It had been a year of strange disturbances--a desolating drought, a
hurly-burly of destructive tempests, killing frosts in the tender
valleys, mortal fevers in the tender homes. Now came tidings that all
day the wail of myriads of locusts was heard in the green woods of
Virginia and Tennessee; now that Lake Erie was blocked with ice on the
very verge of summer, so that in the Niagara new rocks and islands
showed their startling faces. In the Blue-grass Region of Kentucky
countless caterpillars were crawling over the ripening apple orchards
and leaving the trees as stark as when tossed in the thin air of bitter
February days.
Then, flying low and heavily through drought and tempest and frost and
plague, like the royal presence of disaster, that had been but heralded
by its mournful train, came nearer and nearer the dark angel of the
pestilence.
M. Xaupi had given a great ball only the night before in the
dancing-rooms over the confectionery of M. Giron--that M. Giron who
made the tall pyramids of meringues and macaroons for wedding-suppers,
and spun around them a cloud of candied webbing as white and misty as
the veil of the bride. It was the opening cotillon party of the summer.
The men came in blue cloth coats with brass buttons, buff waistcoats,
and laced and ruffled shirts; the ladies came in white satins with
ethereal silk overdresses, embroidered in the figure of a gold beetle
or an oak leaf of green. The walls of the ball-room were painted to
represent landscapes of blooming orange-trees, set here and there in
clustering tubs; and the chandeliers and sconces were lighted with
innumerable wax-candles, yellow and green and rose.
Only the day before, also, Clatterbuck had opened for the summer a new
villa-house, six miles out in the country, with a dancing-pavilion in a
grove of maples and oaks, a pleasure-boat on a sheet of crystal water,
and a cellar stocked with old sherry, Sauterne, and Château Margaux
wines, with anisette, "Perfect Love," and Guigholet cordials.
Down on Water Street, near where now stands a railway station, Hugh
Lonney, urging that the fear of cholera was not the only incentive to
cleanliness, had just fitted up a sumptuous bath-house, where cold and
shower baths might be had at twelve and a half cents each, or hot ones
at three for half a dollar.
Yes, the summer of 1833 was at hand, and there must be new pleasures,
new luxuries; for Lexington was the Athens of the West and the Kentucky
Birmingham.
Old Peter Leuba felt the truth of this, as he stepped smiling out of
his little music-store on Main Street, and, rubbing his hands briskly
together, surveyed once more his newly-arranged windows, in which were
displayed gold and silver epaulets, bottles of Jamaica rum, garden
seeds from Philadelphia, drums and guitars and harps. Dewees & Grant
felt it in their drug-store on Cheapside, as they sent off a large
order for calomel and superior Maccoboy, rappee, and Lancaster snuff.
Bluff little Daukins Tegway felt it, as he hurried on the morning of
that day to the office of the _Observer and Reporter_, and advertised
that he would willingly exchange his beautiful assortment of painted
muslins and Dunstable bonnets for flax and feathers. On the threshold
he met a florid farmer, who had just offered ten dollars' reward for
a likely runaway boy with a long fresh scar across his face; and
to-morrow the paper would contain one more of those tragical little
cuts, representing an African slave scampering away at the top of his
speed, with a stick swung across his shoulder and a bundle dangling
down his back. In front of Postlethwaite's Tavern, where now stands
the Phœnix Hotel, a company of idlers, leaning back in Windsor chairs
and planting their feet against the opposite wall on a level with
their heads, smoked and chewed and yawned, as they discussed the
administration of Jackson and arranged for the coming of Daniel Webster
in June, when they would give him a great barbecue, and roast in
his honor a buffalo bull taken from the herd emparked near Ashland.
They hailed a passing merchant, who, however, would hear nothing of
the bull, but fell to praising his Rocky Mountain beaver and Goose
Creek salt; and another, who turned a deaf ear to Daniel Webster, and
invited them to drop in and examine his choice essences of peppermint,
bergamot, and lavender.
