FORTY ACRES AND A MULE
When Phil returned with Margaret, he drove at Mrs. Cameron's request to
find Ben, brought him with all speed to the hotel, took him to his room,
and locked the door before he told him the news. After an hour's blind
rage, he agreed to obey his father's positive orders to keep away from the
Captain until his return, and to attempt no violence against the
authorities.
Phil undertook to manage the case in Columbia, and spent three days
collecting his evidence before leaving.
Swifter feet had anticipated him. Two days after the arrival of Dr.
Cameron at the fort in Colombia, a dust-stained, tired negro was ushered
into the presence of General Howle.
He looked about timidly and laughed loudly.
"Well, my man, what's the trouble? You seem to have walked all the way,
and laugh as if you were glad of it."
"I 'spec' I is, sah," said Jake, sidling up confidentially.
"Well?" said Howle good-humouredly.
Jake's voice dropped to a whisper.
"I hears you got my ole marster, Dr. Cameron, in dis place."
"Yes. What do you know against him?"
"Nuttin', sah. I des hurry 'long down ter take his place, so's you can
sen' him back home. He's erbleeged ter go. Dey's er pow'ful lot er sick
folks up dar in de country cain't git 'long widout him, an er pow'ful lot
er well ones gwiner be raisin' de debbel 'bout dis. You can hol' me, sah.
Des tell my ole marster when ter be yere, en he sho' come."
Jake paused and bowed low.
"Yessah, hit's des lak I tell you. Fuddermo', I 'spec' I'se de man what
done de damages. I 'spec' I bus' de Capt'n's nose so 'tain gwine be no mo'
good to 'im."
Howle questioned Jake as to the whole affair, asked him a hundred
questions about the condition of the county, the position of Dr. Cameron,
and the possible effect of this event on the temper of the people.
The affair had already given him a bad hour. The news of this shackling of
one of the most prominent men in the State had spread like wildfire, and
had caused the first deep growl of anger from the people. He saw that it
was a senseless piece of stupidity. The election was rapidly approaching.
He was master of the State, and the less friction the better. His mind was
made up instantly. He released Dr. Cameron with an apology, and returned
with him and Jake for a personal inspection of the affairs of Ulster
county.
In a thirty-minutes' interview with Captain Gilbert, Howle gave him more
pain than his broken nose.
"And why did you nail up the doors of that Presbyterian church?" he asked
suavely.
"Because McAlpin, the young cub who preaches there, dared come to this
camp and insult me about the arrest of old Cameron."
"I suppose you issued an order silencing him from the ministry?"
"I did, and told him I'd shackle him if he opened his mouth again."
"Good. The throne of Russia needn't worry about a worthy successor. Any
further ecclesiastical orders?"
"None, except the oaths I've prescribed for them before they shall preach
again."
"Fine! These Scotch Covenanters will feel at home with you."
"Well, I've made them bite the dust--and they know who's runnin' this
town, and don't you forget it."
"No doubt. Yet we may have too much of even a good thing. The League is
here to run this country. The business of the military is to keep still
and back them when they need it."
"We've the strongest council here to be found in any county in this
section," said Gilbert with pride.
"Just so. The League meets once a week. We have promised them the land of
their masters and equal social and political rights. Their members go
armed to these meetings and drill on Saturdays in the public square. The
white man is afraid to interfere lest his house or barn take fire. A negro
prisoner in the dock needs only to make the sign to be acquitted. Not a
negro will dare to vote against us. Their women are formed into societies,
sworn to leave their husbands and refuse to marry any man who dares our
anger. The negro churches have pledged themselves to expel him from their
membership. What more do you want?"
"There's another side to it," protested the Captain. "Since the League has
taken in the negroes, every Union white man has dropped it like a hot
iron, except the lone scallawag or carpet-bagger who expects an office. In
the church, the social circle, in business or pleasure, these men are
lepers. How can a human being stand it? I've tried to grind this hellish
spirit in the dirt under my heel, and unless you can do it they'll beat
you in the long run! You've got to have some Southern white men or you're
lost."
"I'll risk it with a hundred thousand negro majority," said Howle with a
sneer. "The fun will just begin then. In the meantime, I'll have you ease
up on this county's government. I've brought that man back who knocked you
down. Let him alone. I've pardoned him. The less said about this affair,
the better."
* * * * *
As the day of the election under the new regime of Reconstruction drew
near, the negroes were excited by rumours of the coming great events.
Every man was to receive forty acres of land for his vote, and the
enthusiastic speakers and teachers had made the dream a resistless one by
declaring that the Government would throw in a mule with the forty acres.
Some who had hesitated about the forty acres of land, remembering that it
must be worked, couldn't resist the idea of owning a mule.
The Freedman's Bureau reaped a harvest in $2 marriage fees from negroes
who were urged thus to make their children heirs of landed estates stocked
with mules.
Every stranger who appeared in the village was regarded with awe as a
possible surveyor sent from Washington to run the lines of these
forty-acre plots.
And in due time the surveyors appeared. Uncle Aleck, who now devoted his
entire time to organizing the League, and drinking whiskey which the dues
he collected made easy, was walking back to Piedmont from a League meeting
in the country, dreaming of this promised land.
