_"Look down. Say nothin'. Few words comprehends the whole."_
The long, lank mountaineer stood leaning on his gun and looking
listlessly at the collection of bundles, bags, children, dogs, guns,
banjos, and other belongings of the Davenport negroes, as they waited
about the wagons, now nearly ready to start for "Washington and the
free States"--that Mecca of the colored race. It is true that Lengthy
Patterson disapproved of the entire proceeding, notwithstanding his
profound respect for, and blind admiration of Parson Davenport, as he
always called Griffith; but he had tramped many miles to witness the
departure, which had been heralded far and wide. Lengthy's companion,
known to his familiars as "Whis" Biggs, slowly stroked the voluminous
hirsute adornment to which he was indebted for his name, "Whiskers"
being the original of the abbreviation which was now his sole
designation--Whis stroked his beard and abstractedly kicked a stray dog,
which ran, howling, under the nearest wagon.
"Hit do appear t' me that the Pahrson air a leetle teched in the haid."
There was a long pause. The negroes looked, as they always did, at these
mountaineers in contempt.
Lengthy dove into a capacious pocket and produced a large home-twisted
hand of tobacco and passed it in silence to his companion, who gnawed
off a considerable section and in silence returned it to the owner.
"Let's set," he remarked, and doubled himself down on a log. Lengthy
took the seat beside him, and gathered his ever-present gun between his
long legs and gazed into space. Mr. Biggs stroked his beard and remained
plunged in deep thought. That is to say, he was evidently under the
impression that he was thinking, albeit skeptics had been known to
point to the dearth of results in his conversation, and to intimate that
nature had designed in him not so much a thinker as an able-bodied tack
upon which to suspend a luxuriant growth of beard. He was known far and
wide as "Whis" Biggs; and, if there was within or without his anatomy
anything more important, or half so much in evidence as was his
tremendous achievement in facial adornment (if such an appendage may be
called an adornment by those not belonging to a reverted type), no one
had ever discovered the foot. What there was of him, of value, appeared
to have run to hair. The rest of him was occupied in proudly displaying
the fact. He stroked his beard and looked wise, or he stroked his
beard and laughed, or he stroked his beard and assumed a solemn air, as
occasion, in his judgment, appeared to require; but the occasion always
required him to stroke his beard, no matter what else might happen to
man or to beast.
But at last the wagons pulled out. Amidst shouts and "Whoas!" and
"Gees!" and "G'langs!" Amidst tears and laughter and admonitions
from those who went, and those who were left behind, the strange and
unaccustomed procession took its course toward the setting sun. The
family drove, in the old Davenport barouche, far enough behind to avoid
the dust of the wagons. The long journey was begun for master and for
freedmen. Each was launched on an unknown sea. Each was filled with
apprehension and with hope. Old friends and relatives had gathered to
witness the departure, some to blame, some to deprecate, and all to
deplore the final leave-taking. Comments on the vanishing procession
were varied and numerous. The two mountaineers listened in silence,
the one stroking his beard, the other holding his gun. Some thought
the preacher undoubtedly insane, some thought him merely a dangerous
fanatic, some said he was only a plain, unvarnished fool; some insisted
that since he had gone counter to public opinion and the law of the
state, he was a criminal; while a semi-silent few sighed and wished for
the courage and the ability to follow a like course. The first hours
of the journey were uneventful. There was a gloom on all hearts, which
insured silence. Each felt that he was looking for the last time upon
the valley of their love. Jerry drove the family carriage. As they
paused to lower the check-reins at the mill stream, Katherine bent
suddenly forward and shaded her eyes with her hands. "Griffith!
Griffith! there goes Pete back oyer the fields I I'm sure it is Pete.
No other negro has that walk--that lope. See! He looked back! He is
running! I know it is Pete!"
Mr. Davenport sprang from the carriage and shouted to the fleeing man.
He placed his hands to the sides of his face and shouted again and
again.
"Shell I run foh' 'im, Mos' Grif?" asked Jerry passing the lines to his
mistress. "I lay I kin ketch 'im, 'n I'll fetch' im back, too, fo' he gits
to de cross-roads!"
He grasped the carriage whip and prepared to start. The shouts had
served to redouble Pete's.
"He was your negro, Katherine, shall I let him go?" Griffith said in a
tired voice.
"Yes, yes, oh, Griffith, let him stay in Virginia if he wants to. We
can't have him with us--why, why not let him stay here?"
Griffith sighed. His wife knew quite well why; but she was nervous and
overwrought and feared resistance should Pete be brought to bay--might
he not fight for his freedom to remain where he might _not_ be free!
The wagons had all stopped. One of the twins, with ashen face, came
running back to report Pete's escape. "Mos' Grif, Oh, Lordy, Mos' Grif!
