ONE mornin’ I sot off for a walk bein’ set so much of the time, and used
as I wuz to bein’ on my feet.
I told Josiah I believed I’d lose the use of my lims if I didn’t walk
round some.
“Wall,” he said, “for his part, he wuz glad to set down, and set there.”
That man has always sot more or less. He hain’t never worked the hours
that I have, but I wouldn’t want him told that I said it. Good land! it
would only agrevate him; he wouldn’t give in that it wuz so.
But anyway, as I say, I sot out most imegiatly after breakfast. I left
Maggie pretty as a pink, a takin’ care of the children with Genieve’s
help. And my Josiah a settin’, jest a settin’ down, and nothin’ else.
But I didn’t care if he growed to the chair, I felt that I must use my
lims, must walk off somewhere and move round, and I had it in my mind
where I wuz a goin’.
I knew there wuz a little settlement of colored folks not fur from Belle
Fanchon by the name of Eden Centre. Good land, what a name!
But I spoze that they wuz so tickled after the War, when they spozed
they wuz free, and had got huddled down in a little settlement of their
own, that they thought it would be a good deal like Paradise to ’em. So
they named it Eden Centre.
As if to say, this hain’t the outskirts and suburbs of Paradise—not at
all. It is the very centre of felicity, the very heart of the garden of
happiness, Eden Centre.
Wall, I thought I’d set out and walk that way.
So I wended my way onwards at a pretty good jog with my faithful
umberell spread abroad over my head to keep the too ardent rays of the
sun away from my foretop and my new bunnet.
Part of the way the road led through a thicket of fragrant pines, and
anon, or oftener, would come out into a clearin’ where there would be a
house a standin’ back in the midst of some cultivated fields, and anon I
would see a orange grove, more or less prosperous-lookin’.
Jest a little way out of Eden Centre I come to the remains of a large
buildin’ burned down, so nothin’ but some shapeless ruins and one tall
black chimbly remained, dumbly pintin’ upwards towards the sky; and
owin’ to a bend in it, it wuz shaped some like a big black interrogation
mark, a risin’ upwards aginst the background of the clear blue sky.
It looked curius.
And jest as I wuz a standin’ still in my tracks, a ponderin’ over the
meanin’ of it, and a leanin’ on the rough fence that run along by the
roadside, a old darkey come along with a mule hitched onto a rickety
buggy with a rope. And I akosted him, and asked him what wuz the meanin’
of that big black chimbly a standin’ up in that curius way.
He seemed awful ready to stop and talk. It wuz the hot weather, I spoze.
And the mule had called for sights of labor to get him along, I could
see that—and he sez:
“De Cadimy used to stand dar.”
Sez I, “The school-house for the colored people?”
“Yes,” sez he.
“How did it come to be burned down?” sez I.
“De white folks buhnt it down,” sez he calmly.
“What for?” sez I.
“‘Cause dey didn’t want it dere,” sez he. “Dat’s what I spoze wuz de
influential reason.”
And then he went on and told me the hull story, and mebby I’d better
tell it a little faster than he did. It took place some years before,
but he had lived right there in Eden Centre, and wuz knowin’ to the hull
thing.
A white minister had come down from the North, a man who had some
property, and wuz a good man, and seein’ the grievous need of schools
for the black man, had used his own money to build the academy.
He tried to get land for the school nearer the city, where more could be
helped by it, but nobody would sell land for such a purpose.
Finally, he come here, and on this poor tract of land that the negroes
owned he put up his buildings.
It took about all the money he had to build the house and get the school
started.
He had jest got it started, and had fifty pupils—grown people and
children of the freedmen—when some ruffians come one stormy night and
set it on fire.
The white prejudice wuz so strong aginst havin’ the colored race taught,
that they burned down the buildings, destroyed all the property that
that good man had spent there.
It wuz on a cold, stormy night. His wife wuz ill in bed when the fire
broke out; the fright and exposure of that night killed her.
Not a white man dast open his door to take the family in, though the
white Baptist preacher at Wyandotte, when he hearn on it, he jest riz
right up in his pulpit the next Sunday night, mad with a holy wrath at
what had been done in their midst.
