Just before the breaking out of the Civil War, Delisleville had been
provided with a sensation in a piece of singularly unexpected good
fortune which befell one of its most prominent citizens. It was indeed
good fortune, wearing somewhat the proportions of a fairy tale, and that
such things could happen in Delisleville and to a citizen who possessed
its entire approval was considered vaguely to the credit of the town.
One of the facts which had always been counted as an added dignity to the
De Willoughbys had been their well-known possession of property in land.
"Land" was always felt to be dignified, and somehow it seemed
additionally so when it gained a luxuriously superfluous character by
merely lying in huge, uncultivated tracts, and representing nothing but
wide areas and taxes.
"Them big D'Willerbys of D'lisleville owns thousands of acres as never
brings 'em a cent," Mr. Stamps had said to his friends at the Cross-roads
at the time Big Tom had first appeared among them. It was Mr. Stamps who
had astutely suggested that the stranger was possibly "kin" to the
Delisleville family, and in his discreet pursuit of knowledge he had made
divers discoveries.
"'Twarn't Jedge D'Willerby bought the land," he went on to explain, "'n'
it seems like he would hev bin a fool to hev done it, bein' as 'tain't
worked an' brings in nothin'. But ye never know how things may turn out.
'Twas the Jedge's gran'father, old Isham D'Willerby bought it fer a
kinder joke. Some said he was blind drunk when he done it, but he warn't
so drunk but what he got a cl'ar title, an' he got it mighty cheap too.
Folks ses as he use ter laugh an' say he war goin' to find gold on it,
but he never dug fer none--nor fer crops nuther, an' thar it lies to-day
in the mountains, an' no one goin' nigh it."
In truth, Judge De Willoughby merely paid his taxes upon it from a sense
of patriarchal pride.
"My ancestor bought it," he would say. "I will hand it to my sons. In
England it would be an estate for an earldom, here it means merely
tax-paying. Still, I shall not sell it."
Nobody, in fact, would have been inclined to buy it in those days. But
there came a time when its value increased hour by hour in the public
mind, until it was almost beyond computation.
A chance visitor from the outside world made an interesting discovery. On
this wild tract of hill and forest was a vein of coal so valuable that,
to the practical mind of the discoverer, the Judge's unconsciousness of
its existence was amazing. He himself was a practical, driving, business
schemer from New York. He knew the value of what he saw, and the
availability of the material in consequence of a certain position in
which the mines lay. Before he left Delisleville he had explained this
with such a presenting of facts that the Judge had awakened to an
enthusiasm as Southern as his previous indifference had been. He had no
knowledge of business methods; he had practised his profession in a
magnificent _dilettante_ sort of way which had worn an imposing air and
impressed his clients, and, as he was by inheritance a comparatively rich
man, he had not been driven by necessity to alter his methods. The sudden
prospect of becoming a multimillionaire excited him. He made Napoleonic
plans, and was dignified and eloquent.
"Why should I form a company?" he said. "If I am willing to make the
first ventures myself, the inevitable returns of profit will do the rest,
and there will be no complications. The De Willoughby Mine will be the De
Willoughby Mine alone. I prefer that it should be so."
The idea of being sole ruler in the scheme made him feel rather like a
king, and he privately enjoyed the sensation. He turned into money all
the property he could avail himself of; his library table was loaded with
books on mining; he invested in tons of machinery, which were continually
arriving from the North, or stopping on the way when it should have been
arriving. He sent for engineers from various parts of the country and
amazed them with the unprofessional boldness of his methods. He really
indulged in a few months of dignified riot, of what he imagined to be a
splendidly executive nature. The plans were completed, the machinery
placed, the engineers and cohorts of workmen engaged in tremendous
efforts, the Judge was beginning to reflect on the management of his
future millions, when--the first gun was fired on Fort Sumter.