Pete he's run off! Pete------"
It was plain to be seen that the negroes were restless and expectant.
The tone and atmosphere of uncertainty among them, the tearful eyes of
some, and the sullen scowl of others quickly decided Mr. Davenport. It
was no time for indecision. Prompt action alone would prevent a panic
and a stampede. Katherine spoke a few hasty words to him as he leaned on
the carriage-door. He sprang in. "Go on!" he shouted. "Go on! We can't
all stop now. We must cross the ferry tonight!" Then as a precaution he
said to the twin: "Catch up and tell Judy that 'Squire Nelson will get
Pete if he tries to stay here."
'Squire Nelson, the terrible!' Squire Nelson! who had called before him
a runaway boy and calmly shot him through the leg as an example to his
fellows, and then sent him to the quarters to repent his rash act--and
incidentally to act as a warning! 'Squire Nelson! Did the manumission
papers give those who stayed behind to 'Squire Nelson? The negroes looked
into each other's faces in silent fear, and drove rapidly on.
An hour later, as they were looking at the glorious sunset, and Griffith
was struggling to be his old cheery self, Katherine said sadly: "We are
as much exiled as they, Griffith. We could never come back." She choked
up and then, steadying her voice, "If you think it is God's will we must
submit; but--but everything makes it so hard--so cruelly hard. I am so
afraid. I--no one ever--every one loved you before, and now--now--did
you see the faces, Griffith, when we left? Did you see 'Squire Nelson's
face?" She shuddered.
"Oh, is _that_ all?" he exclaimed lightly. "Is that it, Katherine? Well,
don't worry over that, dear. We won't be here to see it, and--of course
he wouldn't like it. Of course it will make trouble among his negroes
for awhile and I am sorry for that. I don't wonder he feels--I--"
"But, Griffith," she said nervously, "we are not out of the State yet,
and--and, Griffith," she lowered her voice to make sure that Jerry would
not hear, "can't the law do something dreadful to you for leaving Pete
here, free? What can----"
"Jerry, I wish you'd drive up a little. Get to the ferry before it is
too dark to cross, can't you?" said Griffith, and then, "Don't worry
about that, Katherine, Pete won't dare show himself for a day or two,
and besides-" He paused. The silence ran into minutes. Then he reached
over and took her hand and with closed eyes he hummed as they rode, or
broke off to point silently to some picturesque spot or to whistle to a
robin. There was a nervous tension on them all.
"Mos' Grif, hit gwine ter be too late to cross dat ferry to-night. Ain't
we better stop at dat big house over dar?"
Mr. Davenport opened his eyes. He had been humming--without time and
with long pauses between the words--one of his favorite hymns. He looked
out into the twilight, "That's Ferris's old mill and the Ferris house,
isn't it, Katherine? Yes, Jerry, call to the boys to stop. We will have
to stay over. It is too late to cross now. That ferry isn't very safe
even in daylight."
The following morning, just before sunrise, there was a rap at the door,
and a servant came to say that Mr. Davenport was wanted. Katherine was
white with fear. She sprang from bed and went to the window. There, in
front of the house, stood Lengthy Patterson, gun in hand, and beside
him, sullen, crestfallen, and with one foot held in his hands, stood
Pete. Griffith threw open the window, and Lengthy waited for no prelude.
He nodded as if such calls were of daily occurrence, and then jerked
his head toward Pete. "Saw him runnin'. Told him t' stop. He clim'
out faster. Knowed you wanted him." He pointed to Pete's foot. It
was bleeding. There was a bullet hole through the instep. "Few words
comprehends the whole," added the mountaineer and relaxed his features
into what he intended for a humorous expression. Griffith turned sick
and faint. 'Squire Nelson's lesson had been well learned even by this
mountaineer.
Pete was a dangerous negro to be without control, that was true. As a
free negro left him without ties, it was only a question of time when he
would commit some desperate deed, and yet what was to be done? Lengthy
appeared to grasp the preacher's thought. He slowly seated himself on
the front step and motioned Pete to sit on the grass.
"Don't fret. Take yer time. I'm a goin' t' the ferry. Few words
comprehends th' whole," he remarked to Griffith, and examined the look
of his gun, with critical deliberation. When the wagons were ready to
start Jerry whispered to his master that two of the other young negroes
had run off during the night, and yet Mr. Davenport pushed on. It
was not until late the next afternoon when the dome of the Capitol at
Washington burst upon their sight that Griffith and Katherine breathed
free. The splendid vision in the distance put new life and interest in
the negroes. Their restlessness settled into a childlike and emotional
merrymaking, and snatches of song, and banter, and laughter told that
danger of revolt or of stampede was over. Judy, alone, sulked in the
wagons, and Mammy vented her discontent on the younger ones by word and
blow, if they ventured too near her or her white charge. At last the
Long Bridge alone stood between them and a liberty that could not be
gainsaid--and another liberty for the master which had been so dearly
and hazardously bought.