He riz right up and told his flock right to their faces what he thought
of such doin’s.
They said he stood there with his handsome head throwed back, and sez
he, brave as a lion (and fur better-lookin’), sez he:
“Such outrages are a shame to humanity. Men war against principles and
issues, not against helpless women and children;” and sez he, “If they
had fled to me for safety, I would have opened my doors and taken them
in.”
Oh, how they glared at him, and how the threatenin’, scowlin’ faces
seemed to close round him, and his wife’s heart almost stopped beatin’;
she could fairly hear the report of the pistol-shot and feel the sharp
knife of the assassin.
When all to once his little girl, only three years old, who had come to
church that night, she see the black looks and heard the muttered
threats aginst her papa. And she slipped down unnoticed and come up to
him, and pressed up close aginst him, and tried to creep up into his
arms as if she wanted to protect him, the pretty creeter.
He sez, “Hush, darling, you mustn’t come to papa.”
But she wouldn’t go; she made him take her up in his arms, and from that
safe refuge she shook her tiny fist at the crowd, and cries out:
“You just let my papa be; you shan’t hurt my good papa.”
Wall, the tears jest run down that preacher’s face, he wuz that wrought
up with divine fervor and principles before, and this capped the sheef.
Wall, they jest about worshipped that child, the hull flock did, and
they loved their minister and his wife; and men love bravery and admire
courage, and they felt the power and pathos of the scene, and the tears
stood in many a eye that had flashed with threatenin’ anger only a
minute before.
And so that storm lulled away and died down.
(I have been leadin’ this horse behind the wagon, as it were.) Maggie
told me this little incident afterwards (and now to hitch my horses agin
where they belong, side by side, and in front of the mule) (metafor).
[Illustration:
THE OLD NEGRO.
]
After the buildings wuz destroyed and the threats aginst them so awful
and skairful, this poor man and his sick wife and child jest run for
their lives; nobody dast to take ’em in; they went from place to place,
only to be driven away, in the peltin’ storm too, till at last they
found a poor refuge in a black man’s cabin, where the baby died the next
day. But so bitter wuz the feelin’ aginst these teachers that this black
man who took them in wuz found lyin’ dead a few days after with a bullet
through his heart.
Finally, they succeeded in gettin’ to the cars and gettin’ back North,
where the wife died within a week’s time.
And the sorrow over this loss, the exposure and agitation of that time,
and the failure of his life plans jest killed that good man too. He died
broken-hearted within a year.
All they had meant, all they had wanted wuz to carry out the Saviour’s
principle, “Carry the Gospel to every creature.”
Then why didn’t they have a chance to do it? I couldn’t tell, nor Josiah
couldn’t, nor nobody. No wonder the tall black chimbly stood there a
pintin’ up into the heavens like a great interrogation mark, a askin’
this solemn and unanswered conundrum:
“Why evil is allowed to flourish and the good to be overthrown?”
Yes, it wuz a conundrum that I couldn’t get the right answer to; but I
thought more’n probable the Lord could answer it, and would in His own
good time.
And as I looked at it I thought mebby that onbeknown to me, or Josiah,
or anybody, that tall black ruin was doin’ a silent work in the hearts
of Victor and Felix and many other of the young, intelligent, and
resolute amongst this dark race.
Felix livin’, as he had, under the very shadder of it, so to speak, who
could tell what influence it had in carvin’ this wrong down on the
livin’ tablet of his heart, so it might be answered in all the work he
might do in the future amongst his people?
And Victor, how often had his sad eyes rested on it, who knew how such
an object lesson wuz strikin’ deep truths in his great heart. Bible
truths such as—
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
And how it stood up black before him a askin’ him this everlastin’ and
momentous question:
“How long his people could endure such cruel wrong and outrage?”
And mebby sometimes, as the moon shone bright on it, it loomed up in
front of him some like a pillar, and he heard a voice fallin’ out of the
clear illumined sky:
“I have seen, I have seen the afflictions of my people which are in
Egypt; and lo, I am come to deliver them.” “Get thee out of this land!”
“Lo, I will send thee.”
