‘Well, ye see, Miss Anne,’ said Chloe, brightening, ‘us cullud pussons
is gettin’ married now just like white folks; an’ as my ole mammy ’ll
be eighty the day after to-morrow, Marse George said I had oughter gib
her an’ father a weddin’.’
Better late than never, thought I, as I added something to Chloe’s
basket.
In addition to the plantation negroes and the often petted and spoiled
household servants, there was among the coloured population of the
South a certain proportion of skilled mechanics. These were not only,
from their superior intelligence, more alive than the rest of their
race to the hardship of slavery, but, from their greater value,
more apt to suffer from it. Why, for instance, should Jim, a good
blacksmith, trifle his time away on the plantation, where there was
little or nothing for him to do, when Smith in the adjacent town will
give Jim’s master, always in need of money, handsome payment for the
slave’s services? The master is perhaps a kind man, and Smith known to
be just the reverse, but hiring is not like selling. And so Jim goes,
and toils in the sweat of his brow till Smith’s payment to the master
is wrung out from him a thousandfold.
It is of one of these mechanics I am going to tell you, and, excepting
that the names of the persons connected with the story have been
changed, every word of Abe’s story is true.
In the heart of West Virginia, on the picturesque banks of the
Great Kanawha River, there is a large tract of land once owned by
Washington. Besides the niece who afterwards became Mrs Parke Custis,
Washington had another in whom he was greatly interested, the daughter
of his brother Lawrence. This lady, much against the wishes of her
distinguished uncle, became the wife of Major Parks of Baltimore;
and when this gallant officer, fulfilling Washington’s predictions,
had spent all he could lay his hands upon and a great deal more, the
couple, for his sins, were banished to what was then the wilderness
of Western Virginia. Their daughter in course of time married Mr
Prescott, a rich young planter from the east, whose money, laid out
on the Washington acres, produced a flourishing plantation; while on
one of the most romantic sites on the Kanawha arose a noble mansion
known as Prescott Place. Here Mrs Prescott exercised for years a lavish
hospitality; and here were preserved, until fire consumed them and
the mansion together, sundry relics of Washington, chief of which was
a characteristic letter to his niece, written before her marriage,
warning her that as she made her bed, so she should lie upon it.
When young Laura Prescott married gay Dick Randolph, Abe, the son
of Mr Prescott’s body-servant, was one of numerous presents of like
kind. Abe was an excellent carpenter; and when dark days came to the
Prescotts and Randolphs, it was Abe himself who persuaded ‘Marse Dick’
to sell him to a man from the north named Hartley, who from being a
slave-driver had risen to be a slave-owner, and who had the reputation
of being a very demon. Again and again Hartley offered a tempting
price, and again and again Dick Randolph refused it; nor would he have
yielded at last, hard pressed as he was, had he not felt that Abe,
being about to be hired to a builder in the neighbourhood, would be
really out of Hartley’s power. And when, some months after the sale,
Abe walked over to Prescott Place to tell that his new master was going
to allow him to purchase his freedom by working over-hours, Mr Randolph
felt quite at ease about the faithful fellow. A price being set by
Hartley, Abe set himself cheerfully to earn it—for years commencing his
day’s work with the dawn, and carrying it far into the night.
But the general opinion of Hartley had not, it was soon seen, done him
injustice. Twice, thrice, was the price of Abe’s freedom raised just as
he seemed on the eve of gaining it; and after the third disappointment,
the slave became utterly hopeless, and, abandoning all extra labour,
spent his spare hours in the darkest corner of his wretched cabin,
brooding over his wrongs. This was by no means what Hartley intended;
so, to encourage Abe, he was led to promise, in the presence of Mr
Randolph, that he would abide by the sum last named. In law, of course,
the promise was good for nothing; but the _ci-devant_ slave-driver was
supposed to have some regard for public opinion. In vain Mr Randolph
offered a higher price than was demanded for the slave himself. Abe
should buy himself, Hartley said, or he should not be bought at all.
Three years had passed, when Abe, getting a half-holiday from the
builder who hired him, set off for Hartley’s with the stipulated sum.
On his way there he stopped at Prescott Place to tell the good news.
This was just at the beginning of the war; and Mr Randolph, being about
to join the army, had promised to take Abe with him as his servant.
Next morning, while breakfast was being served at Prescott Place, a
loud scuffle was heard at the dining-room door, and Hartley, using his
whip freely on the servant who tried to stop him, strode into the room
livid with passion, and flourishing his whip in Mr Randolph’s face,
yelled, with an oath: ‘Where is that nigger?’
Dick Randolph’s blood was up in a moment, but he was first of all a
gentleman. ‘Do you see my wife?’ he asked sternly.
A coarse response from Hartley was all the reply, and in a moment the
ruffian had measured his length on the floor; nor did he remember more
till he found himself struggling in a pool of not very clean water
by the highway. The negroes had received orders to take him off the
plantation, and the precise spot where they were to deposit him not
having been mentioned, they had selected one in accordance with his
deserts.
Hartley thought it prudent to disappear for a time. Whether he was
simply a coward, or feared that some ugly facts connected with the case
might leak out, was never known. Abe himself was not seen or heard of;
and his story, except by a few, was soon, in these eventful times,
forgotten.
But the facts of the case were these: on the evening referred to, Abe
had found his master pleasant, and even jocular, wishing he had not
given the promise, offering to buy Abe back again, and so on. At last
he turned to business. The money was produced and counted.