The Long Bridge was spanned and the strange party drove down
Pennsylvania Avenue to the office of the attorney who had arranged
for their reception. The Long Bridge was past and safety was theirs!
Griffith glanced back and then turned to look. "Katherine," he said,
smiling sadly, "we have crossed the dead line. We are all safe!" He
sighed with the smile still on his lips.
"It is terrible not to feel safe! Terrible! Terrible!" she said in an
undertone, "not to feel safe from pursuit, from behind, and from unknown
and unaccustomed dangers near at hand--terrible!"
So accustomed had Griffith been to caring for and housing these negroes,
who, now that they were in the midst of wonders of which they never had
dreamed, clung to him with an abiding faith that whatever should betide
he would be there to meet it for them--so accustomed had he been to
caring for them that it had never occurred to Griffith not do so, even
now when they were no longer his.
"Are the cabins ready?" he asked the attorney's clerk, and sent all but
Mammy to the huts which had been provided on the outskirts.
"Go along with this gentleman, children," he said. "Mammy will stay with
us, and after Jerry takes us to the hotel he will come and tell you what
else to do. Good-bye! Goodbye! Keep together until Jerry comes."
All was uncertainty; but it was understood by all that several of the
negroes were to go with the family and the rest to remain here. Griffith
had decided to take to his new home Jerry and his wife, Ellen, and the
twins; Mammy and Judy, and, if possible, Sally and John. It was here,
and now, that he learned the inhospitality of the free states to the
freed negroes.
"I intend to take several of them with, me and----"
"Can't do it," broke in the attorney, "Indiana's a free state."
"Well, I can take'em along and _hire_ 'em, I reckon."
"Reckon you can't--not in Indiana."
"What!"
"I said you couldn't take'em along and hire em.
"I'd like to know the reason for that. I--"
"Law. Law's against it."
Griffith drew his hand across his face as if he had lost his power to
think.
"You can't take _any_ of'em to Indiana, I tell you," said the attorney
insistently, and Griffith seemed dazed. Then he began again: "Can't take
them!" he exclaimed, in utter dismay.
"That's what I said twice--can't take them--none of them."
"But I shall pay them wages! Surely I can take my own choice of servants
into my own household if they are free and I pay them wages I Surely--"
"Surely you _cannot_, I tell you," said the attorney, and added dryly,
"not unless you are particularly anxious to run up against the law
pretty hard." He reached up and took down a leather-bound volume. He
turned the leaves slowly, and Griffith and Katherine looked at each
other in dismay. "There it is in black and white. Not a mere law,
either--sometimes you can evade a law, if you are willing to risk it;
but from the way you both feel about leaving those two free niggers
in Virginia, I guess you won't be very good subjects for that sort of
thing--thirteenth article of the constitution of the State itself." He
drew a pencil mark along one side of the paragraph as Griffith read.
"Oh! you'll find these free states have got mighty little use for
niggers. Came here from one of'em myself. Free or not free, they don't
want 'em. You see," he said, slowly drawing a line down the other side
of the page, "they prohibit you from giving employment to one! Don't
propose to have free nigger competition with their white labor. Can't
blame 'em." He shrugged his shoulders.
Griffith began to protest. "But I have read--I thought--"
"Of course you thought--and you've read a lot of spread-eagle stuff, I
don't doubt. Talk is one of the cheapest commodities in this world; but
when it comes to acts--" he chuckled cynically, "s'pose you had an idea
that the border States were just holding out their arms to catch and
shield and nurture and feed with a gold spoon every nigger you Southern
men were fools enough to set free; but the cold fact is they won't even
let you bring them over and pay 'em to work for you! That is one of the
charming little differences between theory and practice. They've got the
theory and you've had the practice of looking after the niggers! Your
end is a damned sight more difficult than theirs, as you'll discover, if
you haven't already. Excuse me, I forgot you were a preacher. You don't
look much like one." Griffith smiled and bowed. Katherine had gone
to the front window, where Mammy and the baby were enjoying the
unaccustomed sights of the street. Griffith and the lawyer moved toward
them.
"No, sir, your niggers have all got to stay right here in Washington and
starve or steal. You can't take'em to Indiana, that's mighty certain.
Why, when that Constitution was passed only a year or two ago, there
wern't but 21,000 voters in the whole blessed State that didn't vote to
punish a white man for even giving employment to a free nigger. Public
sentiment as well as law is _all_ against you. You can't take those
niggers to Indiana--that's certain!"
