It was a year later before the Rev. Griffith Davenport found himself in
a position to carry out, even in part, a long-cherished plan of his. For
some time past, he had been strengthening himself in the belief that in
the long run he would have to flee from the problem that so perplexed
him. That he would have to make one supreme effort which should,
thereafter, shield him against himself and against temptation. This
determination had cost him the severest struggle of his life, and it had
resulted in the rupture of several lifelong friendships and in strained
relations with his own and his wife's near kinsmen. It had divided his
church and made ill-feeling among his brother clergymen, for it had
become pretty generally known and talked about, that the Rev. Griffith
Davenport had definitely determined to leave his old home and take his
sons to be educated "where the trend of thought is toward freedom" as he
had expressed it, and as his neighbors were fond of quoting derisively.
He had finally secured a position in connection with a small college
somewhere in Indiana, together with an appointment as "presiding elder"
in the district in which the college was located. He had arranged for
the sale of his property, and he was about to leave.
To those whose traditions of ancestry all center about one locality, it
costs a fearful struggle to tear up root and branch and strike out
into unknown fields among people of a different type and class; with
dissimilar ideas and standards of action and belief. To such it is
almost like the threat or presence of death in the household. But to
voluntarily disrupt and leave behind all of that which has given color
and tone and substance to one's daily life, and at its meridian, to
begin anew the weaving of another fabric from unaccustomed threads on
a strange and unknown loom, to readjust one's self to a different
civilization--all this requires a heroism, a fidelity to conscience and,
withal, a confidence in one's own judgment and beliefs that surpass the
normal limit. But, if in addition to all this, the contemplated change
is to be made in pursuance of a moral conviction and will surely result
in financial loss and material discomfort, it would not be the part of
wisdom to ask nor to expect it of those who are less than heroic. In
order to compass his plans Mr. Davenport knew that it would be necessary
to dispose of his slaves. But how?
He hoped to take with him to his new home--although they would be freed
by the very act--several of the older ones and Jerry and his little
family. He knew that these would, by their faithful services, be a
comfort and support to his wife and of infinite use and advantage to
the children, whose love and confidence they had. To take all into his
employ in the new home would, of course, be impossible. He would no
longer have the estate of an esquire. At first, at least, he must live
in a small town. There would be no land to till and no income to so
support them. The house would no longer be the roomy mansion of a
planter. His income would be too meager to warrant the keeping of even
so many servants as they were planning to take--and there would be
little work for them to do. The others must be disposed of in some other
way. But how? They are yours, my friend, for the moment. How will you
dispose of them? What would you have done?
"Free them and leave them in the state of their birth and of their love
where their friends and kinsmen are?" But you cannot! It is against the
law! If you free them you must take them away. Sell them? Of course not!
give them to your wife's and your own people? Would that settle or
only perpetuate and shift the question for which you are suffering and
sacrificing so much? And it would discriminate between those you take
and thus make free and those you leave and farther fix in bondage, and
the Rev. Griffith Davenport had set out to meet and perform, and not
merely to shift and evade, what he had grown to look upon as his duty to
himself and to them. It was this which had burdened and weighed upon him
all these last months, until at last he had determined to meet it in
the only way that seamed to settle it once and for all. He would go.
He would free all of them and take them with him into the state of his
adoption. He would then give hired employment to those he needed in his
household and the others would have to shift for themselves. This he
prepared to do. Some of them would not want to go into a homeless and
strange new land. This he also knew. Pete was, as the negroes phrased
it, "settin' up to" Col. Phelps' Tilly. Pete would, therefore, resist,
and wish to remain in Virginia. Old Milt and his wife had seven children
who were the property of other people in the neighborhood, and their
grandchildren were almost countless. It would go hard with Milt and
Phillis to leave all these. It would go even harder with them to
be free--and homeless. Both were old. Neither could hope to be
self-supporting. My friend, have you decided what to do with Milt and
Phillis? Add Judy and Mammy and five other old ones to your list when
you have solved the problem.
Mr. Bradley had spoken to Griffith of all these things--of the hardships
to both black and white--and of the possible outcome.
Over and over during the year, when they had talked of the proposed new
move, he had urged these points.