But I am a eppisodin’, and to resoom.
I have only put down the heads of the old darkey’s remarks, jest the
bald heads—he flowered off the subject with various metafors and many
big words, not always in the right place, nor pronounced as the world’s
people pronounce them, but with deep earnestness.
And then I asked him about Eden Centre and how affairs had gone there.
And he told me with more flourishes and elocution all the hard trials
they had gone through, with perils from foes and perils from false
friends, from ignorance, from avarice, and etc., etc., etc.
It wuz deeply interestin’ to me and to him too, but finally he glanced
up at the sun, and straightened up in the buggy-seat, and told the old
mule and me at the same time:
“That they must hurry or they would be too late for the funeral.”
And I asked him where the funeral wuz to be, and he stood up in the
rickety buggy and pinted with his whip to a little cluster of houses
only a short distance away.
And I made up my mind then and there that I would jest go acrost lots
and attend to that funeral myself.
So I made my way through a broken place in the fence and sot out for the
funeral.
I got there after a short walk through the ruther sandy path, though
some flower-besprinkled. I knew which wuz the mournin’ cabin by the
mules and old horses hitched along the fence in front of it.
I went in and obtained a seat near the door. It seemed that it wuz the
funeral of a young man taken sick at the place where he worked and come
home to die. He had been waiter in a hotel at Wyandotte. The mournin’
was evidently sincere; certainly it wuz loud and powerful.
The minister seemed to want to administer consolation to the mournin’
group; his text wuz choze with distinct reference to it, and his words
wuz meant to cheer. But he got his metafors mixed up and his consolation
twisted.
But mebby they took it all straight and right, and if they did it wuz
all the same to them.
His text wuz choze from the story of the child’s death in the Old
Testament, and the words wuz these:
“We shall go to him, but he shall not return to us.”
The minister wuz a short, thickset negro, with a high standing collar,
seemin’ to prop up his head, and a benevolent look in his eyes and his
good-natured mouth.
[Illustration:
“GAWGE PERKINS AM DAID.
]
He fixed his eyes upon the congregation after he had repeated the text,
and sez:
“Gawge Perkins am daid; he wuz a waitah at Wyandotte, an’ of cose he
died.”
It seemed that to him this wuz a clear case of cause and effect, which
he did not explain to his audience.
“Of cose he died. Now, dar am in dis audnance many no doubt dat tink dey
have got riches, an’ honoh, an’ fame; but Gawge Perkins am daid, an’ you
have to go and see Gawge Perkins.
“An’ you may tink you are gay, an’ happy, an’ in high sperits; but dis
fac’ remains, an’ you can’t get round dis fac’, Gawge Perkins am daid,
an’ you have got to go and see Gawge Perkins.
“But dar am one consolation, Gawge Perkins can’t come back to us.”
Durin’ the sermon he spoke of the last day and the sureness of its
comin’, and the impossibility of tellin’ when it would come.
“Why,” sez he, “it hain’t known on earth, nor in heaven; de angels am
not awaih of de time; why, Michael Angelo himself don’t know it.”
But through the whole sermon he dwelt on this great truth—that they must
all go to see George Perkins, and, crowning consolation, George Perkins
could not come back to them!
The mourners seemed edified and instructed by his talk, so I spoze there
wuz some subtle good and power in it that mebby I wuzn’t good enough to
see.
And I have felt jest so many a time when I have heard a white preacher
hold forth for two hours at a Jonesville funeral till my limbs wuz
paralyzed and my brain reeled; and the mourners had added to their other
affliction, almost the num palsy. Their legs would go to sleep anyway,
and so forget their troubles (the legs).
As the colored graveyard wuz only a little ways from the cabin, I
followed the mourners at a short distance, and saw George Perkins laid
in the ground to take his long sleep, with tears and honest grief to
hallow the spot.
What more, sez I to myself, could an emperor want, or a zar? A quiet
spot to rest in, and a place in the hearts left behind.
After the funeral crowd had dispersed I sot down under a pine-tree with
spreading branches, and thought I would rest awhile.
And even as I sot there another funeral wended its way into the old
yard, which did not surprise me so much, nor would it any deep
philosopher of human nater. For we well know when things get to
happenin’ they will keep right on.