‘Well?’ said Hartley, inquiringly.
Abe did not understand. Hartley seemed waiting for something. At last
he spoke plainly. ‘Where is the rest of the money?’
The scoundrel had made up his mind to deny having received the previous
payments, to deny all knowledge even of sums he had meanly borrowed
from his slave, and to hand him back to helpless, hopeless slavery.
That night Abe appeared at the cabin of his wife, a slave on a distant
plantation. There he briefly told the story of his wrongs, adding: ‘I
am going to-night. It may be long before you see me; but if it is fifty
years, I will come back for you, if you are faithful.’
Phyllis promised to be true; and kept her promise as slaves do; that
is, she married—they called it marrying—the first man who asked her.
* * * * *
The five years of the war had come and gone, and ten years more. Major
Randolph, past middle age, and utterly ruined, was trying, in a small
Virginian town, to take up the profession of law, which, in happier
days, he had studied, but had not cared to practise; and the widow of
Hartley, who had meantime died bankrupt, was keeping a boarding-house
in the same place; when, on a certain forenoon, there was shown into
the Randolphs’ parlour a tall, portly, middle-aged man, gentlemanly in
appearance, and thoroughly well dressed, but perfectly black. The Irish
maid-of-all-work had forgiven his colour for the sake of his clothes.
Mr Randolph happened to be at home, and it was to him the stranger
eagerly turned. ‘Marse Dick!’ he cried.
‘Abe!’
And Abe it was. And there were tears in at least three pairs of eyes
as the master and slave of former days shook hands.
Well, Abe might have been a long-lost brother, Major Randolph was so
glad to see him. He made him tell his adventures from the time he left
Hartley until he appeared in the Randolphs’ parlour; he showed him his
sons and his daughters, and rattled on about old days. But never a word
did he say about wounds and losses and disappointments; though it could
hardly have escaped Abe’s affectionate eyes that, while his own outer
man bore such marks of prosperity, his old master’s had grown actually
shabby.
By ways and means generally forthcoming to border negroes who had
the courage and prudence to avail themselves of them, Abe had gone
northward first, returning to Virginia, however, the moment the
emancipation proclamation was issued. Hearing of Major Randolph’s
absence and his own wife’s unfaithfulness, he had wandered farther
and farther from his old home, and had settled at last in a far
south-western state. There he had worked steadily; at first on shares,
then for himself; till at the time of his visit to Virginia, he was the
manager and largest shareholder of the celebrated Hot Springs of A——.
Need I say how earnestly ‘Marse Dick’ was besought to try the springs
for his rheumatism, to bring ‘Miss Laura’ and the family, to enjoy
horses and carriages, to fish and hunt, and generally to enter into
possession?
Old Mrs Prescott, who still lived, shared with her son and daughter the
pleasure of Abe’s return, and the young Randolphs listened with delight
to such an interesting romance. And yet—truth compels me to confess
that the eldest daughter gave more than one uneasy glance into the
street, and was literally sitting on thorns. What if a morning caller
should find a negro in the Randolph parlour? Even kind Mrs Randolph
had a feeling of uneasiness as the early dinner-hour approached. But
the master guessed at no such embarrassments. The hour came; the bell
rang, and as easily and cordially Major Randolph said: ‘You will come
to dinner with us, Abe.’
‘After you and the family, Marse Dick.’
‘_With_ me and the family,’ replied Major Randolph.
And though Abe earnestly begged to be allowed to wait, into the
dining-room he went. And I may add, that had the most curious or
mischievous eyes been on the watch for solecisms of any kind, they
would have been disappointed.
‘What would you have had me do?’ said Major Randolph afterwards. ‘There
was Abe, dying to lavish on his old master all he possessed. Was I to
be outdone in hospitality by my own old slave?’
‘And Abe had just as much delicacy as papa,’ owned Miss Randolph, who
felt she could afford to praise when the critical period was safely
over—a merciful providence having kept away visitors. ‘He spoke just as
good English as we do. But did you notice that, though he spoke of Mr
Hartley and Mr everybody else, he always called papa “Marse Dick?”’
Before Abe left town, he had put a little bit of business in Mr
Randolph’s hands—no other than the settlement of a mortgage that
threatened to ruin Mrs Hartley and her children. ‘O Marse Dick!’ he
said, ‘I have been keeping away till I was rich enough to buy that
man up; and then I meant to meet him face to face and ask him what he
thought of himself. I doubt if I could have kept my hands off him; and
now he is gone. I hope the good Lord will forgive me!’
Were I writing a romance, I might tell how Abe made his old master’s
fortune. But I have given you a poor idea of Major Randolph if I
have led you to imagine he would allow himself to profit by his old
servant’s prosperity in the smallest degree. If Abe told him of a good
investment, he had no money. If a loan was modestly and hesitatingly
offered, on the plea that Abe wished to place money at interest, and
that there were so few whom he could trust, it was kindly but decidedly
refused. And so Abe grows richer, and Major Randolph poorer than ever.
The old-time slaves, with many misty ideas on the subject of religion,
had one article of belief which they understood clearly, and for which
they would have suffered martyrdom—namely, that in the next world it
would be their turn to sit at table and eat the good things, while
the proud white folks should ‘grease de griddle and turn de cakes.’
The doctrine is founded on the principle of compensation, but the
compensation in some cases begins here.