Produced by David Garcia, Graeme Mackreth and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
BURL.
BY MORRISON HEADY.
NASHVILLE, TENN.:
SOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE.
1886.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1884,
BY THE BOOK AGENTS OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
PREFACE.
Some one has said that inasmuch as the Preface to a book is the last
thing that is written, it ought to be the last that is read. I suppose
that some readers prefer to omit the Preface until they have read the
book, for many writers, Lord Lytton among the number, really destroy the
illusion of a work of fiction by specifying the conditions under which
it was written. A certain amount of faith in the reality of the things
recorded is, to many minds, essential to true enjoyment of the story.
However the case may be, I prefer that the reader of this volume should
read these lines of mine before he proceeds farther. The author of this
little book is both _blind_ and _deaf_! For many years he has been
absolutely blind. He has utterly lost the sense of hearing also; and
whilst he speaks with singular clearness, and with some modulation of
voice, he can receive no communication from his fellow-creatures except
through an alphabet which he carries upon his hand! Every word must be
spelled letter by letter.
Thus deprived of two of his senses, it is a marvel that he is able to
write at all. That he has written a book of more than ordinary interest
I am sure the reader will decide when he has read it. There are passages
of true poetry scattered here and there, and some descriptive scenes
that will not suffer by comparison with those of the best of living
authors. Under other circumstances, I would exercise my editorial
prerogative, and change the form of some of his expressions; but the
style of Mr. Heady is peculiar: it is his own, and the merit of
originality should not be denied to him, even in those rare instances in
which he breaks away from the trammels of recognized laws of language.
I am sure that the knowledge of the infirmities under which this author
writes will secure to him a lenient spirit of criticism, whilst it
inspires admiration in view of the great excellence of his work. Not a
line, not a word of complaint against the Providence that has afflicted
him--not the slightest allusion to his personal disabilities--will be
found anywhere in this volume. The spirit of the writer is cheerful, to
the verge of gayety itself. He has a keen sense of the ridiculous, and
exhibits a quiet humor which is couched in quaint and striking phrases.
How thankful ought we to be, to whom the gracious God has given the use
of all our senses! Should we not stand reproved in the presence of this
blind and deaf man, who uses for the benefit of others the means that he
possesses, whilst we, enjoying all of God's bounties, have made so
little use of them? This work is a sermon to the despondent, complaining
spirit, and a word of vigorous exhortation to the slothful man. May this
_moral_ of the book leave its record for good in the heart of every
reader!
W.P. HARRISON,
Book Editor, M.E. Church, South.
NASHVILLE, Dec., 1883.
INTRODUCTION.
Nearly twenty years had now elapsed since Daniel Boone had spent that
memorable twelve-month all alone in the depths of the boundless
wilderness; yet was Kentucky still the Hunter's Paradise, or the land of
the Dark and Bloody Ground, just as the wild adventurer or peaceful
laborer might happen to view it. In the more central regions, it is
true, a number of thriving settlements had already sprung up, and by
this time--1789, or thereabout--were quite too populous and strong to
apprehend any further serious molestation from their Indian neighbors.
But between these points and the Ohio River lay a wide border of
debatable land, where the restless savages still kept up their hostile
demonstrations, which, though less bloody and wasting than at an earlier
period, were yet sufficiently frequent and harassing to keep the white
settlers in perpetual disquietude and fear.
Sometimes different settlements would unite their forces into strong
parties of from fifty to two hundred riflemen, when a dash would be made
across the river and the war carried for a week or two into the enemy's
country. But as the Indians, with their characteristic wariness, had
usually timely notice of the approaching danger, and would abandon their
villages for the more secure shelter of the forest, the white invaders
could do little more in the way of vengeance and intimidation than burn
the deserted towns and level the corn-fields to the ground. A brief
interval of quiet would sometimes follow these raids; but it happened
not unfrequently that the pioneers would hardly be back to their several
stations, disbanded, and fairly at their labors in the field, when there
again was the Indian war-whoop ringing along the periled border as
melodiously as ever, and the pillaging, murdering, scalping, and
burning going on in the good old orthodox fashion the pesky red ravagers
loved so well.