Human events go by waves, as it wuz—suicides, joys, broken dishes,
griefs, visitors, etc., etc. So I sot there a moralizin’ some on the
queerness of this world, as I see the rough coffin a bein’ lowered into
the ground.
But one thing struck me as being singular—there wuz no mourners to be
seen.
After a while I got up and asked a cheerful-lookin’ negro “where the
mourners wuz?”
“Wall, misses,” sez he, “I spoze I am about as much of a mourner as
there is.”
He looked anything but mournful, but he went on:
“I married dis ole man’s stepdaughter, an’ consequentially she died. An’
den dis ole man got a kick from a mule, an’ laid he flat on his back;
den he got his head stove in with a chimbly fallin’ on it; den de
airysipples sot in, an’ de rheumaticks, an’ nurality, an’ foh years
desese has jes’ fed on him, an’ de ultamatim of it wuz he died. An’ I
spoze I am jes’ about as much of a mourner heah as you’ll find.”
And sayin’ this, the radiant-faced mourner turned away and joined some
friends.
As I turned back I met the colored preacher and his wife, who wuz
evidently takin’ a short road home acrost the graveyard.
[Illustration:
ONE OF THE MOURNERS.
]
She wuz a good-lookin’ mulatto woman, and I passed the time of day with
her by sayin’, “How do you do?” and etc.
And bein’ one that is always on the search for information, I fell into
talk with her and her husband, and likin’ their looks, I finally asked
him what his name wuz.
And he said, “My name is Mary Johnson.”
Sez I, “You mean your wife’s name is Mary.”
“No,” sez he, “my name is Mary.”
And then he went on and told me that he wuz the youngest of twelve boys,
and his father wuz so mad at his havin’ been a boy that he named him,
jest in spite, Mary.
Wall, we had quite a good visit there, but short.
He told me he had been a slave in his young days.
And I asked him if his master had abused him, and he told me, and
evidently believed every word he said, that his master wuz the best man
this side of heaven.
And sez he, “Freedom or not, I never would have left him, never. If he
had lived,” sez he, “I would have worked for him till I dropped down.”
And then he went on and related instances of his master’s kindness and
good-hearted generosity, that made me stronger than ever in the belief I
had always had, that there are good men and bad men everywhere and under
all skies.
And he told me about how, after his master died, and the grand old
plantation broken up, the splendid mansion spoiled by the contendin’
hosts, and everything dear and sacred scattered to the winds—how his
young master, the only one left of the happy family, had gone up North
and wuz a doctor there.
Buryin’ in his heart the scenes of his old happy life, and the overthrow
of all his ambitious dreams, he wuz patiently workin’ on to make a home
and a livelihood fur from all he had loved and lost.
I declare for ’t, I most cried to hear him go on, and his wife joinin’
in now and then; they told the truth, and are Christians, both on ’em, I
hain’t a doubt.
Finally, we launched off on other subjects—on religion, etc.—and at the
last he made a remark that gin me sunthin’ to think on all my way home
to Belle Fanchon.
For I give up goin’ to Eden Centre that day. Good land! I had talked too
much—I am afraid it is a weakness with me—anyway, there wuzn’t any time.
We wuz a talkin’ on religion, and faith, and the power of prayer, etc.,
and he sez:
“I enjoy religion, but I have got too much confidence in God.”
Sez I, “You mean you lack confidence in God.”
“Yes, that is it, I lack confidence in God, for I find that when I pray
to Him for anything, if I don’t get an answer to it to once I make other
arraingments.”
And I thought as I wended my way home, “Oh, how much, how much is
Samantha and the hull human race like Mary Johnson; we besiege the
throne of grace for some boon heart longed for and dear, and if the Lord
does not answer at once our impassioned pleadin’s, we make other
arraingments.
But I am a eppisodin’.
When I got back from my walk I went into the kitchen to get some cool
water to put some posies in I had picked by the way, and there sot old
Aunt Clo’, and most imegiatly after my entrance she announced to me that
Rosy, her granddaughter, had got a little boy, and that Dan, Maggie’s
colored coachman, wuz the father of it.