That was the beginning, and apparently the end. Suddenly the storm of war
broke forth, and its tempest, surging through the land, swept all before
it. The country was inundated with catastrophes, capitalists foundered,
schemes were swamped, the armies surged to and fro. The De Willoughby
land was marched and fought over; scores of hasty, shallow graves were
dug in it and filled; buildings and machinery were destroyed as if a
tornado had passed by. The Judge was a ruined man; his realisable
property he had allowed to pass from his hands, his coal remained in the
bowels of the earth, the huge income he was to have drawn from it had
melted into nothingness.
Nothing could have altered the aspect of this tragedy; but there was a
singular fact which added to its intensity and bitterness. In such a
hot-bed of secession as was Delisleville, the fact in question was indeed
not easily explainable, except upon the grounds either of a Quixotic
patriotism or upon those of a general disposition to contradictoriness. A
Southern man, the head of a Southern family, the Judge opposed the
rebellion and openly sided with the Government. That he had been a man
given to argument and contradiction, and always priding himself upon
refusing to be led by the majority was not to be denied.
"He is fancying himself a Spartan hero, and looking forward to laurels
and history," one of his neighbours remarked. "It is like De Willoughby
after all. He would have been a Secessionist if he had lived in Boston."
"The Union General George Washington fought for and handed down to us _I_
will protect," the Judge said loftily himself.
But there was no modifying the outburst of wonder and condemnation which
overwhelmed him. To side with the Union--in an aristocratic Southern
town--was to lose social caste and friends, to be held a renegade and an
open, degraded traitor to home and country. At that period, to the
Southerner the only country was the South--in the North reigned outer
darkness. Had the Judge been a poor white, there would have been talk of
tar and feathers. As a man who had been a leader among the aristocratic
classes, he was ostracized. In the midst of his financial disasters he
was treated as an outlaw. He had been left a widower a few years before,
during the war his son De Courcy died of fever, Romaine fell in battle,
and his sole surviving daughter lost her life through diphtheria
contracted in a soldiers' hospital. The family had sunk into actual
poverty; the shock of sorrows and disappointment broke the old man's
spirit. On the day that peace was finally declared he died in his room in
the old house which had once been so full of young life and laughter and
spirit.
The only creature with him at the time was his grandson, young Rupert De
Willoughby, who was De Courcy's son. The sun was rising, and its first
beams shone in at the open window rosily. The old Judge lay rubbing his
hands slowly together, perhaps because they were cold.
"Only you left, Rupert," he said, "and there were so many of us. If
Tom--if Tom had not been such a failure--don't know whether he's
alive--or dead. If Tom----"
His hands slowly ceased moving and his voice trailed off into silence.
Ten minutes later all was over, and Rupert stood in the world entirely
alone.
* * * * *
For the next two years the life the last De Willoughby lived in the old
house, though distinctly unique, was not favourable to the development of
youth. Having been prepared for the practice of the law, after the
time-honoured De Willoughby custom, and having also for some months
occupied a corner in the small, unbusiness-like, tree-shaded, brick
building known as the Judge's "office," Rupert sat now at his
grandfather's desk and earned a scant living by endeavouring to hold
together the old man's long-diminished practice. The profession at the
time offered nothing in such places as Delisleville, even to older and
more experienced men. No one had any money to go to law with, few had any
property worth going to law about.
Both armies having swept through it, Delisleville wore in those days an
aspect differing greatly from its old air of hospitable well-being and
inconsequent good spirits and good cheer. Its broad verandahed houses had
seen hard usage, its pavements were worn and broken, and in many streets
tufted with weeds; its fences were dilapidated, its rich families had
lost their possessions, and those who had not been driven away by their
necessities were gazing aghast at a future to which it seemed impossible
to adjust their ease-loving, slave-attended, luxurious habits of the
past. Houses built of wood, after the Southern fashion, do not well
withstand neglect and ill-fortune. Porticos and pillars and trellis-work
which had been picturesque and imposing when they had been well cared
for, and gleamed white among creepers and trees, lost their charm
drearily when paint peeled off, trees were cut down, and vines were
dragged away and died. Over the whole of the once gay little place there
had fallen an air of discouragement, desolation, and decay. Financial
disaster had crippled the boldest even in centres much more energetic
than small, unbusiness-like Southern towns; the country lay, as it were,
prostrate to recover strength, and all was at a standstill.