But of all the scenes that might have been observed in Lexington on
that day, the most remarkable occurred in front of the old court-house
at the hour of high noon. On the mellow stroke of the clock in the
steeple above the sheriff stepped briskly forth, closely followed by
a man of powerful frame, whom he commanded to station himself on
the pavement several feet off. A crowd of men and boys had already
collected in anticipation, and others came quickly up as the clear
voice of the sheriff was heard across the open public square and old
market-place.
He stood on the topmost of the court-house steps, and for a moment
looked down on the crowd with the usual air of official severity.
"Gentlemen," he then cried out sharply, "by an ordah of the cou't I now
offah this man at public sale to the highes' biddah. He is able-bodied
but lazy, without visible property or means of suppoht, an' of
dissolute habits. He is therefoh adjudged guilty of high misdemeanahs,
an' is to be sole into labah foh a twelvemonth. How much, then, am I
offahed foh the vagrant? How much am I offahed foh ole King Sol'mon?"
Nothing was offered for old King Solomon. The spectators formed
themselves into a ring around the big vagrant and settled down to enjoy
the performance.
"Staht 'im, somebody."
Somebody started a laugh, which rippled around the circle.
The sheriff looked on with an expression of unrelaxed severity, but
catching the eye of an acquaintance on the outskirts, he exchanged a
lightning wink of secret appreciation. Then he lifted off his tight
beaver hat, wiped out of his eyes a little shower of perspiration which
rolled suddenly down from above, and warmed a degree to his theme.
"Come, gentlemen," he said, more suasively, "it's too hot to stan' heah
all day. Make me an offah! You all know ole King Sol'mon; don't wait
to be interduced. How much, then, to staht 'im? Say fifty dollahs!
Twenty-five! Fifteen! Ten! Why, gentlemen! Not _ten_ dollahs? Remembah
this is the Blue-grass Region of Kentucky--the land of Boone an'
Kenton, the home of Henry Clay!" he added, in an oratorical _crescendo_.
"He ain't wuth his victuals," said an oily little tavern-keeper,
folding his arms restfully over his own stomach and cocking up one
piggish eye into his neighbor's face. "He ain't wuth his 'taters."
"Buy 'im foh 'is rags!" cried a young law-student, with a Blackstone
under his arm, to the town rag-picker opposite, who was unconsciously
ogling the vagrant's apparel.
"I _might_ buy 'im foh 'is _scalp_," drawled a farmer, who had taken
part in all kinds of scalp contests and was now known to be busily
engaged in collecting crow scalps for a match soon to come off between
two rival counties.
"I think I'll buy 'im foh a hat-sign," said a manufacturer of
ten-dollar Castor and Rhorum hats. This sally drew merry attention to
the vagrant's hat, and the merchant felt rewarded.
"You'd bettah say the town ought to buy 'im an' put 'im up on top of
the cou't-house as a scarecrow foh the cholera," said some one else.
"What news of the cholera did the stage-coach bring this mohning?"
quickly inquired his neighbor in his ear; and the two immediately fell
into low, grave talk, forgot the auction, and turned away.
"Stop, gentlemen, stop!" cried the sheriff, who had watched the
rising tide of good-humor, and now saw his chance to float in on
it with spreading sails. "You're runnin' the price in the wrong
direction--down, not up. The law requires that he be sole to the
highes' biddah, not the lowes'. As loyal citizens, uphole the
constitution of the commonwealth of Kentucky an' make me an offah;
the man is really a great bargain. In the first place, he would cos'
his ownah little or nothin', because, as you see, he keeps himself in
cigahs an' clo'es; then, his main article of diet is whiskey--a supply
of which he always has on han'. He don't even need a bed, foh you know
he sleeps jus' as well on any doohstep; noh a chair, foh he prefers
to sit roun' on the curb-stones. Remembah, too, gentlemen, that ole
King Sol'mon is a Virginian--from the same neighbohhood as Mr. Clay.
Remembah that he is well educated, that he is an _awful_ Whig, an' that
he has smoked mo' of the stumps of Mr. Clay's cigahs than any other man
in existence. If you don't b'lieve _me_, gentlemen, yondah goes Mr.
Clay now; call _him_ ovah an' ask 'im foh yo'se'ves."
