YELLOW STEVE'S MYSTERIOUS STORY.
"My name is Jeff. Winnings, and I was born in the State of South
Carolina, a slave owned by Wade Hampton. My father, I have been told,
was a Seminole Indian. I have little recollection of my mother, as I was
torn from her, when but little more than two years old, and sold to a
man in Kentucky. Here I lived until the age of twelve, when, my master
dying, his property was divided, and I was taken by a son of his to
Missouri, in the county of Pike. I found this man an excellent master,
he always treated me kindly, and, as I picked up a little knowledge of
books, he encouraged me and furnished me means to improve my mind after
my day's work was done.
"It was through his kindness, that I, a slave, learned to read and
write, which now enables me to record the history of my dark career, far
darker than heaven made my face. I lived with him until I was eighteen
years of age, and was at one time well known about Bowling Green,
Missouri, as Yellow Jeff. Then my master became financially embarrassed,
and I, with his other slaves, was sold at a sheriff's sale.
"A professional negro-buyer, one of the most detestable class of men
that God ever created, purchased me, and I was taken to North Carolina
and sold to Mr. Henry Tompkins--"
"Great God!" gasped Abner, the manuscript falling from his hands. "Was
that man connected with my Uncle's murder?" He sprang to his feet and
paced the floor, but finally forced himself to pick up the manuscript
and resume.
"Mr. Tompkins was a man of very hasty temper and, although he was of
Northern birth, he was a harsh master.
"Among the slaves he owned was a beautiful quadroon, named Maggie, and
an attachment sprang up between us. I loved her with all my heart, and
she loved me as earnestly. White people, who think that the tender
emotions are only for their own race, are much mistaken. I, who had the
blood of two savage nations in my veins, loved as wildly, fiercely, and
yet as tenderly as any white man that ever lived. Maggie loved me as
fervently as I did her. The little education, I had picked up from my
master in Missouri, made me the hero in the negro quarters. Oftentimes,
in the balmy Southern nights, when the day's work was over, have I taken
my banjo and sat by the side of my pretty quadroon, pretty to me,
whatever she may have been to others, and played those old,
long-forgotten songs.
"Our overseer was hard on us, and the tasks we accomplished were
wonderful--they seem impossible now for even negroes to have performed.
Yet darkness never found me too tired to take my accustomed place by
Maggie's side. When I was twenty-one, I was a strong, athletic man. No
one on the plantation could equal me for strength or activity. Two or
three times had the overseer tied me to a post and used his whip on me
for some very trifling matter. On such occasions I felt the rising in my
heart of that wild thirst for blood, which afterward proved my ruin. I
was called 'Indian Jeff,' 'Proud Jeff,' and 'Dandy Jeff,' and the
overseer, who seemed to have a special grudge against me, used to
declare that he would whip the pride out of me.
"I could have borne all their beatings and ill treatment, and have lived
peaceably the life of a slave, until death or Abraham Lincoln's
proclamation had set me free, had not my master given me a blow, that
was worse than death. When I was twenty-one, Maggie and I were married,
in sight of heaven, though the law said negroes can not marry, and were
as happy as persons in perpetual bondage could be. She sympathized with
me and I with her. I can not see now how we could have been so happy
then. There was no promise in the future, but slavery, toil, and the
lash. Our only hope of release was death, yet we were happy in each
other's love.
"We laughed at the threatened lash and sang at our work from morning
until night. I toiled in the cotton fields, and Maggie was employed in
the planter's mansion. It was cotton-picking time, a few months after
our marriage, and, the crop being unusually large, my master sent my
wife to work in the field. She came gladly and asked permission to work
by my side. I also pleaded for this privilege, promising to do the work
of two men, if our prayer was granted.
"Our master ordered us away to the field and said that the overseer
would arrange that. Scarcely had the overseer set eyes on my beautiful
quadroon wife than I trembled. I saw an evil purpose in his dark eye. He
refused our request and placed us on opposite sides of the field. I went
to work sullenly and, although I kept busy, I did but little, trampling
under foot more cotton than I picked. We had been in the field all day,
and the sun was setting, when I heard a shriek from the opposite side of
the field. The voice I knew well to be Maggie's, and in an instant all
my wild Indian nature was on fire. I flew across the field to find the
overseer beating my wife. Some terrified negroes whispered the cause to
me, as I paused, horror-stricken. The overseer had offered some
indecencies to her, which she had resented, and now he was punishing
her.
"They tried to hold me back, but they might as well have tried to stop
the fires in a volcano. One spring and one blow from my fist laid the
villain senseless on the ground, and snatching up my wife, who had
fainted, I hurried away to our lowly cabin.
