I have it, now. Many years ago, when I was studying for the gallows, I
had a dear comrade, a youth who was not in my line, but still a
thoroughly good fellow, though devious. He was preparing to qualify for
a place on the Board, for there was going to be a vacancy by
superannuation in about five years. This was down South, in the slavery
days. It was the nature of the negro then, as now, to steal watermelons.
They stole three of the melons of an adoptive brother of mine, the only
good ones he had. I suspected three of a neighbor’s negroes, but there
was no proof: and, besides, the watermelons in those negroes’ private
patches were all green and small, and not up to indemnity standard. But
in the private patches of three other negroes there were a number of
competent melons. I consulted with my comrade, the understudy of the
Board. He said that if I would approve his arrangements, he would
arrange. I said, “Consider me the Board; I approve: arrange.” So he took
a gun, and went and collected three large melons for my
brother-on-the-half-shell, and one over. I was greatly pleased, and
asked:
“Who gets the extra one?”
“Widows and orphans.”
“A good idea, too. Why didn’t you take thirteen?”
“It would have been wrong; a crime, in fact--Theft and Extortion.”
“What is the one third extra--the odd melon--the same?”
It caused him to reflect. But there was no result.
The justice of the peace was a stern man. On the trial, he found fault
with the scheme, and required us to explain upon what we based our
strange conduct--as he called it. The understudy said:
“On the custom of the niggers. They all do it.”
The justice forgot his dignity, and descended to sarcasm:
“Custom of the niggers! Are our morals so inadequate that we have to
borrow of niggers?” Then he said to the jury: “Three melons were owing;
they were collected from persons not proven to owe them; this is theft.
They were collected by compulsion; this is extortion. A melon was
added--for the widows and orphans. It was owed by no one. It is another
theft, another extortion. Return it whence it came, with the others. It
is not permissible, here, to apply to any object goods dishonestly
obtained--not even to the feeding of widows and orphans, for that would
be to put a shame upon charity and dishonor it.”
He said it in open court, before everybody, and to me it did not seem
very kind.
A clergyman, in a letter to me, reminds me, with a touch of reproach,
that “many of the missionaries are good men, kind-hearted, earnest,
devoted to their work.” Certainly they are. No one is disputing it.
Instead of “many,” he could have said “almost all,” and still said the
truth, no doubt. I know many missionaries; I have met them all about the
globe, and have known only one or two who could not fill that bill and
answer to that description. “Almost all” comes near to being a
proportion and a description applicable also to lawyers, authors,
editors, merchants, manufacturers--in fact, to most guilds and
vocations. Without a doubt, Dr. Ament did what he believed to be right,
and I concede that when a man is doing what he believes to be right,
there is argument on his side. I differ with Dr. Ament, but that is only
because he got his training from the Board and I got mine outside.
Neither of us is responsible, altogether.