THE FLORIDA CRACKERS.
When the previous thirty chapters were in press, the conviction was
forced upon me that any book which touched upon Florida without a
description of its poor whites called "Crackers," would be like the
play of "Hamlet" with the Prince of Denmark left out, and I gladly pay
this tribute of grateful remembrance to the most unique, and the only
truly contented people that I have ever met on earth.
So far forth as history enlightens us, the ancestors of these peculiar
specimens of the human race were never born anywhere in particular,
but like Topsy, they "simply growed."
Why these usually long, lean, lank, saffron-hued, erst-while
clay-eaters have received such an unromantic name has been variously
accounted for. Some say the name was suggested by the fact that when
not otherwise employed, they are constantly cracking the lice which
swarm in their never-combed hair; others ascribe it to the frequent
cracking of their rifles and long whip-lashes as they pursue their
game or drive their cattle. An ex-slave of one of them tells me that
they are called "Crackers," because they are all "cracked as to their
cocoanuts."
Although the faces of many of these children of nature are usually as
expressionless as a cast-iron cook-stove, they are far from being as
stupid as they look; for even General Jackson, "the man of blood
and iron," would have won but few, if any, laurels in his campaigns
against the Seminoles, had it not been for his advanced guard of the
warlike "Crackers."
"Out there in history" we see him and his army, while recklessly
rushing the redskins, become lost and bewildered in the vast primeval
forest. Day after day, they marched, but always in a circle; and
each nightfall found them near where they broke camp in the morning.
Provisions failed, and hunger and thirst drove the soldiers frantic.
Every night they were pelted by bullets from unseen foes; stabbed and
stung by innumerable insects; death for all stared them in the face;
myriads of buzzards whirled above them, anxious for their prey.
While Jackson and his men, prostrated by heat, fruitless marching and
discouragement, were praying for succor, suddenly the air seemed to
be filled with human forms, which to their dazed minds appeared to be
angels sent in answer to their fervent petitions. Grotesque looking
angels were these, swinging from limb to limb of the forest trees; but
heavenly in their beneficence were the solemn-faced "Crackers," as
hundreds of them dropped to the ground and fed the exhausted warriors
with "hog, hominy," and water from packs strapped with their rifles to
their dirty, sturdy shoulders--"'nough sight better work for angels
to do than loafin' around the throne." While the feasting was in
full swing, suddenly the haggard and careworn face of "Old Hickory"
appeared in their midst. "Boys," said he, in his quick, incisive
tones, "don't eat any more, 'twill make you sick, stow it away in your
haversacks." Then, turning to the Floridians, he quietly remarked,
"Gentlemen, you saved our lives; many thanks! Now we will do as
much for you. Where are the Injuns?" All the tree-climbers arose
respectfully, saluted, and a tall, cadaverous-looking, long-haired,
coon-skin-capped leader advanced, took the general by the hand, and
slowly drawled,--
"Ginrul, the red niggers air skulkin' yender to the river, waitin' to
chaw up you uns tonight.
"Colonel Tompkins," came the quick command, "_climb_ your forces to
the river, pour a volley into the red-skins at sundown, yell for all
you're worth, we'll do the rest."
"All right, Ginrul, we uns will be thar," and away went the "flying
Crackers," facing unspeakable dangers as calmly as a child looks into
the loving eyes of its mother.
Sometimes they glided noiselessly as the autumn leaves cleave the
air over the pine-needle carpet of the forest, and when this was
impossible on account of the bogs and morasses, which would swallow
them down to unknown depths, they swung through the tops of the
sighing pines until they had flanked their unsuspecting foes; then,
just as the sun was setting, they struck terror to the hearts of the
Seminoles by an unexpected volley from their rifles and by frightful
yells,
"As if all the fiends from heaven that fell,
Had pealed the banner-cry of hell."
The red-men fled in panic along the narrow isthmus between the swamps
and river straight upon the ambushed army of Jackson, who mowed them
down with bullets as falls the grass before the scythes. The spirits
of the Indians were crushed, and the remnant of a once powerful tribe
fled into the vast, to the whites, inaccessible everglades, where
their descendants now live on their fertile oasis, which is cultivated
by their negro slaves, who never heard of Abraham Lincoln, or his
proclamation of emancipation. "Old Hickory" and his gallant soldiers
have all the glory; but their heroic allies returned quietly to their
huts, their "hog and hominy," as unconcernedly as if they had done
nothing more important than catching a trout or shooting a quail.
The stolidity and patience of the "Cracker" is equalled only by that
of "their cousins, the Indians"; I have seen one of them sit for
twelve hours continuously in one place fishing without being
encouraged by even a little nibble; his face was as placid as that of
a mummy which he closely resembles; then suddenly he would pull in
scores of trout, but with the same imperturbable composure as before.
Although almost invariably poor so far as money is concerned, owing
to their love of ease, these children of nature are proverbially
hospitable, and you are welcome as his guest until you eat his last
bit of food unless you offer him compensation therefor; if you do that
his wrath knows no bounds, as I once found to my sorrow.