Finding himself penniless, Rupert De Willoughby lived in a corner of the
house he had been brought up in. Such furniture as had survived the havoc
of war and the entire dilapidation of old age, he had gathered together
in three or four rooms, which he occupied with the one servant good
fortune brought to his door at a time when the forlornness of his changed
position was continually accentuated by the untidy irregularity of his
life and surroundings. He was only able to afford to engage the shiftless
services of a slatternly negro girl, rendered insubordinate by her newly
acquired freedom, and he had begun to feel that he should never again
find himself encompassed by the decorous system of a well-managed
household.
It was at this juncture that Uncle Matthew arrived and presented his
curious petition, which was that he should be accepted as general
servant, with wages or without them.
He had not belonged to Judge De Willoughby, but to a distant relative,
and, as he was an obstinate and conservative old person, he actually felt
that to be "a free nigger" was rather to drop in the social scale.
"Whar's a man stand, sah, if he ain't got no fambly?" he said to Rupert
when he came to offer his services to him. "He stan' nowhar, that's war
he stan'; I've got to own up to it, Marse Rupert, I'se a 'ristycrat bawn
an' bred, an' I 'low to stay one, long's my head's hot. Ef my old mars's
fambly hadn't er gone fo'th en' bin scattered to de fo' win's of de
university, I'd a helt on, but when de las' of 'um went to dat Europe,
dey couldn't 'ford to take me, an' I had ter stay. An' when I heerd as
all yo' kin was gone an' you was gwine to live erlone like dis yere, I
come to ax yer to take me to wait on yer--as a favier, Marse Rupert--as a
_favier_. 'Tain't pay I wants, sah; it's a fambly name an' a fambly
circle."
"It's not much of a circle, Uncle Matt," said Rupert, looking round at
the bareness of the big room he sat in.
"'Tain't much fer you, suh," answered Uncle Matthew, "but it's a pow'fle
deal fer me in dese yere days. Ef yer don't take me, fust thing I knows
I'll be drivin' or waitin' on some Mr. Nobody from New York or Boston,
an' seems like I shouldn't know how to stand it. 'Scuse me a-recommendin'
myself, sah--I _look_ ole, but I ain't as ole as I look; I'se l'arnt to
cook, sah, from three womens what I was married to, an' I knows my place
an' how to keep house like it orter be kep'. Will you try me a mont',
Marse De Willoughby--will you try me a week?"
Rupert tried him and never regretted the venture. In fact, Uncle Matt's
accomplishments were varied for practical reasons. He had been in his
time first house servant, then coachman; he had married at twenty a woman
of forty, who had been a sort of female mulatto Vatel. When she had died,
having overheated herself and caught cold on the occasion of a series of
great dinners given at a triumphant political crisis, he had taken for
his second wife the woman whose ambition it had been to rival her in her
culinary arts. His third marriage had been even more distinguished. His
wife had been owned by some extravagantly rich Creoles in New Orleans,
and had even lived with them during a year spent in France, thereby
gaining unheard-of culinary accomplishments. Matthew had always declared
that he loved her the best of the three. Those matrimonial ventures had
been a liberal education to him. He had learned to cook almost as well as
his first, and from his second and third he had inherited methods and
recipes which were invaluable. He seemed to have learned to do
everything. He dismissed the slatternly negro girl and took upon himself
the duties of both man and woman servant. The house gradually wore a new
aspect--dust disappeared, windows were bright, the scant furniture was
arranged to the best possible advantage, the scant meals were marvels of
perfect cookery and neat serving. Having prepared a repast, Uncle Matt
donned an ancient but respectable coat and stood behind his young
master's chair with dignity. The dramatic nature of his race was strongly
appealed to by the situation in which he found himself. A negro of his
kind is perfectly capable of building a romance out of much smaller
materials. The amiable vanity which gave such exalted value to all the
belongings of their masters in their days of slavery, and which so
delighted in all picturesqueness of surrounding, is the best of
foundations for romances. From generation to generation certain
circumstances and qualities had conferred a sort of distinction upon
their humbleness; to be owned by an aristocrat, to live in a great house,
to wait upon young masters who were handsome and accomplished and young
mistresses who were beautiful and surrounded by worshippers, to be
indispensable to "de Jedge" or "de Cun'l," or to travel as attendant
because some brilliant young son or lovely young daughter could find no
one who would wait on them as "Uncle Matt" or "Aunt Prissy" could--these
things made life to be desired and filled it with excitement and
importance.