"It seems to me, Mr. Davenport, that you are going to tackle a pretty
rough job. You say you will take all of them as far as Washington,
anyhow. Now you ought to know that there are no end of free niggers in
Washington, already, with no way to support themselves. Look at Milt
and Phillis and Judy and Dan, and those other old ones in the two end
cabins! They've all served you and your father before you faithfully
all of their lives, and now you are proposing to turn them out to
die--simply to starve to death. That's the upshot of your foolishness.
You know they won't steal, and they can't work enough to support
themselves. All the old ones are in the same fix, and the young ones
will simply be put on the chain-gang for petty thefts of food before you
get fairly settled out west. Lord, Lord, man, you don't know what you
are doing! I wish the old Major was here to put a stop to it. You're
laying up suffering for yourself, you're laying up sorrow and crime for
them, you are robbing your children of their birthright, and of what
their grandfathers have done for them, you are making trouble among
other people's niggers here who hear of it, and think it would be a fine
thing to be a free nigger in Washington or Indiana--and what good is it
all going to do? Just answer me that? It would take a microscope to see
any good that _can_ come out of it. It's easy enough to see the harm.
Look at 'Squire Nelson's Jack! He undertook to run off last week, and
Nelson had him whipped within an inch of his life. Yes, bad policy, and
cruel, of course, but that's the kind of a man Nelson is. Now your move
is going to stir up that sort of thing all around here. It does it every
time. You know that. What in thunder has got into the heads of some of
you fellows, I can't see. It started in about the time you Methodists
began riding around here. Sometimes I think they were sent down here
just for that purpose, and that the preaching was only a blind." Mr.
Davenport laughed. "Ha, ha, ha, ha! Bradley, you are a hopeless case! If
I didn't know you so well, I'd feel like losing my temper; but--"
"Oh, I don't mean you, of course. I know _you_ got to believing in the
new religion and got led on. I mean those fellows who came down here and
started it all when you were a good, sensible boy. And how do they get
their foolishness, anyhow? Your Bible teaches the right of slavery plain
enough, in all conscience, and even if it didn't, slavery is here and
we can't help ourselves; and what's more we can't help the niggers by
turning some of 'em loose to starve, and letting them make trouble for
both the masters and the slaves that are left behind. I just tell you,
Mr. Davenport, it is a big mistake and you are going to find it out
before you are done with it."
Griffith had grown so used to these talks and to those of a less kindly
tone that he had stopped arguing the matter at all, and, indeed, there
seemed little he could say beyond the fact, that it was a matter of
conscience with him. His wife's father had berated him soundly, and her
sisters plainly stated that, in their opinion, "poor Brother Grif was
insane." They pitied their sister Katherine from the bottom of their
hearts, and thanked God devoutly that their respective husbands were
not similarly afflicted. And, as may be readily understood, it was all a
sore trial for Katherine.
At last, when the manumission papers came, Katherine sent LeRoy, her
second son, to tell the negroes to come to the "big house."
Roy ran, laughing and calling, to the negro quarters. "Oh, John, Pete,
Sallie, Uncle Milt everybody I Father says for _all_ of you--every
single one--to come to the big house right after supper! Every single
one! He's got something for you. Something he is going to make you a
present of! I can't tell you what--only every one will have it--and you
must come right away after supper!"
"G'way fum heah, chile! What he gwine t' gib _me?_ New yaller dress?"
inquired Lippy Jane, whereupon there arose a great outcry from the rest,
mingled with laughter and gibes.
"I know wat he gwine t' gib Lippy Jane! He gwine t' gib'er a swing t'
hang onter dat lip, yah! yah! yah!" remarked Pete, and dodged the blow
that his victim leveled at him. "New dress! Lawsy, chile, I reckon he
be mo' likely ter gib you a lickin' along 'er dat platter you done bus'
widout tellin' Mis' Kate!" put in Sallie, whose secure place in the
affections of the mistress rendered her a severe critic of manners and
morals in the "quarters." "Come heah, Mos' Roy, honey, an' tell ole Une'
Milt wat'e gwine t' git. Wat dat is wat Mos' Grif gwine t' gib me? Some
mo' 'er dat dar town terbacker? Laws a massy, honey, dat dar las' plug
what he fotch me nebber las' no time ertal."