He paused, and pointed with his right forefinger towards Main street,
along which the spectators, with a sudden craning of necks, beheld the
familiar figure of the passing statesman.
"But you don't need _any_body to tell you these fac's, gentlemen," he
continued. "You merely need to be reminded that ole King Sol'mon is no
ohdinary man. Mo'ovah he has a kine heaht, he nevah spoke a rough wohd
to anybody in this worl', an' he is as proud as Tecumseh of his good
name an' charactah. An', gentlemen," he added, bridling with an air of
mock gallantry and laying a hand on his heart, "if anythin' fu'thah
is required in the way of a puffect encomium, we all know that there
isn't anothah man among us who cuts as wide a swath among the ladies.
The'foh, if you have any appreciation of virtue, any magnanimity of
heaht; if you set a propah valuation upon the descendants of Virginia,
that mothah of Presidents; if you believe in the pure laws of Kentucky
as the pioneer bride of the Union; if you love America an' love the
worl'--make me a gen'rous, high-toned offah foh ole King Sol'mon!"
He ended his peroration amid a shout of laughter and applause, and,
feeling satisfied that it was a good time for returning to a more
practical treatment of his subject, proceeded in a sincere tone:
"He can easily earn from one to two dollahs a day, an' from three to
six hundred a yeah. There's not anothah white man in town capable of
doin' as much work. There's not a niggah han' in the hemp factories
with such muscles an' such a chest. _Look_ at 'em! An', if you don't
b'lieve me, step fo'wahd and _feel_ 'em. How much, then, is bid foh
'im?"
"One dollah!" said the owner of a hemp factory, who had walked forward
and felt the vagrant's arm, laughing, but coloring up also as the
eyes of all were quickly turned upon him. In those days it was not an
unheard-of thing for the muscles of a human being to be thus examined
when being sold into servitude to a new master.
"Thank you!" cried the sheriff, cheerily. "One precinc' heard from! One
dollah! I am offahed one dollah foh ole King Sol'mon. One dollah foh
the king! Make it a half. One dollah an' a half. Make it a half. One
dol-dol-dol-dollah!"
Two medical students, returning from lectures at the old Medical Hall,
now joined the group, and the sheriff explained:
"One dollah is bid foh the vagrant ole King Sol'mon, who is to be sole
into labah foh a twelvemonth. Is there any othah bid? Are you all done?
One dollah, once--"
"Dollah and a half," said one of the students, and remarked half
jestingly under his breath to his companion, "I'll buy him on the
chance of his dying. We'll dissect him."
"Would you own his body if he _should_ die?"
"If he dies while bound to me, I'll arrange _that_."
"One dollah an' a half," resumed the sheriff; and falling into the tone
of a facile auctioneer he rattled on:
"One dollah an' a half foh ole Sol'mon--sol, sol, sol,--do, re, mi,
fa, sol--do, re, mi, fa, sol! Why, gentlemen, you can set the king to
music!"
All this time the vagrant had stood in the centre of that close ring
of jeering and humorous by-standers--a baffling text from which to
have preached a sermon on the infirmities of our imperfect humanity.
Some years before, perhaps as a master-stroke of derision, there had
been given to him that title which could but heighten the contrast of
his personality and estate with every suggestion of the ancient sacred
magnificence; and never had the mockery seemed so fine as at this
moment, when he was led forth into the streets to receive the lowest
sentence of the law upon his poverty and dissolute idleness. He was
apparently in the very prime of life--a striking figure, for nature at
least had truly done some royal work on him. Over six feet in height,
erect, with limbs well shaped and sinewy, with chest and neck full
of the lines of great power, a large head thickly covered with long
reddish hair, eyes blue, face beardless, complexion fair but discolored
by low passions and excesses--such was old King Solomon. He wore a
stiff, high, black Castor hat of the period, with the crown smashed in
and the torn rim hanging down over one ear; a black cloth coat in the
old style, ragged and buttonless; a white cotton shirt, with the broad
collar crumpled, wide open at the neck and down his sunburnt bosom;
blue jeans pantaloons, patched at the seat and the knees; and ragged
cotton socks that fell down over the tops of his dusty shoes, which
were open at the heels.
