Now, do you know you young people are mighty queer? Somebody has told
you that he heard old man Isaiah Winchell a-gabbling about old times,
and here you come fishing for what you call a story. Why, bless your
soul, man, it is no story at all, just a happening, as my wife used to
say. If you want me to tell what there is of it, there must be some
understanding about it. You know what ought to be put in print and what
ought to be left out. I would know myself, I reckon, if I stopped to
think it all over; but there’s the trouble. When I get started, I just
rattle along like a runaway horse. I’m all motion and no sense, and
there’s no stopping me until I run over a stump or up against a fence.
And if I tried to write it out, it would be pretty much the same. When I
take a pen in my hand my mind takes all sorts of uncertain flights, like
a pigeon with a hawk after it.
As to the affair you were speaking of, there’s not much to tell, but it
has pestered me at times when I ought to have been in my bed and sound
asleep. I have told it a thousand times, and the rest of the Winchells
have told it, thinking it was a very good thing to have in the family. It
has been exaggerated, too; but if I can carry the facts to your ear just
as they are in my mind, I shall be glad, for I want to get everything
straight from the beginning.
Well, it was in 1826. That seems a long time ago to you, but it is no
longer than yesterday to me. I was eighteen years old, and a right smart
chunk of a boy for my age. While we were ginning and packing cotton our
overseer left us, and my father turned the whole business over to me.
Now, you may think that was a small thing, because this railroad business
has turned your head, but, as a matter of fact, it was a very big
thing. It fell to me to superintend the ginning and the packing of the
cotton, and then I was to go to Augusta in charge of two wagons. I never
worked harder before nor since. You see we had no packing-screws nor
cotton-presses in those days. The planter that was able to afford it had
his gin, and the cotton was packed in round bales by a nigger who used
something like a crowbar to do the packing. He trampled the lint cotton
with his feet, and beat it down with his iron bar until the bagging was
full, and then the bale weighed about three hundred pounds. Naturally you
laugh at this sort of thing, but it was no laughing matter; it was hard
work.
Well, when we got the cotton all prepared, we loaded the wagons and
started for Augusta. We hadn’t got more than two miles from home, before
I found that Crooked-leg Jake, my best driver, was drunk. He was beastly
drunk. Where he got his dram, I couldn’t tell you to save my life, for
it was against the law in those days to sell whiskey to a nigger. But
Crooked-leg Jake had it and he was full of it, and he had to be pulled
off of the mule and sent to roost on top of the cotton-bags. It was not
a very warm roost either, but it was warm enough for a nigger full of
whiskey.
This was not a good thing for me at all, but I had to make the best of
it. Moreover, I had to do what I had never done before—I had to drive
six mules, and there was only one rein to drive them with. This was
the fashion, but it was a very difficult matter for a youngster to get
the hang of it. You jerk, jerk, jerked, if you wanted the lead mule to
turn to the right, and you pull, pull, pulled if you wanted her to go
the left. While we were going on in this way, with a stubborn mule at
the wheel and a drunken nigger on the wagon, suddenly there came out of
the woods a thick-set, dark-featured, black-bearded man with a bag slung
across his shoulder.
“Hello!” says he; “you must be a new hand.”
“It would take a very old hand,” said I, “to train a team of mules to
meet you in the road.”
“Now, there you have me,” said he; and he laughed as if he were enjoying
a very good joke.
“Who hitched up your team?” he asked.
“That drunken nigger,” said I.
“To be sure,” said he; “I might have known it. The lead-mule is on the
off side.”
“Why, how do you know that?” I asked.
“My two eyes tell me,” he replied; “they are pulling crossways.” And with
that, without asking anybody’s permission, he unhitched the traces,
unbuckled the reins and changed the places of the two front mules. It was
all done in a jiffy, and in such a light-hearted manner that no protest
could be made; and, indeed, no protest was necessary, for the moment
the team started I could see that the stranger was right. There was no
more jerking and whipping to be done. We went on in this way for a mile
or more, when suddenly I thought to ask the stranger, who was trudging
along good-humoredly by the side of the wagon, if he would like to ride.