I had been wandering with three other horseback riders for a day and
night lost in the woods; we were hungry and tired to the verge of
collapse, when suddenly up went the heads and tails of our quadruped
friends, who neighed with delight, and dashed pell mell toward a huge
building or rather connected aggregation of buildings which loomed
up on a hill in the pines. We made the welkin ring with our saluting
shouts, but there was no response, the settlement was deserted; we
stabled and fed our horses in the near-by barn, and led by a Floridian
friend entered the largest house. Had manna fallen to us from heaven
our surprise could not have been greater; a huge table was before us
covered with enormous quantities of roasted meats,--venison, quail,
wild turkey, hoe-cakes and fruits galore. We fell upon the provisions
like famished wolves, and when at last our "aching voids" were filled,
we were appalled at the havoc we had wrought; still no hosts appeared
to welcome or rebuke.
On the wide mantel was a quantity of homemade cigars from which those
of us who were "slaves to the filthy weed" made selections, and on the
broad piazza were illustrating the wise man's definition of a cigar,
"a roll of nausea with fire on one end and a fool on the other," when
the air resounded with loud reports like pistol-shots and shouts of
"whoa, whe, gee," rebel yells and barking of dogs; then a multitude
of cattle dashed into view urged on by a cavalcade of men, women and
children. The drivers gave us only casual glances until the round-up
was completed and the enclosing gates shut, when the rollicking crowd
came trooping toward us, and our guilty consciences made us fearful
of dire punishment for our peculations. Then a tall, long-haired
patriarch saluted us with "Howdy, strangers, howdy," shook hands with
us heartily, and with a wave of his hand, "my wife and children,
gents," glanced at the impoverished table, when he shouted "glad you
had good appetites, strangers, mother, guess you'll have to tune up
some more cooking."
The whole crowd gave us a marching salute, and made the water fly in
a big tub where they performed much-needed ablutions, and soon,
hoe-cakes were smoking, pork and sausages sizzling, doughnuts
swelling, manipulated by the many willing hands: then the whole army
"fell to" the abundant feast. It was wonderful and laughable to see
that crowd of sons, daughters, grand-sons, grand-daughters--fifty in
number--all one family, "stow away the prog."
Each one reminded you of the Irishman's pig who was said to devour a
half-bushel of boiled potatoes, and when he was outside of all that,
he, himself, would not fill a two quart measure. What a clatter of
dishes as the buxom girls helped mother "clear up"! Then we had fun at
the milking; it required a dozen strong men to hold one kicking cow
while a woman, squeezed out a little milk from the reluctant udders,
though she gave down freely later when the ravenous calf took hold. If
the men relaxed for a minute, up goes the irate cow's heels, away goes
the pail "dowsing" the maid with the foaming milk from head to foot,
anon the wild-eyed brute would down horns and charge, the milkeress
takes to her heels, then a flight of lassoos, over goes the frantic
animal onto her back, the ropes tighten until she was conquered and
forced to "give down some of her juice." One dose of this medicine
was usually sufficient for any wild cow, and forever after she would
"stand and deliver in peace."
Shall we ever forget the feeding of the pigs? Oh, the wild charge they
made when they saw the feed troughs filled! "Everyone for himself, and
the devil take the hindermost;" one huge razor-back stretches himself
at full length on the "dough" in his generous attempt to prevent the
rest from "making hogs of themselves"; an indignant young Cracker
lassoos the hind legs, and by a dextrous pull sends his swine-ship
whirling and rending high heaven with his lamentations.
At last all are stuffed as full as our "grandmother's sassingers," and
then reclining in the sun, they express by their contented grunts and
snores, ecstatic rapture as they pile on flesh for the stuffing of
their carniverous owners. Then we watched a giant Crackeress feeding
what she called her "feathered hogs." With frenzied eyes, whirring
wings and waring beaks, all rushed to cheat the others and to secure
the whole earth, each for himself, very like many "two-legged hogs
without feathers"; a hen seizes a hoe-cake of her own size and
frantically rushes away in the vain hope of devouring it in peace in
some sequestered nook; but argus, envious eyes are watching, and her
uncles and her aunts pursue, striking with beaks and claws to rob her
of her big all. It was a minature Wall Street and stock-exchange,
where human hogs and foul birds of prey fight to the death to plunder
their own brothers.
And now gently the night stole o'er us--
"Night, so holy and so calm,
That the moonbeams hushed the spirit,
Like the voice of prayer or psalm"
and until the "wee sma hours," while three generations listened
intently, we swapped stories with our generous "Crackers."
Our patriarch host had been a captain in the rebel army until he had
his "belly full of fight," as he quaintly termed it. His wife had
blest him with an even score of boys and girls, all now living in this
delightful climate, where he said, "no one ever died; they simply
dried up and blowed away into the happy hunting-grounds beyond the
stars." When a baby was born or a child married, this chief of the
tribe "hitched on" another house, until now the one-story dwellings
covered an acre of his vast lands.
