Some weeks after these occurrences I was on my way South, and again
found myself within reach of the sleepy old park and the gruesome
court-room.
I was the only passenger in the Pullman. I had traveled all night in
this royal fashion--a whole car to myself--with the porter, a quiet,
attentive young colored man of perhaps thirty years of age, duly
installed as First Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and I had settled
myself for a morning of seclusion when my privacy was broken in upon
at a way station by the entrance of a young man in a shooting jacket
and cap, and high boots splashed with mud.
He carried a folding gun in a leather case, an overcoat, and a
game-bag, and was followed by two dogs. The porter relieved him of his
belongings, stowed his gun in the rack, hung his overcoat on the hook,
and distributed the rest of his equipment within reach of his hand.
Then he led the dogs back to the baggage car.
The next moment the young sportsman glanced over the car, rose from
his seat, and held out his hand.
"Haven't forgotten me, have you? Met you at the luncheon, you
know--time the Judge was late waiting for the jury to come in."
To my delight and astonishment it was the young man in the Prince
Albert coat.
He proved, as the morning wore on, to be a most entertaining young
fellow, telling me of his sport and the birds he had shot, and of how
good one dog was and how stupid the other, and how next week he was
going after ducks down the river, and he described a small club-house
which a dozen of his friends had built, and where, with true Southern
hospitality, he insisted I should join him.
And then we fell to talking about the luncheon, and what a charming
morning we had spent, and of the pretty girls and the dear
grandmother; and we laughed again over the Judge's stories, and he
told me another, the Judge's last, which he had heard his Honor tell
at another luncheon; and then the porter put up a table, and spread a
cloth, and began opening things with a corkscrew, and filling empty
glasses with crushed ice and other things, and altogether we had a
most comfortable and fraternal and much-to-be-desired half hour.
Just before he left the train--he had to get out at the junction--some
further reference to the Judge brought to my recollection that ghostly
afternoon in the courtroom. Suddenly the picture of the negro with
that look of stolid resignation on his face came before me. I asked
him if any appeal had been taken in the case as suggested by the
district attorney.
"Appeal? In the Crouch case? Not much. Hung him high as Haman."
"When?"
"'Bout a week ago. And by the way, a very curious thing happened at
the hanging. The first time they strung Crouch up the rope broke and
let him down, and they had to send eight miles for another. While they
were waiting the mail arrived. The post-office was right opposite. In
the bag was a letter for Crouch, care of the warden, but not directed
to the jail. The postmaster brought it over and the warden opened it
and read it to the prisoner, asking him who it was from, and the
nigger said it was from his mother--that the man she worked for had
written it. Of course the warden knew it was from Crouch's girl, for
Crouch had always sworn he had no family, so the Judge told me. Then
Crouch asked the warden if he'd answer it for him before he died. The
warden said he would, and got a sheet of paper, a pen and ink, and
sitting down by Crouch under the gallows asked him what he wanted to
say. And now, here comes the funny part. All that negro wanted to say
was just this:--
"'I'm enjoying good health and I hope to see you before long.'
'SAM CROUCH.'
"Then Crouch reached over and took the pen out of the warden's hands,
and marked a cross underneath what the warden had written, and when
the warden asked him what he did that for, he said he wanted his
mother to have something he had touched himself. By that time the new
rope came and they swung him up. Curious, wasn't it? The warden said
it was the funniest message he ever knew a dying nigger to send, and
he'd hung a good many of 'em. It struck me as being some secret kind
of a password. You never can tell about these coons."
"Did the warden mail it?"
"Oh, yes, of course he mailed it--warden's square as a brick. Sent it,
of course, care of the man the girl works for. He lives somewhere
around here, or Crouch said he did. Awfully glad to see you again--I
get out here."
The porter brought in the dogs, I picked up the gun, and we conducted
the young sportsman out of the car and into a buggy waiting for him at
the end of the platform.
As I entered the car again and waved my hand to him from the open
window, I saw a negro woman dart from out the crowd of loungers, as if
in eager search of some one. She was a tall, bony, ill-formed woman,
wearing the rude garb of a farm hand--blue cotton gown, brown
sunbonnet, and the rough muddy shoes of a man.