He laughed and said he wouldn’t mind it if I would let him straddle the
saddle-mule; and for my part I had no objections.
So I crawled up on the cotton and lay there with Crooked-leg Jake. I had
been there only a short time when the nigger awoke and saw me. He looked
scared.
“Who dat drivin’ dem mules, Marse Isaiah?” he asked.
“I couldn’t tell you even if you were sober,” said I. “The lead-mule was
hitched on the off-side, and the man that is driving rushed out of the
woods, fixed her right, and since then we have been making good time.”
“Is he a sho’ ’nuff w’ite man, Marse Isaiah?” asked Jake.
“Well, he looks like he is,” said I; “but I’m not certain about that.”
With that Jake crawled to the front of the wagon, and looked over at the
driver. After a while he came crawling back.
“Tell me what you saw,” said I.
“Well, sir,” said he, “I dunner whe’er dat man’s a w’ite man or not, but
he’s a-settin’ sideways on dat saddle-mule, en every time he chirps, dat
lead-mule know what he talkin’ about. Yasser. She do dat. Did you say he
come outen de woods?”
“I don’t know where he came from,” said I. “He’s there, and he’s driving
the mules.”
“Yasser. Dat’s so. He’s dar sho’, kaze I seed ’im wid my own eyes. He
look like he made outen flesh en blood, en yit he mought be a ha’nt; dey
ain’t no tellin’. Dem dar mules is gwine on mos’ too slick fer ter suit
me.”
Well, the upshot of it was that the stranger continued to drive. He made
himself useful during the day, and when night came, he made himself
musical; for in the pack slung across his back was a fiddle, and in the
manipulation of this instrument he showed a power and a mastery which
are given to few men to possess. I doubt whether he would have made much
of a show on the stage, but I have heard some of your modern players, and
none of them could approach him, according to my taste. I’ll tell you
why. They all seem to play the music for the music itself, but this man
played it for the sake of what it reminded him of. I remember that when
he took out his fiddle at night, as he invariably did if nobody asked him
to, I used to shut my eyes and dream dreams that I have never dreamed
since, and see visions that are given to few men to see. If I were
younger I could describe it to you, but an old man like me is not apt at
such descriptions.
We journeyed on, and, as we journeyed, we were joined by other wagons
hauling cotton, until, at last, there was quite a caravan of them—twenty,
at least, and possibly more. This made matters very lively, as you may
suppose, especially at night, when we went into camp. Then there were
scenes such as have never been described in any of the books that profess
to tell about life in the South before the war. After the teams had been
fed and supper cooked, the niggers would sing, dance and wrestle, and
the white men would gather to egg them on, or sit by their fires and tell
stories or play cards. Sometimes there would be a fight, and that was
exciting; for in those days, the shotgun was mighty handy and the dirk
was usually within reach. In fact, there was every amusement that such a
crowd of people could manage to squeeze out of such an occasion. In our
caravan there were more than a dozen fiddlers, white and black, but not
one of them that attracted as much attention as the stranger who drove
my team. When he was in the humor he could entrance the whole camp; but
it was not often that he would play, and it frequently happened that he
and I would go to bed under our wagon while the rest of the teamsters
were frolicking. I had discovered that he was a good man to have along.
He knew just how to handle the mules, he knew all the roads, he knew just
where to camp, and he knew how to keep Crooked-leg Jake sober. One night
after we had gone to bed he raised himself on his elbow and said:
“To-morrow night, if I make no mistake, we will camp within a few miles
of the Sandhills. There my journey ends, and yet you have never asked me
my name.”
“Well,” said I, “you are a much older man than I am, and I had a notion
that if you wanted me to know your name you would tell me. I had no more
reason for asking it than you have for hiding it.”
He lay over on his back and laughed.