He and his tribe raised on his great farm here in Bradford County
everything he needed to eat, drink, or to wear: his wife and daughters
spun and wove their clothing from the cotton grown and ginned on his
own fields; the delicious syrup and sugar which adorned and sweetened
the mountains of rye pancakes and floods of home-raised coffee, was
made from the cane which was grown, and ground on his own soil.
He grew his own tobacco, tea, peanuts, oranges, figs, pineapples,
bananas; he fattened his cattle and hogs on his own cassava and the
abundant wild grasses; his flocks of sheep "cut their own fodder," and
the wool and mutton was all clear profit. This "Cracker" family was
the happiest and most independent I ever saw on earth.
All around this plantation are millions of uncultivated acres where
the wretches of our city slums could be equally happy if our Carnegies
and Rockefellers would only loan the funds to colonize them there.
The millions of dollars, now worse than wasted by our selfish
millionaires? could thus soon make this earth a paradise like to that
above. After enjoying this free delightful life for several days, and
we were on the point of departing, I said to our host, "Captain, we
have enjoyed your hospitality immensely, and I hope you will allow me
to reciprocate," holding toward him a bank-note.
Instantly his eyes flashed angry fire, he shot out his fist to strike
me, when a neighbor said, "Don't hit him Cap, he don't know no better,
he's a Yank." "Wall Yank," drawled this six feet of fighting man,
"seein' ye don't know no better, I'll let ye off this time; but I
don't keep no tarvern, and when me and my family come yure way, we'll
all stop with yew, that'll even it up." As I looked at the fifty
yawning caverns of chewing mouths, and reflected upon the cost of
feeding them in Boston for even one day, I thanked God that I had not
given him my card, and we rode away amid ear-splitting cheers and
waving of hands, each one of which resembled in size the tail-board of
a coal-cart.
On another occasion while scouring the Florida country for lands for
colonizing purposes in company with a native, the night caught us in
the dense forest; our horses stumbled over immense fallen trees, the
owls hooted, the wild cats screamed, the thunder roared, occasionally
a pine fell splintered by the lightning, the rain fell in torrents,
and we seemed destined to shiver all the long black hours supperless
and comfortless, when our eyes were greeted by the cheerful light
shining through the open door of a log hut; a dozen curs gave tongue
and went for our legs till a sharp yell from within sent them yelping
away. A genuine Cracker appeared, and seeing our dripping forms in the
electric flash, he quietly said, "Lite strangers, lite, jest in time,
plenty of hog and hominy." He led our tired steeds into the leanto,
fed them, and ushered us into his one-room shanty, where his lank wife
and a dozen children silently made room for us around a rough board
table. "Mother," said the master, "more hoe-cake, more bacon," and
the obedient woman "slapped" a lot of corn dough on to the blade of
a common hoe which a girl held over the "fat-wood" fire until it
browned; another tossed some smoked hog into an suspicious looking
skillet, and soon, in spite of the slovenly cooking, we "fell to" in
a desperate attempt to smother the gnawing pangs of a long-suffering
appetite. Then we told all the stories we could recall or invent to
satisfy the starving intellects of these lonesome denizens of the
wild wood. "Come, chilluns, to bed," said our host, and they were all
stacked one over the other on the one corn-shuck couch where a chorus
of snores proved they were in the land of dreams.
Our host relapsed into silence and seemed to be pondering some
profound problem in his mind; but suddenly blurted out, "Strangers,
reckon ye haint gut any of the rale critter, have ye? no corn juice
pison nor nuthin'? reckon I was born dry!" My guide in reply produced
a long flat bottle of about his own size, and passed it with "try that
Kunnel." There was a sound of mighty gurgling long drawn out,
but finally the huge demijohn was reluctantly withdrawn from his
cavernlike mouth with a joyous "Ah, that's the rale stuff, have some
mother? The woman removed the snuff rag from her gums long enough to
drain the dregs, and presto! they beamed upon us like twin suns.
"Strangers," ejaculated this typical Cracker, "this is the dog-gondest
place ter git er drink yer ever seed. Aour caounty went dry last
'lection, and tother day er went to the spensary ter git sum
fire-water er thinkin we mought be sick er sunthin, ther wouldn't
let me hev it 'thout Doc's 'scripshun--went to Doc, wouldn't give me
'scripshun 'thout snake-bite er sunthin--went ter only snake er knowed
on fer a bite, und the dog-goned critter sed all his bites wuz spoke
for three weeks ahed. Dunno what ud er dun if you uns hedn't cum
erlong. Naouw, strangers, you take aour bed, we sleep on floo."
Then he took the "kids" one by one, and set them up with their backs
to the side of the shanty, and we, not daring to beard the lion in his
den by declining, obeyed. The next morning we found ourselves set up
alongside the children on the floor, while the old man and his wife
were snoring on the bed. Verily, "For ways that are dark and tricks
that are vain, the heathen 'Cracker' is peculiar."