wuz at
Jonesville, his throat wuz a botherin’ him agin, and he said that had
helped him.
That is a good syrup, very, though mebby I hadn’t ort to say it. It is
one that I made up out of my own head, and is a success.
Yeller dock, and dandelion roots, and spignut, steeped up strong, and
sweetened with honey.
I sent it to him to once, with some spignut roots by mail; I wuz afraid
he couldn’t get ’em in the South.
And in my letter I asked him out of politeness, as it were, how he wuz a
gettin’ along colporterin’, and if things looked any brighter to him in
the South.
And such a answer as I got—_such_ a letter! why, it wuz a sermon almost.
Jest as skairful, jest as earnest, and jest as flowery as the talk he
had talked to us when he wuz with us.
Why, it fairly sent the cold chills over me as I read it.
But it madded Josiah. He wuz mad as a hen to hear it, and he said agin
that he believed Cousin John Richard (Josiah knew he wuz jest as good as
gold, and he wouldn’t brook a word from anybody else agin him), but he
said he believed he wuz a losin’ his faculties.
He didn’t believe a word on’t. He didn’t believe there wuz any danger
nor any trouble; if folks would only let the South alone and mind their
own bizness, it would get along well enough. But some folks had always
got to be a putterin’ around, and a meddlin’, and he shouldn’t wonder a
mite if John Richard wuz a doin’ jest such a work as that.
And I sez mildly, “Sometimes things _have_ to be meddled with in order
to get ahead any.”
“Wall,” sez he, “don’t you know how, if there is any trouble in a
family, the meddlers and interferers are the ones that do the most
mischief?”
“But,” sez I, “teachin’ religion and distributin’ tracts and spellin’
books hadn’t ort to do any hurt.”
“Wall, I d’no,” sez Josiah. “I d’no what kind of tracts he is a
circulatin’, mebby they are inflamitory. If they are offen a piece with
some of his talk here, I should think the South would ride him out.”
And so Josiah went on a runnin’ John Richard’s work and belief down to
the lowest notch; and I wuz glad enough when Deacon Henzy come in on a
errant, for I wuz indeed in hopes that this would change the subject.
But my hopes, as all earthly expectations are liable to be, wuz blasted.
For Josiah went right on with his inflamed speeches and his unbelief
about any danger a threatenin’ the nation from the South.
And I truly found myself in the condition of the one mentioned in
Scripture (only different sex and circumstances), where it sez the last
state of that man wuz worse than the first. For while my pardner’s talk
had consisted mostly of the sin of unbelief, Deacon Henzy’s remarks wuz
full of a bitter hatred and horstility towards the ex-slaveholders of
the Southern States.
He truly had no bowels of compassion for ’em, not one.
He come from radical abolitionist stock on both sides, and wuz brung up
under the constant throwin’ of stuns, throwed by parents and
grandparents at them they considered greater sinners than themselves.
And Deacon Henzy had gathered up them stuns and set ’em in a settin’ of
personal obstinacy and bigotry, and wore ’em for a breastplate.
And hard it wuz to hit any soft place under them rocky layers of
prejudices inherited and acquired.
And he and his folks before him didn’t know what the word mejum wuz, not
by personal experience.
It needed only a word to set him off. Josiah spoke that word, and the
wheel begun to turn and grind out denunciations of the Southerners as a
class and as a people.
Oh, how he rolled out big-soundin’ terms of scathin’ reproaches and
burnin’ rebukes, and the horrible wickedness of one human bein’
enslavin’ another one and enrichin’ himself on the unpaid labor of a
brother man!
Why, it wuz fairly skairful to hear him go on, fur skairfuller than
Josiah’s talk.
He had always talked rampant on the subject I knew, but as rampant as he
had always been he wuz now fur rampanter than I had ever known him to
be.
But as I found out most imegiatly, he wuz agitated and excited on this
occasion almost more than he could bear, when he first come in.
For he soon went on and told us all about it.
A boy he had took—Zekiel Place by name—had run away and left him; or,
that is, he had made all his preparations to go when the Deacon found it
out, and the boy give him the chance of lettin’ him go or keepin’ him
and payin’ him wages for his work.
Now, Deacon Henzy, like so many other human creeters, wuz so intent on
findin’ out and stunin’ other folks’es faults, that he didn’t have time
to set down and find out about his own sins and stun himself, so to
speak.
He never had thought, so I spoze, what a hard master he wuz, and how he
had treated Zekiel Place.
But I knew it; and all the while he went on a talkin’ about “the
ignorance and wastefulness and shiftlessness of this class of boys, and
how impossible it wuz to manage ’em and keep ’em down in their places;
how you had to set down on ’em and set heavy if you didn’t want to be
bairded to your face and run over by ’em; how if you give ’em an inch
they would take a ell, and destroy and waste more than their necks wuz
worth,” etc., etc., etc.—
All the while he wuz a goin’ on and a sayin’ all this I kep’ up a
thinkin’, for I knew that Zekiel was a middlin’ good boy, and had been
misused by the Deacon, so I had hearn—had been worked beyend his
strength, and whipped, and didn’t get enough to eat, so the boy said.
The Deacon had took him for his board and clothes; but his board wuz
hard indeed, and very knotty, and his clothes wuz very light, very.
And so, bein’, as I spoze, sort o’ drove to it, he riz. And as I say,
the Deacon was madder than any hen I ever see, wet or dry.