But Roy was tickling the ear of old Phillis with a feather he had picked
up from the grass, and the old woman was nodding and slapping at the
side of her head and humoring the boy in the delusion that she thought
her tormentor was a fly. Roy's delight was unbounded.
"G'way fum heah, fly! Shoo! G'way fum heah! I lay dat I mash you flat'
fo' a nudder minnit! Sho-o-o!"
Roy and the twins were convulsed with suppressed mirth, and Aunt Phillis
slapped the side of her head with a resounding whack which was not only
a menace to the life and limb of the aforenamed insect, but also,
bid fair to demolish her ear as well. One of the twins undertook to
supplement the proceeding on the other ear with a blade of "fox tail,"
but found himself sprawling in front of the cabin door. "You trillin'
little nigger! Don' you try none'er yoah foolin' wid me! I lay I break
yoah fool neck! I lay I do," exclaimed the old woman in wrath. Then in a
sportively insistent tone, as she banged at the other side of her head,
"Fore de good Lawd on high! twixt dat imperent little nigger an' dis
heah fly, I lay I'm plum wore out. Sho-o-o, fly!"
Suddenly she swung her fat body about on the puncheon stool and gave a
tremendous snort and snapped her teeth at the young master. "Lawsey me,
honey, was dat yoh all dis long cum short? Was dat yo' teasin' yoah po'
ole Aunt Phillis wid dat fedder? I lay I gwine ter ketch yo' yit, an'
swaller yo' down whole! I lay I is!"
The threat to swallow him down whole always gave Roy the keenest
delight. He ran for the big house, laughing and waving the feather at
Phillis.
Great was the speculation in the quartets as to what Mos' Grif had for
every one.
"Hit's des' lade Chris'mus!"
"I des wisht I knowed wat I gwine t' git."
"Lawsey me, but I wisht hit was arter supper now!"
In the twilight they came swaying up through the grass--a long irregular
line of them. Jerry had his banjo. Mammy, Sallie's old mother, carrieed
in her arms the white baby. Little Margaret was her sole care and charge
and no more devoted lovers existed.
"'Et me wide piggy back, mammy," plead the child.
"Heah, Jerry, put dis heah chile on my back! Be mons'ous keerful dar
now! Don' yoh let dat chile fall! Dar yoh is, honey! Dar yoh is! Hoi'
tight, now! Hug yoah ole mammy tight! D-a-t-s de way.
"'Go down, Moses, away down in Egypt's lan'.
Go tell ole Pharoah, t' let my people go.'"
Mammy began to trot and hum the tune for the child. The swaying rhythm
caught like a sudden fire in a field of ripened grain. Every voice, old
and young, fell into harmony, and Jerry's banjo beat its tuneful way
like the ripple of a stream through it all.
Mrs. Davenport stood by the window watching them as they came nearer
and nearer. Her face was sad and troubled. She looked up into the clear
twilight and saw one star peer out. She did not know why, but in some
mysterious way it seemed to comfort her. She smiled through dim eyes at
the child on mammy's back. Her husband still sat by the table sorting
over some legal-looking papers.
"Are those the manumission papers, father?" asked Beverly, taking one up
and turning it curiously.
"Yes."
Beverly glanced at his father. It seemed to him that the lines in his
face were very sad. The merry twinkle that always hid in the corners of
eyes and mouth were obliterated. Then was a settled look of anxiety.
He seemed older. Beverly was silent. He more nearly understood what his
father was doing than did even Katherine. Presently he said: "Hear them
sing!"
Mr. Davenport was staring straight before him into space. He turned to
listen.
"Happy, careless, thoughtless, unfortunate creatures," he said softly,
"and as free as you or I, this minute--as free as you or I--if only they
knew it;" then suddenly--"No, not that, either. They can never be _that_
so long as they may not stay here free, even if they want to. I suppose
I am breaking the law to tell them what I shall to-night, but I _can't_
take them away from their old home and friends and not tell them it is
for good and all--that they may not come back. For good and all--for
good and all," he repeated, abstractedly. After a long pause he said,
"Law or no law, I cannot do that. I must tell them they are free before
they go--and that they must say good-bye, never to come back."
"Seems pretty hard, doesn't it, father? But then--but--don't you think
God was pretty hard on them when He--when He made them black? Jerry is a
gentleman, if--if he was not black."