To the halcyon days in which such delights were possible Uncle Matt
belonged. He was too old to look forward; he wanted his past again; and
to find himself the sole faithful retainer in a once brilliant household,
with the chance of making himself indispensable to the one remaining
scion of an old name, assisted him to feel that he was a relic of
departed grandeur.
His contrivances were numberless. In a corner of what he called the "back
gyarden" he constructed an enclosure for chickens. He bought two or three
young fowls, and by marvels of management founded a family with them. The
family once founded, he made exchanges with friendly coloured matrons of
the vicinity, with such results in breeding that "Uncle Matt's" chickens
became celebrated fowls. He displayed the same gifts in the management of
the garden. In a few months after his arrival, Rupert began to find
himself sitting down before the kind of meal he had not expected to
contemplate again.
"Uncle Matt," he said, "where do I get fried chicken and vegetables like
these--and honey and fresh butter and cream? I don't pay for them."
"Yes, you do, sah. Yo' property pays for 'em. Dat 'ar gyarden, sah, is
black with richness--jest black. It's a forchen for a pusson what kin
contrive an' make fren's, an' trade, an' kin flourish a spade. Dar's
fruit-trees an' grape-vines dar--an' room enuf to plant anything--an'
richness enuf to make peas an' taters an' beets an' cabbages jest jump
out o' de yarth. I've took de liberty of makin' a truck patch, an' I've
got me a chicken coop, an' I've had mighty good luck with my aigs an' my
truck--an' I've got things to trade with the women folks for what I
_ain't_ got. De ladies likes tradin', an' dey's mighty neighbourly about
yeah, 'memberin' yo' fambly, sah."
Rupert leaned back in his chair and broke into a hearty, boyish laugh,
which it was very good both to see and hear. He very seldom laughed.
"I wish I was a genius like you, Matt," he said. "What luck I'm in to
have you. Raising chickens and vegetables, and negotiating with your lady
friends for me! I feel like a caliph with a grand vizier. I never tasted
such chicken or such waffles in my life!"
"I'm settin' some tukkey-eggs now--under de yaller hen," said Matt, with
a slyly exultant grin. "She's a good mother, the yaller hen; an' de way
dem fruit-trees is gwine ter be loaded is a sight. Aunt Mary Field, she's
tradin' with me a'ready agin fruit puttin'-up time."
Rupert got up from his chair. He caught old Matt's dusky, yellow-palmed
paw in his hand and shook it hard. His gloomy young face had changed its
aspect, his eyes suddenly looked like his mother's--and Delia Vanuxem had
been said to have the loveliest soft eyes in all the South.
"Matt," he said, "I couldn't do without you. It isn't only _that_," with
a gesture towards the table, "you--it's almost as if you had come to save
me."
"Ole nigger man like me, Marse Rupert," said Uncle Matt, "savin' of a
fine young gentleman like what you is! How's I gwine ter do it?" But his
wrinkled face looked tremulous with emotion. "Times is gwine ter change
for you, they is, an' Matt's gwine ter stay by yer till dat come to pass.