What greatly aggravated this distressing state of things, Kentucky was
still but a district of Virginia, hence powerless to use to the full
extent the means of self-defense which otherwise had lain within her
reach; while the seat of government was so remote from the scenes of
disorder that the mother State could succor her infant settlements
scarcely more than had they lain on the other side of the Rocky
Mountains, instead of the Alleghenies. Thus trammeled, Kentucky could do
little more than, like a tethered bison, butt at the dangers which year
in and year out beset her on every side. To be sure, conventions
composed of her best men, and having for their object her erection into
a separate State of the Union, had been for the last three years, and
for the next three years continued to be, as frequent as
camp-meetings--quite as demonstrative too, and noisy, and quite as much
to the purpose, so far as concerned the object in view. Why, does not
beseem us here to inquire. Finally, just as the danger was over and
gone, and the last hand of hostile Indians that ever raised the
war-whoop in the land of the "Dark and Bloody Ground" had been driven
across the Ohio, Kentucky was untrammeled, and suffered to rear her
bleeding front among the mighty sisterhood of States--an independent,
sovereign part of the independent, sovereign whole, as the phrase should
go, until the great rebellion should call for new constructions and
clear definitions. Thenceforth for twenty years the fiery lines of war
receded fitfully northward, till stayed at the Battle of the Thames,
quenched in the life-blood of the heroic, the high-minded, the hapless
Tecumseh.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
How Big Black Burl Figured in the Paradise 9
CHAPTER II.
How Little Bushie Figured in the Paradise 17
CHAPTER III.
How Big Black Burl and Bushie Figured in Each Other's Eyes 26
CHAPTER IV.
How Somebody was Lost in the Paradise 39
CHAPTER V.
How Grumbo Figured in the Paradise 46
CHAPTER VI.
How Big Black Burl Figured on the War-path by Day 52
CHAPTER VII.
How Big Black Burl Figured on the War-path by Night 60
CHAPTER VIII.
How Big Black Burl Figured in a Quandary 67
CHAPTER IX.
How Big Black Burl Figured in Ambush 73
CHAPTER X.
How Big Black Burl Figured in the Fight 81
CHAPTER XI.
How Little Bushie Figured in the Fight 90
CHAPTER XII.
How Big Black Burl and Grumbo Figured After the Fight 99
CHAPTER XIII.
How Big Black Burl Figured in his Triumph 109
CHAPTER XIV.
How Big Black Burl Figured in Oratory 117
CHAPTER XV.
How Big Black Burl Sewed it Up in his War-cap 127
CHAPTER XVI.
How Big Black Burl Figured on the Peace-path 136
CHAPTER XVII.
How the Glory of his Race Figured in his Rising 147
CHAPTER XVIII.
How the Eagle and the Lion and the Big Bear Figured in the
Great North-west 154
CHAPTER XIX.
How Big Black Burl Figured at the Death-stake 164
CHAPTER XX.
How Kumshakah Figured in The Light of the Setting Sun 174
CHAPTER XXI.
How the Glory of his Race Figured in his Setting 180
BURL.
Chapter I.
HOW BIG BLACK BURL FIGURED IN THE PARADISE.
Six feet six he stood in his moccasins, yet seemed not tall, so broad he
was and ponderously thick. He had an elephantine leg, with a foot like a
black-oak wedge; a chimpanzean arm, with a fist like a black-oak maul;
eyes as large and placid as those of an ox; teeth as large and even as
those of a horse; skin that was not skin, but ebony; a nose that was not
a nose, but gristle; hair that was not hair, but wool; and a grin that
was not a grin, but ivory sunshine. Such was the outward man of Big
Black Burl.
Brave as a lion, deliberate as a bear, patient as an ox, faithful as a
mastiff, affectionate as a Newfoundland dog, sagacious as a crow,
talkative as a magpie, and withal as cheery and full of song as a
sky-lark. Such was the inward man of Big Black Burl.