He lifted his eyes from the dusty way and saw before him two surveyors
with their arms full of line stakes painted red, white, and blue. They
were well-dressed Yankees--he could not be mistaken. Not a doubt disturbed
his mind. The kingdom of heaven was at hand!
He bowed low and cried:
"Praise de Lawd! De messengers is come! I'se waited long, but I sees 'em
now wid my own eyes!"
"You can bet your life on that, old pard," said the spokesman of the pair.
"We go two and two, just as the apostles did in the olden times. We have
only a few left. The boys are hurrying to get their homes. All you've got
to do is to drive one of these red, white, and blue stakes down at each
corner of the forty acres of land you want, and every rebel in the
infernal regions can't pull it up."
"Hear dat now!"
"Just like I tell you. When this stake goes into the ground, it's like
planting a thousand cannon at each corner."
"En will the Lawd's messengers come wid me right now to de bend er de
creek whar I done pick out my forty acres?"
"We will, if you have the needful for the ceremony. The fee for the
surveyor is small--only two dollars for each stake. We have no time to
linger with foolish virgins who have no oil in their lamps. The bridegroom
has come. They who have no oil must remain in outer darkness." The speaker
had evidently been a preacher in the North, and his sacred accent sealed
his authority with the old negro, who had been an exhorter himself.
Aleck felt in his pocket the jingle of twenty gold dollars, the initiation
fees of the week's harvest of the League. He drew them, counted out eight,
and took his four stakes. The surveyors kindly showed him how to drive
them down firmly to the first stripe of blue. When they had stepped off a
square of about forty acres of the Lenoir farm, including the richest
piece of bottom land on the creek, which Aleck's children under his wife's
direction were working for Mrs. Lenoir, and the four stakes were planted,
old Aleck shouted:
"Glory ter God!"
"Now," said the foremost surveyor, "you want a deed--a deed in fee simple
with the big seal of the Government on it, and you're fixed for life. The
deed you can take to the courthouse and make the clerk record it."
The man drew from his pocket an official-looking paper, with a red
circular seal pasted on its face.
Uncle Aleck's eyes danced.
"Is dat de deed?"
"It will be if I write your name on it and describe the land."
"En what's de fee fer dat?"
"Only twelve dollars; you can take it now or wait until we come again.
There's no particular hurry about this. The wise man, though, leaves
nothing for to-morrow that he can carry with him to-day."
"I takes de deed right now, gemmen," said Aleck, eagerly counting out the
remaining twelve dollars. "Fix 'im up for me."
The surveyor squatted in the field and carefully wrote the document.
They went on their way rejoicing, and old Aleck hurried into Piedmont with
the consciousness of lordship of the soil. He held himself so proudly that
it seemed to straighten some of the crook out of his bow legs.
He marched up to the hotel where Margaret sat reading and Marion was on
the steps playing with a setter.
"Why, Uncle Aleck!" Marion exclaimed, "I haven't seen you in a long
time."
Aleck drew himself to his full height--at least, as full as his bow legs
would permit, and said gruffly:
"Miss Ma'ian, I axes you to stop callin' me 'uncle'; my name is Mr.
Alexander Lenoir----"
"Until Aunt Cindy gets after you," laughed the girl. "Then it's much
shorter than that, Uncle Aleck."
He shuffled his feet and looked out at the square unconcernedly.
"Yaas'm, dat's what fetch me here now. I comes ter tell yer Ma ter tell
dat 'oman Cindy ter take her chillun off my farm. I gwine 'low no mo'
rent-payin' ter nobody off'n my lan'!"
"Your land, Uncle Aleck? When did you get it?" asked Marion, placing her
cheek against the setter.
"De Gubment gim it ter me to-day," he replied, fumbling in his pocket, and
pulling out the document. "You kin read it all dar yo'sef."
He handed Marion the paper, and Margaret hurried down and read it over her
shoulder.
Both girls broke into screams of laughter.
Aleck looked up sharply.
"Do you know what's written on this paper, Uncle Aleck?" Margaret asked.
"Cose I do. Dat's de deed ter my farm er forty acres in de land er de
creek, whar I done stuck off wid de red, white, an' blue sticks de Gubment
gimme."
"I'll read it to you," said Margaret.
"Wait a minute," interrupted Marion. "I want Aunt Cindy to hear it--she's
here to see Mamma in the kitchen now."
She ran for Uncle Aleck's spouse. Aunt Cindy walked around the house and
stood by the steps, eying her erstwhile lord with contempt.
"Got yer deed, is yer, ter stop me payin' my missy her rent fum de lan' my
chillun wucks? Yu'se er smart boy, you is--let's hear de deed!"
Aleck edged away a little, and said with a bow:
"Dar's de paper wid de big mark er de Gubment."
Aunt Cindy sniffed the air contemptuously.
"What is it, honey?" she asked of Margaret.
Margaret read in mock solemnity the mystic writing on the deed:
_To Whom It May Concern_:
As Moses lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness for the
enlightenment of the people, even so have I lifted twenty shining
plunks out of this benighted nigger! Selah!
As Uncle Aleck walked away with Aunt Cindy shouting in derision, "Dar,
now! Dar, now!" the bow in his legs seemed to have sprung a sharper
curve.