"Griffith," asked Katherine from the window, "how do you suppose they
will take it? I'm afraid----"
"Take it! take it! Why, little woman, how would you or I take freedom
if it were given to us?" The thought cheered him and he crossed the room
and tapped her cheek with the papers. His face beamed. "I'm prepared to
see the wildest outbreak of joy." He chuckled, and some of the old lines
of mirth came back to his face. "I'm glad Jerry brought his banjo. They
will be in a humor for some of the rollicking songs afterward. I think
they would do me good too. And you, you, little woman, you will need it
too. You have been brave--you have been my tower of great strength in
all this. If _you_ had contested it, I'm afraid my strength would have
given out, after all." He put his arm around her. "But God knows what
we can stand, Katherine, and he tempers the trial to our strength. Thank
God it is over--the wont of it," he said, and drew her to him.
Suddenly this silent, self-controlled woman threw both arms about his
neck and sobbed aloud. "God help us to bear it, Griffith. Sometimes I
think I cannot! It is hard! It is hard!"
He stroked her hair silently.
"Mos' Grif, does yoh want us to come in er t' stay on de big po'ch?"
It was Jerry's voice. "Good-ebnin', Mis' Kath'rine I I hope yoh is
monst'ous well dis ebenin'. Thanky, ma'am, yes'm, I'm middlin'."
Mis. Davenport drew herself farther into the shadow, but she heard the
little groan that escaped her husband. She understood. Her own voice was
as steady as if no storm had passed.
"Open these large windows on to the porch, Jerry, and your Mos' Grif
will talk to you from here. Just keep them all outside. I liked your
songs. When Mos' Grif is done with you all, sing some more--sing that
one he likes so well--the one about 'Fun in de Cabin.'" "To be sho',
Mis' Kath'rine, to be sho'. Dat I will. What dat Mos' Grif gwine ter gib
us? Milt he 'low dat hit's terbacker, an' Lippy Jane she 'low dat hit's
calicker, an' John he 'low dat--"
With the opening of the low windows a great wave of "howdys" arose and
a cloud of black faces clustered dose to the open spaces. The moon was
rising behind them and the lamp on the table within gave but a feeble
effort to rival the mellow light outside. The master was slow to begin,
but, at last, when the greetings were over he said, with an effort to
seem indifferent, "You all know that we are going away from here and
that you are going, too; but--" He found the task harder than he had
expected. His voice trembled and he was glad that Katherine put her hand
on his arm. He shifted his position and began again. "You have all heard
of freedom." He was looking at them, and the faces were so blandly,
blankly vacant of that which he was groping for--they were so evidently
expecting a gift of tobacco, or its like--that he omitted all he had
thought of to say of their new freedom and what it could mean for them,
and what it had meant for him to secure it for them, and at once held up
the folded papers. "These are legal papers. They are all registered at a
court-house. I have one for each one of you. These papers set you free!
They are manumission papers, and you are all to be free! free--"
The silence was unbroken except for a slight shuffling of feet, but the
dire disappointment was depicted on every face. That was too plain to
be mistaken. Only papers! No tobacco! No calico! Nothing to eat! The
silence grew uncomfortable. They were waiting for something for which
they could give out the "thanky, Mos' Grif, thanky, sir, I's mighty much
'bleeged t' you, I is dat!" in their own hearty and happy way.
Griffith found himself trying to explain what these papers really were.
He chanced to open Judy's first. He would make an object lesson of it.
She had been his nurse, and was too old and rheumatic to work except as
the spirit of occupation urged her to some trifling task. Griffith was
reading the paper and explaining as he went. The negroes looked from the
master to Judy and back again until he was done. She walked lamely to
his side when he had finished and was holding her freedom papers toward
her. She held out her hand for it. Then she tore it through twice and
tossed it out of the window. Her eyes flashed and she held herself
erect.
"What I want wid yoah ole mannermussent papers? What I want wid 'em,
hey?" She folded her arms. "_Me_ a free nigger! Me! Mos' Grif, yoh ain't
nebber gwine ter lib t' be ole enough t' make no free nigger out ob ole
Judy! What I fotch yoh up foh? Didn't I nus yoh fum de time yoh was a
teenchy little baby, an' wasn't ole Mis' and yoah paw sas'fied wid me?