Built up and limbed as just described, our hero, as you may well
imagine, must have been a man of prodigious bodily strength. To be sure,
a tall, supple, well-knit, athletic white man like Simon Kenton, for
example, might, in a wrestling-match and by some unexpected sleight of
foot, have kicked his heels from under him and brought him flat on his
back with ease. But keeping him there would have been an altogether
different matter. That would have taken Simon Kenton, Daniel Boone, and
Benjamin Logan, all men of uncommon bone and muscle, and all upon him at
once; and even then he would have tumbled and tousled them so lustily as
at last to force them from sheer loss of breath to yield the point and
let him up.
The station, in and around which our colored hero was wont to figure,
was one of the most exposed points along the northern border, and, being
the rendezvous of many of Kentucky's boldest hunters, was looked upon by
the more interior settlements as their bulwark of defense against
incursions of the Indians. Now, be it known that in the numerous
skirmishes which took place in that quarter between the Reds and the
Whites, Big Black Burl played a rather conspicuous part; proving himself
for deeds of warlike prowess a signal illustration of African valor--a
worthy representative, indeed, of his great countryman Mumbo Jumbo, the
far-famed giant-king of Congo. In testimony whereof, there were the
scalps of his enemies taken by his own hand in secret ambush and in open
fight, and which, strung together like pods of red pepper, or cuttings
of dried pumpkin, hung blackening in the smoke of his cabin.
Scalps! Your pardon, Christian reader; but the truth must be confessed,
bald as it is, and worse than bald. It was the fashion of the day: the
Reds took scalps and the Whites took scalps. It were, then, hardly fair
in us to find fault with the Blacks for doing the same, especially as
they could neither read nor write nor cipher, nor had been taught the
absolute truths of any creed whence, as a natural consequence, proceeds
that profound fixedness of belief which needs must make itself manifest
in the persistent exemplification of every Christian virtue. Had they
enjoyed these inestimable advantages, the Blacks--depend upon it--would
have denied themselves so barbarous a luxury, and set a more Christian
example to the unchristian Whites then dwelling in the Paradise. The
glory of such a manifestation was reserved to the nineteenth century,
when the lovers of the great brotherhood of man should discover and
proclaim to the listening earth the latent saint inherent in the nature
of ebony, from Ham, the favorite son of Noah, down to Uncle Tom, the
best man that ever lived.
In the corn-field, barefooted and shirt-sleeved, Burl was like the
patient, plodding, slow-paced ox; but let the alarm-cry of "Indians!
Indians!" ring along the border, and in a trice, with moccasins on feet,
war-cap on head, rifle on shoulder, tomahawk and limiting-knife in belt,
he was out upon the war-path--a roaring lion, thirsting for scalps and
glory. Indeed, so famous did he in time become for his martial exploits
as to win for himself among Whites a distinguished title of "The
Fighting Nigger;" while among the Reds, by whom he was regarded as a
sort of Okeeheedee--half man and half devil--he grew to be known as "The
Big Black Brave of the Bushy Head." When out on his "Injun" hunts, the
Fighting Nigger usually chose to be alone. His instinct told him--and
that monitor rarely spoke to Big Black Burl in vain--that he must not
presume too far upon that fellowship into which, in virtue of his great
achievements, the White hunters had condescended to admit him; lest
familiarity, which breeds contempt, might incur him the risk of being
snubbed, or thrust out altogether as an impertinent intruder, who had
forgotten where he stood in the social scale. Whereas, by the general
observance of this prudent policy, not only should he win additional
commendations from his White superiors for additional deservings, but
secure to himself the undivided honor of the scalps--the trophies of
victory--taken by his own hand in battle. For, colored though he was,
with a nose inclining neither to the Roman nor Grecian, our hero showed
that he cherished a genuine, therefore jealous, love of glory. In this
respect, we may liken the Fighting Nigger to such godlike specimens of
our race as Alexander the Great; to Napoleon the Great; or, perhaps more
fitly still, to Mumbo Jumbo the Great, the far-famed giant-king of
Congo.