“The idee,” sez he, “of that boy, that I have took care on ever sence he
wuz a child, took care on him in health, and nussed him, and doctored
him when he wuz sick” (lobelia and a little catnip wuz every mite of
medicine he ever give him, and a little paregoric, so I have been
_told_)—“the idee of that boy a leavin’ me—a rizin’ up and a sayin’ as
pert as a piper, ‘If you don’t want to hire me, let me go.’”
“Wall, which did you do, Deacon?” sez I.
“Why, I hired the dumb upstart! I couldn’t get along without his work,
and he knew it.”
“‘The laborer,’ Deacon Henzy,” sez I, solemn, “‘is worthy of his hire.’”
“Wall, didn’t I lay out to pay him? I laid out this very fall to get him
a pair of pantaloons and a vest and a cravat. I laid out to pay him
richly. And he had better a trusted to me, who have been a perfect
father and gardeen to him, than to have riz up and demanded his pay.
But,” sez he, “there is no use of talkin’ about it now, it only excites
me and onmans me, and I come in merely to borry a augur and have a
little neighborly visit.”
And then wantin’, I spoze, to take his mind offen his own troubles, he
sort o’ launched off agin onto his favorite theme of runnin’ down the
Southerners.
“The Southern people,” sez he, “are a mass of overbearin’, tyrannical
slave-drivers, selfish, without principles or consciences, crackin’
their whips over the blacks, drivin’ ’em to work, refusin’ ’em any
justice.”
“Why,” sez I, “the slaves are liberated, Deacon Henzy.”
“Wall, why be they?” sez he. “It wuzn’t from any good-will on the part
of the bloated aristocracy of the South. They liberated ’em because they
_had_ to. Why didn’t they free ’em because it wuz right to free ’em?
because it wuz right and just to the slaves? because it wuz a wicked sin
that cried up to the heavens to make ’em labor, and not pay ’em for it?”
Why, he went on in fearful axents of wrath and skorn about it, and
finally bein’ so wrought up, he said, “that them that upholded ’em wuz
as bad as they wuz.”
Why, we had never dreamed of upholdin’ ’em, nor thought on’t; but he
felt so.
He threw stuns fearful at the South, and at Josiah and me because we
didn’t jine in with him and rip and tear as he did.
[Illustration:
DEACON HENZY.
]
And them stuns kinder hurt me after a while; and so, when he asked me
for the seventh time:
“Why didn’t they free their slaves before they wuz obleeged to?”
Then I sez, “It wuz probable for the same reason that you didn’t
liberate Zekiel—mostly selfishness!”
“What! what did you say?” He could not believe his ear; he craned his
neck, he turned the other ear. He wuz browbeat and stunted; and agin he
sez: “_What_ did you say?”
And I sez agin, calm as cream, but sharp and keen as a simiter, “I said
it wuz selfishness, Deacon, and the power of old custom—jest the reasons
why you didn’t free Zekiel.”
His linement fell more’n a inch. Like the Queen of Sheba before Solomon
(only different sex) he had no spirit left in him.
He never had mistrusted; it made him feel so awful good to run the South
further down than anything or anybody wuz ever run—he never mistrusted
that he had ever done anything onjust, or mean, or selfish.
He loved to deplore Southern sins, but never looked to see if
Northerners wuzn’t committin’ jest as ojeus ones.
I mean good, well-meanin’ Christian men, not to say anything about our
white slaves in the cities who make shirts for five cents apiece, and
sign their contracts with their blood.
Nor the old young children who are shut away from God’s sunshine and air
in Northern manufactories and mines, and who are never free to be out
under the beautiful sky till the sun has gone down or the grass is
growin’ between it and their hollow, pitiful faces.
Nor the droves of street ruffians and beggars whose souls and bodies
suffer and hunger jest as much under the Northern Star as under the
Southern Cross.
No, I didn’t mean any of these, but jest respectable church-goers like
Deacon Henzy.
And he, like so many others, wuz jest as blind to the idee as if he had
been born with leather spectacles on and had wore ’em ever sence.
It is a good thing for folks North or South to have their blinders
tilted up a little now and then, and get a glimpse of daylight into
their orbs. I had tilted up hisen, and wuzn’t sorry a mite, not a mite.
He had been a throwin’ stuns powerful, and he had got hit from one.
And pretty soon, after settin’ demute for quite a spell, he got up and
left for home, feelin’ and actin’ quite meek and humble-sperited for
him.
And I have hearn sence, and it comes straight to me—Zekiel’s mother told
Miss Biddlecom’s Liza, and Liza’s sister-in-law told it to the Editor of
the _Augur’ses_ wife’s mother-in-law, and she told it to she that wuz
Celestine Gowdey, and she that wuz Celestine told old Miss Minkley, and
she told me—it come straight—that Deacon Henzy give Zekiel that very
night a dollar bill, and from what I hear he has mellered up and used
him first rate ever sence.
Yes, that man wuz blind as a bat and blinder. He had been for years a
hackin’ at the beams that riz up on the Southern brethren’s eyes, and
there he wuz a growin’ a hull crop of motes, and payin’ no attention to
’em.
But selfishness and injustice grows up jest as rank under Northern skies
as Southern ones, and motes and beams flourish equally rank in both
sections.
And Christians North and Christians South have to tussle with that same
old man the Bible speaks of, and anon or oftener they get throwed by
him.
[Illustration:
“JOSIAH’S BALD HEAD AND MINE.”
]
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