What I done t' yoh now? What fo' is yoh gwine ter tun me loose dat a
way? Mannermussent papers!" she exclaimed, in a tone of contemptuous
wrath, "mannermussent papers! Yoh can't mannermussent yoah ole Aunt
Judy! Deys life lef in her yit!"
It was done so suddenly. The reception of freedom was so utterly
unexpected--so opposed to what he had fondly hoped--that Griffith stood
amazed. Katherine motioned to mammy, who still stood with the white baby
in her arms. "Give me the baby, mammy. I will--"
"Mis' Kate," said the old woman, turning, as she pushed her way through
the room, "Mis' Kate, do Mos' Grif mean dat yo' alls is gwine ter
_leabe_ us? Do he mean dat we _alls_ is got ter be free niggers, wid no
fambly an' no big house an' no baby t' nus?"
She changed the child's position, and the little soft, white cheek lay
contentedly against the black one.
"'Cause, if _dat's_ wat Mos' Grif mean, dis heah chile ob yoahs an' ole
mammy, deys gwine t' stay togedder. Dis heah mammy don't eben _tetch_ no
ole mannermossent papers! Tar hit up yo'se'f, Mis' Kate, kase dis heah
nigger ain't eben gwine t' tetch hit. She's des gwine ter put dis baby
ter bed lak she alius done. Goodnight, Mis' Kate! Good-night, Mos'
Grif!"
She was half-way up the stairs, when she turned.
"Mis' Kate, sumpin' er a-nudder done gone wrong wid Mos' Grifs haid.
Sho' as yoh bawn, honey, dat's a fack! I wisht yoh send fo' yoh paw. I
does dat!" and she waddled up the stairs, with the sleeping child held
dose to her faithful heart.
The reception of the freedom papers by the others varied with
temperament and age. Two or three of the younger ones reached in over
the heads of those in front of them when their names were called, and,
holding the papers in their hands, "cut a pigeon-wing" in the moonlight.
One or two looked at theirs in stupid, silent wonder. Jerry and his
wife gazed at the twins, and, in a half-dazed, half-shamefaced way,
took theirs. Jerry took all four to Katherine. "Keep dem fo' me, please,
ma'am, Mis' Kathrine, kase I ain't got no good place fer ter hide'em.
Mebby dem dare chillun gwine ter want'em one er dese here days."
Not one grasped the full meaning of it all. It was evident that one
and all expected to live along as before--to follow the fortunes of the
family.
"Thanky, Mos' Grif, much 'bleeged," said old Milt, as he took his, "but
I'd a heap site a-rud-der had some mo' ob dat town terbacker--I would
dat, honey."
"Give it up for to-night, Griffith," said his wife, gently, as he still
stood helplessly trying to explain again and again. "You look so white,
and I am very tired. Give it up for tonight. It will be easier after
they have talked it over together, perhaps--by daylight."
She pushed him gently into a chair and motioned to Jerry to take them
all away. The faithful fellow remembered, when outside, that she had
asked him to sing, but the merry song she had named had no echo in the
hearts about him. All understood that they had failed to respond to
something that the master had expected. The strings of his banjo rang
out in a few minor chords, and as they moved toward the quarters an old
forgotten melody floated back--
O, de shadders am a deepenin' on de mountains,
O, de shadders am a deep'nin' on de stream,
An' I think I hear an echo f urn de valley,
An echo ob de days ob which I dream!
Ole happy days! Ole happy days!
Befo' I knew dat sorrow could be bawn,
When I played wid mos'er's chillun in de medder,
When my wuk was done a-hoein' ob de cawn!
Dose happy, happy days! Dose happy, happy days!
Dey'll come again no mo', no-o-o m-o-r-e, no more!
Ole mos'er is a-sleepin' 'neath de willow!
An' de apple blossoms' failin' on de lawn,
Where he used to sit an' doze beneath its shadder,
In de days when I was hoein' ob de cawn!
Ole happy, etc.
Dey'll come no mo' dis side de rlbber Jordan,
O, dey'll come no mo' dis side de golden shoah!
Foh de Chilian's growed so big dat deys forgot me,
Kase I'se ole an' cannot wok foh dem no mo'!
Ole happy, etc.