But if there was one thing in the Paradise that Big Black Burl loved
more than scalps and glory, it was his little master, Bushie--or, as the
name had been written down in the Good Book, some eight or nine years
before, Bushrod Reynolds, jr. Bushrod Reynolds, sr., the father, and
Jemima Reynolds, the mother, were natives of the Old Dominion, whence
they had migrated but a few months prior to the birth of their little
son; Bushrod, with his whole worldly estate across his shoulder, in the
shape of rifle and ax; Jemima, with her whole paternal inheritance close
at her heels, in the shape of an unshapely, gigantic negro youth,
destined in after years to win for himself among the Red warriors of the
wilderness the high-sounding title of "The Big Black Brave of the Bushy
Head." With brave and cheerful hearts, which the pioneer must maintain,
or sink, they had gone to work, and cutting out a broad green patch from
the vine-inwoven forest, had erelong, in the midst of the sunshine thus
let in, built them a rustic home. Here, in the due course of nature, a
playful little pioneer made his appearance, whom they bundled up in red
flannel and christened Bushrod, and called Bushie--Burl's household
idol.
Now, as a hunter and Indian fighter, Bushrod Reynolds had few equals,
even in the Paradise--a land prolific beyond precedence of the heroic in
that line. Hence it naturally followed that he should take the lead of
the other pioneers, who made Fort Reynolds--as in compliment to him the
station was called--their place of refuge from the incursions of the
Indians, or their rallying-point for repelling the invaders. Thus on a
certain day it so befell that an Indian chase was started near Fort
Reynolds--a band of the Red marauders having made a bloody, burning
pounce upon the settlements the previous night, and now, loaded with
booty and scalps, were making all speed for the Ohio River, to throw
that broad barrier between themselves and danger.
The chase had been kept up for several miles, and the pursuers as yet
had failed to catch a glimpse of the fugitives. Swifter of foot than his
comrades, Captain Reynolds had imprudently, perhaps unconsciously,
pushed on far in advance, when on a sudden he found himself waylaid and
set upon by four or five of the savages, who, bolder than their fellows,
had dared to be the hindermost and cover the retreat. These, having
caught sight of their foremost pursuer, and marking that he ran quite
alone, had agreed among themselves to waylay and capture him; a prisoner
being a more coveted prize than a scalp, since, while yet alive, he
could be both scalped and roasted. But he resisted so desperately,
dealing about their heads such ugly blows with the butt of his rifle, as
quickly to convince them that he was not to be taken alive; and aware
that the rest of their pursuers should soon be upon them, and
exasperated by the bruises he had given them, they shot him down on the
spot--nor turned to renew their flight till they had scalped him, though
still alive and conscious. The Red dastards were yet in sight when the
other hunters gained the spot, where they found their leader wounded and
dying. With a commanding gesture, he sternly bid them forward, nor mar
the chase for him, who had but a few moments to live. Fortunately, it so
chanced that on the present occasion Big Black Burl was with the White
hunters; therefore they left him to minister to his dying master, and
again pushed on in hotter, fiercer pursuit.
For many a weary mile of bush-entangled forest and grass-entangled
glade, of rocky dell and precipitous hill, the chase for life and death
went on--nor ceased till it had brought pursued and pursuer to the
banks of the broad Ohio. Here they who had dared to be the hindermost
found themselves reduced to desperate straits, whether to fight or
swim--their comrades, unmindful of them, having pushed off in all the
canoes, and being by this time far out upon the river. Needing but a
glance to tell them where their chances lay, with a loud yell of
defiance, they leaped from the high bank into the deep stream and swam
for dear life. The instant after, the rifles of the White hunters rang
out from among the trees along the shore: there was a stain of blood
upon the water, and the next moment they who but now had stemmed the
current with desperate sinews floated lifeless with it--all who dared to
be the hindermost.