Marse Rupert," looking at him curiously, "I 'clar to Gawd you look like
yo' young mammy did. Yo' ain't always, but jes' dish yer minnit yo'
does--an' yer did jes' now when yer laf'."
"Do I look like her?" said Rupert. "I'm glad of it. I want to be like
her. Say, Uncle Matt, whenever I look or speak or act like her, you tell
me."
When in the course of neighbourly conversation Matt mentioned this to his
friend Aunt Mary Fields, she put a new colour upon it.
"He worshipped his maw, an' she jest 'dored down on him," she said; "but
'tain't only he want look like her, he _doan_' want look like his paw.
Ev'one know what Cun'l de Courcy was--an' dat chile jest 'spise him. He
was allus a mons'ous proud chile, and when de Cun'l broke loose an' went
on one o' his t'ars, it mos' 'stroyed dat boy wid de disgracefulness.
Dar's chil'en as doan' keer or notice--but dat boy, it 'most 'stroyed
him."
The big, empty-sounding house was kept orderly and spotless, the back
garden exhibited such vegetables as no one else owned, the fruit-trees
and grape-vines throve, in time the flower-beds began to bloom
brilliantly, the rose-bushes and shrubs were trimmed, the paths swept,
and people began to apply to Uncle Matt for slips and seeds. He himself
became quite young again, so inspired was he by his importance and
popularity. When he went into the town upon errands, people stopped to
talk to him; the young business or professional men called him into their
offices to have a chat with him. He was such a respectable relic of the
times which had been "better days" to all of them, that there were those
who were almost confidential with him. Uncle Matt would always understand
their sentiments and doctrines, and he was always to be relied on for any
small service. Such a cocktail or julep no one else could prepare, and
there were numerous subtle accomplishments in the matter of mixing liquid
refreshments which would have earned a reputation for any man.
There was no more familiar figure than his in the market or business
streets of the hot, sunshine-flooded little town, which the passing
armies had left so battered and deserted.
Uncle Matt knew all the stories in Delisleville. He knew how one house
was falling to pieces for lack of repairs; he heard of the horses that
had been sold or had died of old age and left their owners without a
beast to draw their rickety buggies or carriages; he was deeply
interested in the failing fortunes of what had once been the most
important "store" in the town, and whose owner had been an aristocratic
magnate, having no more undignified connection with the place than that
of provider of capital.
As he walked up Main Street on his way to market, with his basket on his
arm, he saw who had been able to "lay in new stock" and who had not. He
saw the new sign-boards hung outside small houses which had been turned
into offices. He knew what young scion of a respectable family had begun
"doctoring" or "set up as a lawyer." Sometimes he even dropped in and
made brief visits of respectful congratulation.
"But," he said privately to his young master, "de air ob de atmosphere,
it's jest full of dem young lawyers an' doctors. Dar don't seem to be
nothin' else for a gen'leman's sons to do but to kyore people or go to
law for 'em. Of cose dey oughtn't ter hab ter work, gen'lemen oughtn'ter.
Dey didn't usen to heb ter, but now dey is gotter. Lawdy, Marse Rupert,
you'll hatter 'scuse me, but de young lawyers, an' de young doctors, dey
is scattered about dish yer D'lisleville!"
There were certain new sign-boards which excited him to great interest.
There was one he never passed without pausing to examine and reflect upon
it.
When he came within range of it on his way up the street, his pace would
slacken, and when he reached it he would stop at the edge of the pavement
and stand with his basket on his arm, gazing at the lettering with an
absorbed air of interest and curiosity. It read, "Milton January, Claim
Agent." He could not read, but he had heard comments made upon the
profession of the owner of this sign-board which had filled him with
speculative thought. He shared the jealousy of strangers who came from
"the North" to Delisleville and set up offices, which much more
intelligent persons than himself burned with. He resented them as
intruders, and felt that their well-dressed air and alert, business-like
manner was an insult to departed fortunes.