Aunt Clo’ did not seem to be excited in any way about it; she simply
told it as a bit of news, rather onpleasant than otherwise, as it
necessitated more work on her part.
As for the immorality, the wrong-doing connected with it, she showed no
signs of feelin’.
But Maggie wuz aroused; there wuz a pink spot on both cheeks when I told
her about it.
She wuz settin’ in her pretty room, and near her lay Boy asleep on some
cushions on the sofa. She wuz readin’ a love letter from Thomas
Jefferson, for he wuz away for a few days, and his letters to her wuz
always love letters.
There she sot in her safe and happy love-guarded home, by the side of
Boy, whom she held clost in her heart because he wuz the image of her
lover husband, Thomas J. Allen.
There she sot in her pretty white dress, with her pure, happy face—the
flower, so I told myself as I looked at her, of long years of culture
and refinement, and I couldn’t help comparin’ her in my mind with the
ignorant and onthinkin’ soul that another boy had been give to.
But I told Maggie, for I thought I had ought to, and her eyes grew
darker, and a red spot shone on both cheeks; and sez she the first
thing:
“Dan must marry her at once.”
Sez I, “Mebby he won’t.”
“Why, he must,” sez Maggie; “it is right that he should; I shall make
him.”
“Wall,” sez I, “you must do what you think is right. I am fairly
dumbfounded, and don’t know what to do,” sez I.
Maggie got up sort o’ quick and rung the bell, and asked to have Dan
sent up to her room.
And pretty soon he come in, a tall, hulkin’ chap, good-natered but
utterly irresponsible, so he seemed to me, black as a coal.
And Maggie laid his sins down before him as soft as she could and still
be just, and ended by tellin’ him that he must marry Rosy.
This seemed to astound him that she should ask it; he looked injured and
aggrieved.
But Maggie pressed the point. He stood twirlin’ his old cap in his hand
in silence.
He did not deny his guilt at all, but he wuz surprised at the punishment
she meted out to him.
Finally he spoke. “I tell you what, Miss Margaret, it is mighty hard on
a fellah if you make a fellah marry everybody he pays attentions to.”
He looked the picture of aggrieved innocence in black.
But Maggie persisted. She told him he could move into a little buildin’
standin’ on the grounds; and as he was fairly faithful and hard-workin’,
Maggie thought he would get a good livin’ for his wife and son.
“And you will love your child,” sez Maggie, lookin’ down into Boy’s
sleepin’ face.
Finally, after long arguments and persuasions on Maggie’s part, Dan
promised to marry Rosy.
And to do him justice he did marry her in a week’s time, and they moved
into a little thatched cabin at the bottom of the grounds.
Dan wuz good-natered, as I said, and a good coachman and gardener when
he chose to work; and Maggie and I took solid happiness in fittin’ up
the little rooms so they looked quite pleasant and homelike.
Rosy, as her little baby grew and thrived, manifested a degree of love
for it that wuz surprisin’ when one took into consideration the utter
barrenness and poverty of the soil in which the sweet plant of affection
grew.
And it actually seemed as if the love she had for the child awakened a
soul in her. Frivolous and empty-headed enough she wuz to be sure, but
still there wuz an improvement in her datin’ from the hour when her baby
first became a delight to her.
Dan too grew more settled in his behavior. His drinkin’ spells, which he
had always had periodically, grew further and further apart, and with
the dignity of a father and householder added to him, it seemed to add
cubits to his moral stature.
Ignorant enough, and careless and onthinkin’ enough, Heaven knows, but
still there wuz a change for the better.
Little Snow, sweet angel that she wuz, never tired of flittin’ down the
pleasant path bordered with glossy-leaved oleanders and magnolias, to
the little whitewashed cottage, to carry dainties to Rosy sent by
Maggie, and to baby Dan when he got large enough to comprehend her
kindness.
And it wuz a pretty sight to see Snow’s rose-sweet face and golden curls
nestlin’ down by baby Dan’s little ebony countenance.
[Illustration:
“YOU CAN REPAIR YOUR DWELLIN’ HOUSE.”
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------