"I expected punishment, but not such as came. The next morning both
Maggie and myself were put in irons, and I was compelled to stand by
while a contract of sale was read, conveying her to a Louisiana
sugar-planter. Again that wild cry of my heart for vengeance rang
through every nerve, and I uttered a fearful oath of vengeance as I saw
them bear her away. Her shrieks have rang in my ears ever since.
"For my threat I was tied to a tree, and the lash laid on my bare back
by my master, Mr. Henry Tompkins. During the flogging I turned on him,
and swore I would have his blood and the blood of his whole family. It
only augmented my own suffering, however. When Henry Tompkins was
exhausted, he ordered me to be released, and I went sullenly away. No
words except threats had escaped my lips, and they could not have wrung
a groan from me had they cut me into pieces with the cowhide.
"For a few days I remained about the place, planning revenge. I went
about my work until an opportunity offered, and then ran away. I knew
how vigorous would be the pursuit, and selected a mountain cave, which I
believe to be unknown to any one but myself. Here I lived for about
three weeks, frequently hearing the bay of the bloodhound and the shout
of the negro-hunter. They evidently gave it up at last, and one night I
came from my hiding-place and went to my master's house. I knew the
place well. I found an ax, and I went in at the front door.
"I will not describe, for I can not, what I did. With the name of Maggie
on my lips, and the Indian devil in my heart, I perpetrated a horrible
murder. The baby, a little girl, I spared and picked up with some of
its clothing and carried it away with me. The rest were all struck down
by my avenging ax. As I was leaving with the baby, my conscience already
smiting me for what I had done, a groan came from the eldest child, a
boy. Stooping, I found he was not dead, but that my ax had fractured his
skull. He was between ten and twelve years of age and slender. I
snatched him up, and, having set fire to the house, I put the baby in a
large basket and set off with the wounded boy and the baby girl.
"How I reached the cave, without discovery, no one, not even I, know.
The burning mansion doubtless aided me, by calling off all pursuit. Here
I remained for a week or two, living I know not how. The boy recovered
from the blow, but he was a idiot and had no recollection of his former
life.
"I had no heart to kill him or the baby now; I had had blood enough, and
for some time was puzzled what to do with the baby and the idiot. There
was a colored freeman, known as 'Free John,' living near, with his wife.
I knew I could trust them, and, one night, I told them all. I knew that
Henry Tompkins had a brother in Virginia, and to him I resolved to take
the children.
"My friends went ahead in their ox-cart, leaving bits of leaves on the
road to indicate which way they had gone. I started after them, with the
idiot by my side and carrying the baby in my arms. I had found on some
of the baby's clothes the name Irene, which I was careful to preserve,
as they might lead to her discovery; a plan I had decided upon when I
should be far enough out of the way. When in the State of Virginia,
about twenty-five miles from Mr. Tompkins' the boy ran away from me, and
I did not see him again for years. We had traveled mostly by night and
found hiding-places in the cane-brakes during the day time.
"I finally reached the vicinity of Twin Mountains, where I found Free
John, and we remained there for two or three days, as we both were
nearly exhausted with our long, hard travel. One day, while at his hut,
an old hunter, called Uncle Dan, stopped in for a moment and saw the
little, tired, dirty baby. He looked at it curiously and asked some
questions, which Free John's wife answered, but that very night I
carried it to the mansion of Mr. Tompkins and left it on his porch. He
raised the child, and now she is the wife of his son, and her husband
does not know that she is his own cousin. The boy finally wandered to
the same place and lived there and at the cabin of Dan Martin, until he
was accidentally killed by the Union soldiers. He went by the name of
Crazy Joe, on account of his persistently calling himself Joseph.
"John Smith, or Free John, and his wife, Katy, are now living at
Wheeling, Virginia, and can attest the truth of my story, if it becomes
necessary to prove Irene Tompkins' heirship to her father's estate.
"Since that night, I have been a wanderer through the South, and have
assisted hundreds of my race to reach the North and freedom. I have
become accustomed to danger and accomplished in woodcraft.
"I have searched the South over, and a hundred times risked my life
trying to find my Maggie. Only a few weeks ago, I learned that she had
died, years ago, of a broken heart. When you read this, pronounce me a
fiend if you will, but remember that I was once human. I was maddened,
desperate. It was the curse of slavery that caused the horror I have
related; but now, thank God! when you read this, and I am no more, the
curse is lifted from the land. For the first time in many years I write
my real name,
"JEFF. WINNINGS."