Meanwhile, the faithful Burl had borne his wounded master to the banks
of a forest brook which ran hard by, and had set him down, reclined
against the trunk of a tree. Then he took his powder-horn, having
emptied its contents into his ammunition-pouch, and filling it from the
stream, gave his master to drink--the clear, cool, sparkling water, so
refreshing to the tired and thirsty, but to the wounded man sweet and
grateful beyond expression. When he had drained the flask and revived a
little, that hapless hunter thus addressed his slave: "Burl, you have
ever been faithful to me. Have I been as kind to you?"
A big sob was the only answer, but it came from the depths of the heart,
and said "Yes" a hundred times.
"Then, be faithful still. You have a brave heart and a strong arm, and
to your support and protection must I, in some sort, leave my poor wife
and child. Then give me your word, your solemn promise, that you will be
as faithful to Miss Jemima as you have been to me; and that you will
take good care of her fatherless boy, till he be old and strong enough
to shift for himself and for his mother, too. Do you give me your
promise?"
"O master!" Burl at length sobbed out, "it ain't much a pore nigger kin
do fur White folks in dat way; but what I kin do I will do, an' won't
never stop a doin' it." Here, with a blubbering expression of grief, the
poor fellow broke down.
"Your hand upon it, my good old boy," whispered the dying hunter, his
breath now almost gone. "Bid Miss Jemima and dear little Bushie good-by
for me, and carry them my dying blessing."
In pledge of the promise, never to be broken, Burl took the hand that
was now powerless to take his, and held it till death had fixed its
answering grasp and the hunter was gone to find another paradise. Then
he laid his master's body upon the streamlet's brink, to wash away the
blood. How gently the huge hand laved the gory locks and dashed the soft
water into the dead, pale face! It was a stern, rugged, weather-beaten
face; but the light of the last loving thoughts still lingered upon it,
lending it a beauty in death which it had never known in life. This part
of his pious duty duly done, then tenderly in his mighty arms he took up
the precious burden and laid it across his shoulder to bear it to the
distant home. Through the fast lengthening shadows of sunset, through
the glimmering shades of twilight, through the melancholy starlight,
through woods, woods, woods, he bore it, till the lamp that always
burned at the little square window, when the hunter was abroad in the
night, was spied from afar, telling that the faithful, loving heart was
waiting and watching as she should never wait and watch again.
Burl stepped softly over the low rail-fence into the yard and laid his
master's body upon a puncheon bench which stood under a forest-tree
directly in front of the cabin. Having composed the limbs of the dead,
he stole with noiseless tread across the porch to the cabin door, at
which he softly knocked with his knuckles, but holding it fast by the
latch-handle, lest it should be too suddenly opened. Straightway a quick
step was heard approaching the door from within. The wooden bolt slid
back with a thump, the wooden latch went up with a click, but the door
remained shut.
"It's nobody but me, Miss Jemimy; nobody here but me. You's awake, is
you?"
"Yea, Burl, I'm awake," answered a gentle voice within; and again the
latch went up with a click.
"Not yit, Miss Jemimy, not yit. I said dare's nobody here but me; but
didn't 'zacly mean what I said. You's awake, now, is you--wide awake?"
"Yes, Burl, I am wide awake, and have been all night long. But why do
you ask? And why do you hold the door so fast?" And now there was a
tremor of alarm in the gentle voice.
"Den, put out de light, Miss Jemimy; O put out de light!" and the great
sob which shook the door told the rest.
In sweet pity we shall refrain from dwelling further upon the scene. But
as Burl stood out there in the night and witnessed the widow's anguish,
and heard the wail of her fatherless child, from that heart whence had
ascended to heaven the promise never to be broken there rose a terrible
oath that never from that day forward, while he had life in his heart
and strength in his arm, should an opportunity for vengeance slip his
hand. How faithfully that oath was kept full many a Red man's scalp,
which hung blackening from his cabin beams, but too plainly attested.