The dress was faded almost white in parts, and patched with different
colors, but looked fresh and clean. It was held together over her flat
bust by big bone buttons. There was neither collar nor belt. The
sleeves were rolled up above the elbows, showing her strong, muscular
arms, tough as rawhide. The hands were large and bony, with big
knuckles, the mark of the hoe in the palms.
In her eagerness to speak to the porter the sunbonnet had slipped off.
Black as the face was, it brought to my mind, strange to say, those
weather-tanned fishwives of the Normandy coast--those sturdy, patient,
earnest women, accustomed to toil and exposure and to the buffetings
of wind and tempest.
When the porter appeared on his way back to the car, she sprang
forward, and caught him by the arm.
"Oh, I'm dat sorry! An' he ain't come wid ye?" she cried. "But ye see
him, didn't ye?" The voice was singularly sweet and musical. "Ye did?
Oh, dat's good."
As she spoke, a little black bare-legged pickaninny, with one garment,
ran out from behind the corner of the station, and clung to the
woman's skirts, hiding her face in their folds. The woman put her
hard, black hand on the child's cheek, and drew the little woolly head
closer to her side.
"Well, when's he comin'? I come dis mawnin' jes 's ye tol' me. An' ye
see him, did ye?" she asked with a strange quivering pathos in her
voice.
"Oh, yes, I see him yisterday."
The porter's answer was barely audible. I noticed, too, that he looked
away from her as he spoke.
"An' yer sho' now he ain't come wid ye," and she looked toward the
train as if expecting to find some one.
"No, he can't come till nex' Saturday," answered the porter.
"Well, I'm mighty dis'pinted. I been a-waitin' an' a-waitin' till I
_mos_' gin out. Ain't nobody helped me like him. You tol' me las' time
dat he'd be here to-day," and her voice shook. "You tell him I got his
letter an' dat I think 'bout him night an' day, an' dat I'd rudder see
him dan anybody in de worl'. And you tell him--an' doan' ye forgit
dis--dat you see his sister Maria's chile--dis is her--hol' up yer
haid, honey, an' let him see ye. I thought if he come to-day he'd like
to see 'er, 'cause he useter tote her roun' on his back when she
warn't big'r'n a shote. An' ye _see_ him, did ye? Well, I'm mighty
glad o' dat."
She was bending forward, her great black hand on his wrist, her eyes
fixed on his. Then a startled, anxious look crossed her face.
"But he ain't sick dat he didn't come? Yo' _sho'_ now, he ain't sick?"
"Oh, no; never see him lookin' so good."
The porter was evidently anxious about the train, for he kept backing
away toward his car.
"Well, den, good-by; but doan' ye forgit. Tell him ye see me an' dat I
'm a-hungerin' for him. You hear, _a-hungerin_' for him, an' dat I
can't git 'long no mo' widout him. Don' ye forgit, now, 'cause I mos'
daid a-waitin' for him. Good-by."
The train rolled on. She was still on the platform, her gaunt figure
outlined against the morning sky, her eager eyes strained toward us,
the child clutching her skirts.
* * * * *
I confess that I have never yet outgrown my affection for the colored
race: an affection at best, perhaps, born of the dim, undefined
memories of my childhood and of an old black mammy--my father's
slave--who crooned over me all day long, and sang me lullabies at
night.
I am aware, too, that I do not always carry this affectionate sympathy
locked up in a safe, but generally pinned on the outside of my sleeve;
and so it is not surprising, as the hours wore on, and the porter
gradually developed his several capacities for making me comfortable,
that a certain confidence was established between us.
Then, again, I have always looked upon a Pullman porter as a superior
kind of person--certainly among serving people. He does not often
think so himself, nor does he ever present to the average mind any
marked signs of genius. He is in appearance and deportment very much
like all other uniformed attendants belonging to most of the great
corporations; clean, neatly dressed, polite, watchful, and patient. He
is also indiscriminate in his ministrations; for he will gladly open
the window for No. 10, and as cheerfully close it one minute later for
No. 6. After traveling with him for half a day, you doubtless conclude
that nothing more serious weighs on his mind than the duty of
regulating the temperature of his car, or looking after its linen. But
you are wrong.