In one corner of his sensual mouth rested the stump of a cigar. Once
during the proceedings he had produced another, lighted it, and
continued quietly smoking. If he took to himself any shame as the
central figure of this ignoble performance, no one knew it. There was
something almost royal in his unconcern. The humor, the badinage, the
open contempt, of which he was the public target, fell thick and fast
upon him, but as harmlessly as would balls of pith upon a coat of mail.
In truth, there was that in his great, lazy, gentle, good-humored bulk
and bearing which made the gibes seem all but despicable. He shuffled
from one foot to the other as though he found it a trial to stand up so
long, but all the while looking the spectators full in the eyes without
the least impatience. He suffered the man of the factory to walk round
him and push and pinch his muscles as calmly as though he had been the
show bull at a country fair. Once only, when the sheriff had pointed
across the street at the figure of Mr. Clay, he had looked quickly in
that direction with a kindling light in his eye and a passing flush on
his face. For the rest, he seemed like a man who has drained his cup of
human life and has nothing left him but to fill again and drink without
the least surprise or eagerness.
The bidding between the man of the factory and the student had gone
slowly on. The price had reached ten dollars. The heat was intense,
the sheriff tired. Then something occurred to revivify the scene.
Across the market-place and towards the steps of the court-house
there suddenly came trundling along in breathless haste a huge old
negress, carrying on one arm a large shallow basket containing apple
crab-lanterns and fresh gingerbread. With a series of half-articulate
grunts and snorts she approached the edge of the crowd and tried to
force her way through. She coaxed, she begged, she elbowed and pushed
and scolded, now laughing, and now with the passion of tears in her
thick, excited voice. All at once, catching sight of the sheriff, she
lifted one ponderous brown arm, naked to the elbow, and waved her hand
to him above the heads of those in front.
"Hole on, marseter! Hole on!" she cried, in a tone of humorous
entreaty. "Don' knock 'im off till I come! Gim _me_ a bid at 'im!"
The sheriff paused and smiled. The crowd made way tumultuously, with
broad laughter and comment.
"Stan' aside theah an' let Aun' Charlotte in!"
"_Now_ you'll see biddin'!"
"Get out of the way foh Aun' Charlotte!"
"Up, my free niggah! Hurrah foh Kentucky!"
A moment more and she stood inside the ring of spectators, her basket
on the pavement at her feet, her hands plumped akimbo into her
fathomless sides, her head up, and her soft, motherly eyes turned
eagerly upon the sheriff. Of the crowd she seemed unconscious, and on
the vagrant before her she had not cast a single glance.
She was dressed with perfect neatness. A red and yellow Madras kerchief
was bound about her head in a high coil, and another was crossed over
the bosom of her stiffly starched and smoothly ironed blue cottonade
dress. Rivulets of perspiration ran down over her nose, her temples,
and around her ears, and disappeared mysteriously in the creases of her
brown neck. A single drop accidentally hung glistening like a diamond
on the circlet of one of her large brass ear-rings.
The sheriff looked at her a moment, smiling, but a little disconcerted.
The spectacle was unprecedented.
"What do you want heah, Aun' Charlotte?" he asked, kindly. "You can't
sell yo' pies an' gingerbread heah."
"I don' _wan'_ sell no pies en gingerbread," she replied,
contemptuously. "I wan' bid on _him_," and she nodded sidewise at the
vagrant.
"White folks allers sellin' niggahs to wuk fuh _dem_; I gwine buy a
white man to wuk fuh _me_. En he gwine t' git a mighty hard mistiss,
you heah _me_!"
The eyes of the sheriff twinkled with delight.
"Ten dollahs is offahed foh ole King Sol'mon. Is theah any othah bid?
Are you all done?"
"'Leben," she said.
Two young ragamuffins crawled among the legs of the crowd up to her
basket and filched pies and cake beneath her very nose.
"Twelve!" cried the student, laughing.
"Thirteen!" she laughed too, but her eyes flashed.
"_You are bidding against a niggah_," whispered the student's companion
in his ear.
"So I am; let's be off," answered the other, with a hot flush on his
proud face.