"What they come fer?" he used to grumble. "Takin' away trade an' business
when they ain't none left for de proper people nohow. How's we gwine ter
live if all New York City an' Bos'n an' Philadelphy pours in?"
"They are not pouring in very fast, Uncle Matt," Rupert answered him
once. "Perhaps it would be better for us if they did. They bring _some_
money, at any rate. There are only one or two of them, and one is a claim
agent."
"Dat's jest what I wants ter know," said Matt. "What's dey layin' claim
to? What right dey got ter claim anythin'? Gawd knows dar ain't much ter
claim."
Rupert laughed and gave him a friendly, boyish slap on the back.
"They are not claiming things _from_ people, but _for_ them. They look up
claims against the Government and try to get indemnity for them. They
prove claims to back pay, and for damages and losses, and try to make the
Government refund."
Uncle Matt rubbed his head a minute, then he looked up eagerly.
"Cun'l De Willoughby, now," he said; "doan' you s'pose dar's some back
pay owin' to him for de damage dat yaller fever done him wot he done
cotch from de army?"
Rupert laughed a little bitterly.
"No," he said, "I'm afraid not."
"What dey gwine to refun', den?" said Matt. "Dat's what I'd like ter fin'
out. Dis hyer idee of refun'in' please me mightily. I'd be pow'fle glad
to come bang up agin' some refun'in' myself."
From that time his interest in Milton January, Claim Agent, increased
week by week. He used to loiter about talking groups if he caught the
sound of his name, in the hope of gathering information. He was quite
shrewd enough to realise his own entire ignorance of many subjects, and
he had the pride which prevented his being willing to commit himself.
"I ain't nothin' but a ole nigger," he used to say. "I ain't had no
eddication like some er dese yere smarties what kin read an' cipher an'
do de double shuffle in de copy-book. Matt ain't never rub his back 'gin
no college wall. Bes' thing he knows is dat he doan' know nothin'. Dat's
a pow'fle useful piece o' l'arnin' to help a man, black or white, from
makin' a fool er hesself bigger dan what de good Lawd 'tended him fer ter
be. Matt he gradyuated in dat 'ar knowledge an' got he stiffikit. When de
good Lawd turn a man out a fool, he got ter _be_ a fool, but he needn'
ter be a bigger fool den what he _gotter_."
So he listened in the market, where he went every morning to bargain for
his bit of beefsteak, or fish, or butter, and where the men and women who
kept the stalls knew him as well as they knew each other. They all liked
him and welcomed him as he approached in his clean old clothes, his
market basket on his arm, his hat set rather knowingly upon his grizzled
wool. He was, in fact, rather a flirtatious old party, and was counted a
great wit, and was full of a shrewd humour as well as of grandiloquent
compliment.
"I has a jocalder way er talkin', I ain't gwine ter deny," he would say
when complimented upon his popularity with the fair sex, "an' dey ain't
nothin' de ladies likes mo' dan a man what's jocalder. Dey loves jokin'
an' dey loves to laff. It's de way er de sect. A man what cayn't be
jocalder with 'em, he hain't no show."
"What dis hyer claim agentin' I's hearin' so much talk about?" he
enquired of a group one morning. "What _I_ wants is ter get inter de
innards of de t'ing, an' den I'se gwine to claim sump'n fer myse'f. If
dar's claimin' gwine on, I'se a gen'leman what's gwine to be on de
camp-meetin' groun', an' fo'most 'mong de shouters."
"What did ye lose by the war, Uncle Matt?" said a countryman, who was
leaning against his market waggon of "produce" and chewing tobacco. "If
ye kin hunt up suthin' ye lost, ye kin put in a claim fer the vally of
it, an' mebbe get Government to give ye indemnity. Mebbe ye kin an' mebbe
ye cayn't. They ain't keen to do it, but mebbe ye could work it through a
smart agent like January. They say he's as smart as they make 'em."