All this time he is classifying you. He really located you when you
entered the car, summing you up as you sought out your berth number.
At his first glance he had divined your station in life by your
clothes, your personal refinement, by your carpet-bag, and your
familiarity with travel by the way you took your seat. The shoes he
will black for you in the still small hours of the morning, when he
has time to think, will give him any other points he requires.
If they are patched or half-soled, no amount of diamond shirt studs or
watch chain worn with them will save your respectability. If you
should reverse your cuffs before him, or imbibe your stimulants from a
black bottle which you carry in your inside pocket instead of a silver
flask concealed in your bag, no amount of fees will gain for you his
unqualified respect. If none of these delinquencies can be laid to
your account, and he is still in doubt, he waits until you open your
bag.
Should the first rapid glance betray your cigars packed next to your
shoes, or the handle of a toothbrush thrust into the sponge-bag, or
some other such violation of his standard, your status is fixed; he
knows you. And he does all this while he is bowing and smiling,
bringing you a pillow for your head, opening a transom, or putting up
wire screens to save you from draughts and dust, and all without any
apparent distinction between you and your fellow passengers.
If you swear at him, he will not answer back, and if you smite him, he
will nine times out of ten turn to you the other cheek. He does all
this because his skin is black, and yours is white, and because he is
the servant and representative of a corporation who will see him
righted, and who are accustomed to hear complaints. Above all, he will
do so because of the wife and children or mother at home in need of
the money he earns, and destined to suffer if he lose his place.
He has had, too, if you did but know it, a life as interesting,
perhaps, as any of your acquaintances. It is quite within the
possibilities that he has been once or twice to Spain, Italy, or
Egypt, depending on the movements of the master he served; that he can
speak a dozen words or more of Spanish or Italian or pigeon English,
and oftener than not the best English of our public schools; can make
an omelette, sew on a button, or clean a gun, and that in an emergency
or accident (I know of two who lost their lives to save their
passengers) he can be the most helpful, the most loyal, the most human
serving man and friend you can find the world over.
If you are selfishly intent on your own affairs, and look upon his
civility and his desire to please you as included in the price of your
berth or seat, and decide that any extra service he may render you is
canceled by the miserable twenty-five cents which you give him, you
will know none of these accomplishments nor the spirit that rules
them.
If, however, you are the kind of man who goes about the world with
your heart unbuttoned and your earflaps open, eager to catch and hold
any little touch of pathos or flash of humor or note of tragedy, you
cannot do better than gain his confidence.
* * * * *
I cannot say by what process I accomplished this result with this
particular porter and on this particular train. It may have been the
newness of my shoes, combined with the proper stowing of my toothbrush
and the faultless cut of my pajamas; or it might have been the fact
that he had already divined that I liked his race; but certain it is
that no sooner was the woman out of sight than he came direct to my
seat, and, with a quiver in his voice, said,--
"Did you see dat woman I spoke to, suh?"
"Yes; you didn't seem to want to talk to her."
"Oh, it warn't dat, suh, but dat woman 'bout breaks my heart. Hadn't
been for de gemman gettin' off here an' me havin' to get his dogs, I
wouldn't 'a' got out de car at all. I hoped she wouldn't come to-day.
I thought she heared 'bout it. Everybody knows it up an' down de road,
an' de papers been full, tho' co'se she can't read. She lives 'bout
ten miles from here, an' she walked in dis mawnin'. Comes every
Saturday. I only makes dis run on Saturday, and she knows de day I'm
comin'."
"Some trouble?" I asked.
"Oh, yes, suh, a heap o' trouble; mo' trouble dan she kin stan' when
she knows it. Beats all why nobody ain't done tol' her. I been talkin'
to her every Saturday now for a month, tellin' her I see him an' dat
he's a-comin' down, an' dat he sent her his love, an' once or twice
lately I'd bring her li'l' things he sent her. Co'se _he_ didn't send
'em, 'cause he was whar he couldn't get to 'em, but she didn't know no
better. He's de only son now she'd got, an' he's been mighty good to
her an' dat li'l' chile she had wid her. I knowed him ever since he
worked on de railroad. Mos' all de money he gits he gives to her. If
he done the thing they said he done I ain't got nothin' mo' to say,
but I don't believe he done it, an' never will. I thought maybe dey'd
let him go, an' den he'd come home, an' she wouldn't have to suffer no
mo'; dat made me keep on a-lyin' to her."