Thus the sale was ended, and the crowd variously dispersed. In a
distant corner of the court-yard the ragged urchins were devouring
their unexpected booty. The old negress drew a red handkerchief out of
her bosom, untied a knot in a corner of it, and counted out the money
to the sheriff. Only she and the vagrant were now left on the spot.
"You have bought me. What do you want me to do?" he asked quietly.
"Lohd, honey!" she answered, in a low tone of affectionate chiding, "I
don' wan' you to do _nothin'_! I wuzn' gwine t' 'low dem white folks to
buy you. Dey'd wuk you till you dropped dead. You go 'long en do ez you
please."
She gave a cunning chuckle of triumph in thus setting at naught the
ends of justice, and, in a voice rich and musical with affection, she
said, as she gave him a little push:
"You bettah be gittin' out o' dis blazin' sun. G' on home! I be 'long
by-en-by."
He turned and moved slowly away in the direction of Water Street,
where she lived; and she, taking up her basket, shuffled across the
market-place towards Cheapside, muttering to herself the while:
"I come mighty nigh gittin' dah too late, foolin' 'long wid dese pies.
Sellin' _him_ 'ca'se he don' wuk! Umph! If all de men in dis town
dat don' wuk wuz to be tuk up en sole, d' wouldn' be 'nough money in
de town to buy 'em! Don' I see 'em settin' 'roun' dese taverns f'om
mohnin' till night?"
She snorted out her indignation and disgust, and sitting down on the
sidewalk, under a Lombardy poplar, uncovered her wares and kept the
flies away with a locust bough, not discovering, in her alternating
good and ill humor, that half of them had been filched by her old
tormentors.
This was the memorable scene enacted in Lexington on that memorable
day of the year 1833--a day that passed so briskly. For whoever met
and spoke together asked the one question: Will the cholera come to
Lexington? And the answer always gave a nervous haste to business--a
keener thrill to pleasure. It was of the cholera that the negro woman
heard two sweet passing ladies speak as she spread her wares on the
sidewalk. They were on their way to a little picture-gallery just
opened opposite M. Giron's ball-room, and in one breath she heard
them discussing their toilets for the evening and in the next several
portraits by Jouett.
So the day passed, the night came on, and M. Xaupi gave his brilliant
ball. Poor old Xaupi--poor little Frenchman! whirled as a gamin of
Paris through the mazes of the Revolution, and lately come all the way
to Lexington to teach the people how to dance. Hop about blithely on
thy dry legs, basking this night in the waxen radiance of manners and
melodies and graces! Where will be thy tunes and airs to-morrow? Ay,
smile and prompt away! On and on! Swing corners, ladies and gentlemen!
Form the basket! Hands all around!
While the bows were still darting across the strings, out of the low,
red east there shot a long, tremulous bow of light up towards the
zenith. And then, could human sight have beheld the invisible, it might
have seen hovering over the town, over the ball-room, over M. Xaupi,
the awful presence of the plague.
But knowing nothing of this, the heated revellers went merrily home
in the chill air of the red and saffron dawn. And knowing nothing
of it also, a man awakened on the door-step of a house opposite the
ball-room, where he had long since fallen asleep. His limbs were
cramped and a shiver ran through his frame. Staggering to his feet, he
made his way down to the house of Free Charlotte, mounted to his room
by means of a stair-way opening on the street, threw off his outer
garments, kicked off his shoes, and taking a bottle from a closet
pressed it several times to his lips with long outward breaths of
satisfaction. Then, casting his great white bulk upon the bed, in a
minute more he had sunk into a heavy sleep--the usual drunken sleep of
old King Solomon.
He, too, had attended M. Xaupi's ball, in his own way and in his proper
character, being drawn to the place for the pleasure of seeing the
fine ladies arrive and float in, like large white moths of the summer
night; of looking in through the open windows at the many-colored waxen
lights and the snowy arms and shoulders, of having blown out to him
the perfume and the music; not worthy to go in, being the lowest of
the low, but attending from a door-step of the street opposite--with
a certain rich passion in his nature for splendor and revelry and
sensuous beauty.