It was a broiling July morning; only the people who were obliged to leave
their houses for some special reason were to be seen in the streets; the
market waggons which had come in from the country laden with vegetables
and chickens and butter were drawn up under the shadow of the market
house, that their forlorn horses or mules might escape the glaring hot
sun. The liveliest business hour had passed, and about the waggons a
group of market men and women and two or three loiterers were idling in
the shade, waiting for chance-belated customers. There was a general
drawing near when Uncle Matt began his conversation. They always wanted
to hear what he had to say, and always responded with loud, sympathetic
guffaws to his "jocalder" remarks.
"He's sech a case, Uncle Matt is," the women would say, "I never seen
sich a case."
When the countryman spoke, Uncle Matt put on an expression of dignified
thoughtfulness. It was an expression his audience were entirely familiar
with and invariably greeted with delight.
"Endurin' of de war," he said, "I los' severial things. Fust thing I
memberize of losin' was a pa'r of boots. Dar was a riggiment passin' at
de time, an' de membiers of dat riggiment had been footin' it long enough
to have wo' out a good deal er shoe-leather. They was thusty an' hungry,
an' come to de halt near my cabin to require if dar warn't no vittles
lyin' roun' loose for de good er de country. When dey was gone, my new
boots was gone, what I'd jest brung home from de cobbler."
His audience broke into a shout of enjoyment.
"Dat 'ar incerdent stirred up my paketriotit feelin's consider'ble at de
moment. I couldn't seem to see it in de light what p'raps I oughter seen
it in. I rared roun' a good deal, an' fer a moment er two, I didn't seem
tar mind which side beat de oder. Jest dat 'casion. I doan' say de
sentiment continnered on, but jest dat 'casion seemed ter me like dar was
a Yank somewhars es I wouldn't hev ben agin seein' takin' a whuppin' from
some'un, Secesh or no Secesh."
"What else did ye lose, Unc' Matt?" someone said when the laugh died
down.
"Well, I lose a wife--kinder cook dat dar ain't no 'demnity kin make up
fer when de Lawd's removed 'em. An' 'pears to me right dar, dat if I
wusn't a chu'ch member, I shed be led on ter say dat, considerin' what a
skaseness er good cooks dar is, seems like de good Lawd's almost wasteful
an' stravagant, de way he lets 'em die off. Three uv 'em he 'moved from
me to a better worl'. Not as I'm a man what'd wanter be sackerligious;
but 'pears to me dar was mo' wuk fur 'em to do in dis hyer dark worl' er
sin dan in de realms er glory. I may be wrong, but dat's how it seem to a
pore nigger like me."
"The Government won't pay for yer wife, Matt," said the owner of the
market waggon.
"Dat dey won't, en dat dey cayn't," said Matt. "Dat las' woman's gumbo
soup warn't a thing to be 'demnified fer, dat it warn't. But what I'm a
aimin' at is to fin' out what dey _will_ pay fer, en how much. Dar was
one mawnin' I sot at my do' reflectin' on de Gawsp'l, an' de Yanks come
jest a tarin' down de road, licketty switch, licketty switch, yellin'
like de debil let loose, en firin' of dere pistols, an' I gotter 'fess I
los' a heap a courage dat time--an' I los' a heap o' breath runnin' 'way
from 'em en outer sight. Now I know de Gov'ment not gwine ter pay me fer
losin' dem things, but what _is_ dey gwine pay for losin'?"
"Property, they say--crops 'n' houses, 'n' barns, 'n' truck wuth money."
Uncle Matt removed his hat, and looked into the crown of it as if for
instruction before he wiped his forehead and put it on again.