"What's been the matter? Has he been arrested?"
"'Rested! '_Rested!_ Fo' God, suh, dey done hung him las' week."
A light began to break in upon me.
"What was his name?"
"Same name as his mother's, suh--Sam Crouch."
"NEVER HAD NO SLEEP"
It was on the upper deck of a Chesapeake Bay boat, _en route_ for Old
Point Comfort and Norfolk. I was bound for Norfolk.
"Kinder ca'm, ain't it?"
The voice proceeded from a pinched-up old fellow with a colorless
face, straggling white beard, and sharp eyes. He wore a flat-topped
slouch hat resting on his ears, and a red silk handkerchief tied in a
sporting knot around his neck. His teeth were missing, the lips
puckered up like the mouth of a sponge-bag. In his hand he carried a
cane with a round ivory handle. This served as a prop to his mouth,
the puckered lips fumbling about the knob. He was shadowed by an old
woman wearing a shiny brown silk, that glistened like a wet
waterproof, black mitts, poke-bonnet, flat lace collar, and a long
gold watch chain. I had noticed them at supper. She was cutting up his
food.
"Kinder ca'm, ain't it?" he exclaimed again, looking my way. "Fust
real nat'ral vittles I've eat fur a year. Spect it's ther sea air.
This water's brackish, ain't it?"
I confirmed his diagnosis of the saline qualities of the Chesapeake,
and asked if he had been an invalid.
"Waal, I should say so! Bin livin' on hospital mush fur nigh on ter a
year; but, by gum! ter-night I jist said ter Mommie: 'Mommie, shuv
them soft-shells this way. Ain't seen none sence I kep' tavern.'"
Mommie nodded her head in confirmation, but with an air of "if you're
dead in the morning, don't blame me."
"What's been the trouble?" I inquired, drawing up a camp stool.
"Waal, I dunno rightly. Got my stummic out o' gear, throat kinder
weak, and what with the seventies"----
"Seventies?" I asked.
"Yes; had 'em four year. I'm seventy-five nex' buthday. But come ter
sum it all up, what's ther matter with me is I ain't never had no
sleep. Let me sit on t'other side. One ear's stopped workin' this ten
year."
He moved across and pulled an old cloak around him.
"Been long without sleep?" I asked sympathetically.
"'Bout sixty year--mebbe sixty-five."
I looked at him inquiringly, fearing to break the thread if I jarred
too heavily.
"Yes, spect it must be more. Well, you keep tally. Five year bootblack
and porter in a tavern in Dover, 'leven year tendin' bar down in
Wilmington, fourteen year bootcherin', nineteen year an' six months
keepin' a roadhouse ten miles from Philadelphy fur ther hucksters
comin' to market--quit las' summer. How much yer got?"
I nodded, assenting to his estimate of sixty-five years of service, if
he had started when fifteen.
He ruminated for a time, caressing the ivory ball of his cane with his
uncertain mouth.
I jogged him again. "Boots and tending bar I should think would be
wakeful, but I didn't suppose butchering and keeping hotel
necessitated late hours."
"Well, that's 'cause yer don't know. Bootcherin's ther wakefulest
business as is. Now yer a country bootcher, mind--no city beef man,
nor porter-house steak and lamb chops fur clubs an' hotels, but jest
an all-round bootcher--lamb, veal, beef, mebbe once a week, ha'f er
whole, as yer trade goes. Now ye kill when ther sun goes down, so ther
flies can't mummuck 'em. Next yer head and leg 'em, gittin' in in
rough, as we call it--takin' out ther insides an' leavin' ther hide on
ther back. Ye let 'em hang fur four hours, and 'bout midnight ye go at
'em agin, trim an' quarter, an' 'bout four in winter and three in
summer ye open up ther stable with a lantern, git yer stuff in, an'
begin yer rounds."