"Dar now! Dar now! wat I done tole you?" exclaimed Mammy. "What I done
tole Mos' Grif 'bout all dis foolishness? Mis' Kate, you ain't gwine ter
'low dat is you? Me an' Judy free niggers! _Town_ free niggers wid
no fambly!" The tone indicated that no lower depth of degradation and
misfortune than this could be thrust upon any human being.
"I's gwine ter keep dis heah baby, den. Who gwine ter take cahr ob her
widout me?" The child was patting the black face and pulling the black
ear in a gleeful effort to call forth the usual snort and threat to
"swaller her whole."
"Bless yoah hawt, honey, yoh ain't gwine t' hab no odder nus, is yo'?
Nus! Nus! White trash t' nus my baby! Yoh des gwine ter hab yoh ole
mammy, dat's wat!"
The attorney took Mr. Davenport and Katherine to an inner office. It was
two hours later when they came out. Both were pale and half dazed, but
arrangements had been made, papers had been drawn, by which the nine
oldest negroes were, in future, to appear at this office once every
three months and draw the sum of twenty-four dollars each, so long as
they might live. The younger ones must hereafter shift, as best they
could, for themselves. The die was cast. The bridges were burned behind
them. There was no return, and the negroes were indeed, "free, town
niggers," henceforth.
"God forgive me if I have done wrong," said Griffith, as he left the
office. "If I have done wrong in deserting these poor black children,
for children they will always be, though pensioned as too old to work!
Poor Mammy, Poor Judy! And Mart, and old Peyton!"
He shook his head and compressed his lips as he walked toward the door,
with a stoop in his shoulders that was not there when he had entered.
All the facts of this manumission were so wholly at variance with the
established theories.
Every thing had been so different from even what Griffith had expected
to meet. As they reached the door the attorney took the proffered hand
and laughed a little, satirically.
"Now I want you to tell me what good you expect all this to do? What was
the use? What is gained? It's clear to a man without a spy-glass what's
_lost_ all around; but it's going to puzzle a prophet to show where the
gain comes in, in a case like this. If you'll excuse the remark, sir, it
looks like a piece of romantic tom-foolery, to a man up a tree. A kind
of tom-foolery, that does harm all around--to black and to white, to
bond and to free. Of course if _all_ of 'em were free it would, no
doubt, be better. I'm inclined to think that way, myself. But just tell
me how many slave-owners--even if they wanted to do it--_could_ do
as you have? Simply impossible! Then, besides, where'd they go--the
niggers? Pension the whole infernal lot? Gad! but it's the dream of a
man who never will wake up to this world, as it is built. And what good
_have_ you done? Just stop long enough to tell me that;" he insisted,
still holding Griffith's hand. He was smiling down at his client who
stood on a lower step. There was in his face a tinge of contempt and of
pity for the lack of worldly wisdom.
"I'm not pretending to judge for you nor for other men, Mr. Wapley, but
for myself it was wrong to own them. That is all. That is simple, is
it not?" The lawyer thought it was, indeed, very, very simple; but to
a nature like Griffith's it was all the argument needed. His face was
clouded, for the lawyer did not seem satisfied. Griffith could not guess
why.
"My conscience troubled me. I am not advising other men to do as I have
done. Sometimes I feel almost inclined to advise them _not_ to follow
my example if they can feel satisfied not to--the cost is very
great--bitterly heavy has the cost been in a thousand ways that no one
can ever know but the man who tries it--and this little woman, here." He
took her hand and turned to help her into the carriage.
"Ah, Katherine, you have been very brave! The worst has fallen on you,
after all--for no sense of imperative duty urged you on. For _my_ sake
you have yielded! Her bravery, sir, has been double, and it is almost
more than I can bear to ask it--to accept it--of her! For my own sake!
It has been selfish, in a sense, selfish in me."
Katherine smiled through dim eyes and pressed her lips hard together.
She did not trust herself to speak. She bowed to the attorney and turned
toward Mammy and the baby as they stood by the carriage door.
"I'm a-goin' wid yoh alls to de hotel, ain't I, Mis' Kath'rine? Dar now,
honey, des put yoah foot dar an' in yoh goes! Jerry, can't yoh hol' dem
hosses still! Whoa, dar! Whoa! Mos' Beverly, he radder set in front wid
Jerry, an' I gwine ter set inside wid de baby, an' yo' alls."
The old woman bustled about and gave orders until they were, at last, at
the door of the Metropolitan, where, until other matters were arranged,
the family would remain.
Strange as it may seem, to save themselves from the final trial of
a heartbreaking farewell, from protests, from the sight of weeping
children and excited negroes, three days later Mr. Davenport and his
family left by an early train for the west before the negroes, aside
from Jerry, knew that they were gone. And in the place of the spectacle
of a runaway negro escaping from white owners, the early loungers beheld
a runaway white family escaping from the galling bondage of ownership!