"Aye-yi! Dey is, is dey?" he said. "Property--en houses, en barns, en
truck wuth money? Dey'll hev a plenty to pay, ef dey begins dat game,
won't dey? Dey'll hev ter dig down inter de Gov'ment breeches pocket
pretty deep, dat dey will. Doan' see how de Pres'dent gwine ter do it
out'n what dey 'lows him, less'n dey 'lows him mighty big pocket money."
"'Tain't the President, Matt," said one of the crowd. "It's the Nation."
"Oh, it's de Nation!" said Matt. "De Nation. Well, Mr. Nation gwine fin'
he got plenty ter do--early _en_ late."
This was not the last time he led the talk in the direction of Government
claims, and in the course of his marketings and droppings into various
stores and young lawyers' offices, he gathered a good deal of
information. Claims upon the Government had not been so far exploited in
those days as they were a little later, and knowledge of such business
and its processes was not as easily obtainable by unbusiness-like
persons.
One morning, as he stood at the street corner nearest the Claim Agent's
office, a little man came out of the place, and by chance stopped to cool
himself for a few moments under the shade of the very maple tree Uncle
Matt had chosen.
He was a very small man, wearing very large pantaloons, and he had a
little countenance whose expression was a curious combination of rustic
vacancy and incongruous slyness. He was evidently from the country, and
Uncle Matt's respectable, in fact, rather aristocratic air, apparently
attracted his attention.
"'Scuse me, sah," said Matt, "'scuse me addressin' of you, but dem ar
Claim Agents----?"
"Hev ye got a claim?" said the little man in words that were slow, but
with an air that was sharp. "I mean, has anyone ye work fur got one?"
"Well, sah," answered Matt, "I ain't sartain, but----"
"Ye'd better make sartain," said the little man. "Bein' es the thing's
started the way it hes, anyone es might hev a claim an' lets it lie, is a
derned fool. I come from over the mountain. My name's Stamps, and _I've_
got one."
Uncle Matt regarded him with interest--not exactly with respect, but with
interest.
Stamps took off his battered broad-brimmed hat, wiped his moist forehead
and expectorated, leaning against the tree.
"Thar's people in this town as is derned fools," he remarked,
sententiously. "Thar's people in most every town in the Union as is
derned fools. Most everybody's got a claim to suthin', if they'd only got
the common horse sense ter look it up. Why, look at that yoke o' oxen o'
mine--the finest yoke o' steers in Hamlin County. Would hev took fust
ticket at any Agricultural Fair in the United States. I ain't goin' to
sacceryfist them steers to no Stars an' Stripes as ever floated. The
Guv'ment's _got_ to pay me the wuth of 'em down to the last cent."
He gave Matt a sharp look with a hint of inquiry in it, as if he was
asking either his hearer or himself a question, and was not entirely
certain of the answer.
"Now thar's D'Willerby," he went on. "Big Tom--Tom D'Willerby lost
enough, the Lord knows. Fust one army, 'n' then another layin' holt on
his stock as it come over the road from one place an' another, a-eatin'
of it up 'n' a-wearin' his goods made up into shirts 'n' the like-'n' him
left a'most cleaned out o' everythin'. Why, Tom D'Willerby----"
"'Scuse me, sah," interrupted Matt, "but did you say De Willoughby?"
"I said D'Willerby," answered Mr. Stamps. "That's what he's called at the
Cross-roads."
There he stopped and stared at Matt a moment.
"My young master's name's De Willoughby, sah," Matt said; "'n' de names
soun's mighty simulious when dey's spoke quick. My young Marse, Rupert De
Willoughby, he de gran'son er Jedge De Willoughby, an' de son an' heir er
Cun'l De Courcy De Willoughby what died er yaller fever at Nashville."
"Well, I'm doggoned," the little man remarked, "I'd orter thought er
thet. This yere's Delisleville, 'n' I reckerlect hearin' when fust he
come to Hamlin thet he was some kin to some big bugs down ter
D'lisleville, 'n' his father was a Jedge--doggoned ef I didn't!"