"Yes, I see; but keeping hotel isn't"----
"Now thar ye're dead out agin. Ye're a-keepin' a roadhouse, mind--one
of them huckster taverns where ha'f yer folks come in 'arly 'bout
sundown and sit up ha'f ther night, and t'other ha'f drive inter yer
yard 'bout midnight an' lie round till daybreak. It's eat er drink all
ther time, and by ther time ye've stood behind ther bar and jerked
down ev'ry bottle on ther shelf, gone out ha'f a dozen times with er
light ter keep some mule from kickin' out yer partitions, got er dozen
winks on er settee in a back room, and then begin bawlin' upstairs,
routin' out two or three hired gals to get 'arly breakfust, ye're nigh
tuckered out. By ther time this gang is fed, here comes another
drivin' in. Oh, thet's a nice quiet life, thet is! I quit las' year,
and me and Mommie is on our way to Old P'int Cumfut. I ain't never bin
thar, but ther name sounded peaceful like, and so I tho't ter try it.
I'm in sarch er sleep, I am. Wust thing 'bout me is, no matter whar
I'm lyin', when it comes three 'clock I'm out of bed. Bin at it all my
life; can't never break it."
"But you've enjoyed life?" I interpolated.
"Enj'yed life! Well, p'rhaps, and agin p'rhaps not," looking furtively
at his wife. Then, lowering his voice: "There ain't bin er horse race
within er hundred miles of Philadelphy I ain't tuk in. Enj'y! Well,
don't yer worry." And his sharp eyes snapped.
I believed him. That accounted for the way the red handkerchief was
tied loosely round his throat--an old road-wagon trick to keep the
dust out.
For some minutes he nursed his knees with his hands, rocking himself
to and fro, smiling gleefully, thinking, no doubt, of the days he had
speeded down the turnpike, and the seats, too, on the grand stand.
I jogged him again, venturing the remark that I should think that now
he might try and corral a nap in the daytime.
The gleeful expression faded instantly. "See here," he said seriously,
laying his hand with a warning gesture on my arm, the ivory knob
popping out of the sponge-bag. "Don't yer never take no sleep in ther
daytime; that's suicide. An' if yer sleep after eatin', that's murder.
Look at me. Kinder peaked, ain't I? Stummic gone, throat busted, mouth
caved in; but I'm seventy-five, ain't I? An' I ain't a wreck yet, am
I? An' a-goin' to Old P'int Cumfut, ain't we, me an' Mommie, who's
sixty---- Never mind, Mommie. I won't give it away"--with a sly wink
at me. The old woman looked relieved. "Now jist s'pose I'd sat all my
life on my back stoop, ha'f awake, an' ev'ry time I eat, lie down an'
go ter sleep. Waal, yer'd never bin talkin' to-night to old Jeb
Walters. They'd 'a' bin fertilizin' gardin truck with him. I've seen
more'n a dozen of my friends die thet way--busted on this back porch
snoozin' business. Fust they git loggy 'bout ther gills; then their
knees begin ter swell; purty soon they're hobblin' round on er cane;
an' fust thing they know they're tucked away in er number thirteen
coffin, an' ther daisies a-bloomin' over 'em. None er that fur me.
Come, Mommie, we'll turn in."
When the boat, next morning, touched the pier at Old Point, I met the
old fellow and his wife waiting for the plank to be hauled aboard.
"Did you sleep?" I asked.
"Sleep? Waal, I could, p'rhaps, if I knowed ther ways aboard this
steamboat. Ther come er nigger to my room 'bout midnight, and wanted
ter know if I was ther gentleman that had lost his carpet-bag--he had
it with him. Waal, of course I warn't; and then 'bout three, jist as I
tho't I was dozin' off agin, ther come ther dangdest poundin' the nex'
room ter mine ye ever heard. Mommie, she said 'twas fire, but I didn't
smell no smoke. Wrong room agin. Feller nex' door was to go ashore in
a scow with some dogs and guns. They'd a-slowed down and was waitin',
an' they couldn't wake him up. Mebbe I'll git some sleep down ter Old
P'int Cumfut, but I ain't spectin' nuthin'. By, by."
And he disappeared down the gang plank.