“You’ll find out better than that when you are older,” he said, and
then he continued laughing—though whether it was what I said or his own
thoughts that tickled him, I had no means of knowing.
“Well,” he went on, after a while, “you are as clever a youngster as ever
I met, and I’ve nothing to hide from you. My name is Willis Featherstone,
and I am simply a vagabond, else you would never have seen me trudging
along the public road with only a fiddle at my back; but I have a rich
daddy hereabouts, and I’m on my way to see how he is getting along. Now,”
he continued, “I’ll give you a riddle. If you can’t unriddle it, it will
unriddle itself. A father had a son. He sent him to school in Augusta,
until he was fifteen. By that time, the father grew to hate the son, and
one day, in a fit of anger, sold him to a nigger speculator.”
“How could that be?” I asked.
“That is a part of the riddle,” said he.
“Are you the son?”
“That is another part of the same riddle.”
“Where was the son’s mother?” I asked.
“In the riddle—in the riddle,” he replied.
I could not unriddle the riddle, but it seemed to hint at some such
villainy as I had read about in the books in my father’s library. Here
was a man who had sold his son; that was enough for me. It gave me matter
to dream on, and as I was a pretty heavy feeder in those days, my dreams
followed hard on each other. But it isn’t worth while to relate them
here, for the things that actually happened were infinitely worse than
any dream could be.
As Featherstone had foretold, we camped the next night not far from the
Sandhills, where the rich people of Augusta went every summer to escape
the heat and malaria of the city. We might have gone on and reached
Augusta during the night, but both men and mules were tired, and of the
entire caravan only one wagon went forward. I shall remember the place
as long as I live. In a little hollow, surrounded by live-oaks—we
call them water-oaks up here—was a very bold spring, and around and
about was plenty of grass for the mules. It was somewhat dry, the time
being November, but it made excellent forage. On a little hill beyond
the spring was a dwelling-house. I came to have a pretty good view of
it afterward, but in the twilight it seemed to be a very substantial
building. It was painted white and had green blinds, and it sat in the
midst of a beautiful grove of magnolias and cedars. I remember, too,—it
is all impressed on my mind so vividly—that the avenue leading to the
house was lined on each side with Lombardy poplars, and their spindling
trunks stood clearly out against the sky.
While I was helping Featherstone unhitch and unharness the mules, he
suddenly remarked:—
“That’s the place.”
“What place?” I asked.
“The place the riddle tells about—where the son was sold by his father.”
“Well,” said I, by way of saying something, “what can’t be cured must be
endured.”
“You are a very clever chap,” he said, after a while. “In fact you are
the best chap I have seen for many a long day, and I like you. I’ve
watched you like a hawk, and I know you have a mother at home.”
“Yes,” said I, “and she’s the dearest old mother you ever saw. I wish you
knew her.”
He came up to me, laid his hand on my shoulder, and looked into my face
with an air I can never forget.
“That is the trouble,” said he; “I don’t know her. If I did I would be a
better man. I never had much of a mother.”
With that he turned away, and soon I heard him singing softly to himself
as he mended a piece of the harness. All this time Crooked-leg Jake was
cooking our supper beneath the live-oak trees. Other teamsters were doing
the same, so that there were two dozen camp-fires burning brightly within
an area of not more than a quarter of a mile. The weather was pleasant,
too, and the whole scene struck me as particularly lively.
Crooked-leg Jake was always free-handed with his cooking. He went at
it with a zest born of his own insatiate appetite, and it was not long
before we were through with it; and while the other campers were fuming
and stewing over their cooking, Jake was sitting by the fire nodding,
and Featherstone was playing his fiddle. He never played it better than
he did that night, and he played it a long time, while I sat listening.
Meanwhile quite a number of the teamsters gathered around, some reclining
in the leaves smoking their pipes, and others standing around in various
positions. Suddenly I discovered that Featherstone had a new and an
unexpected auditor. Just how I discovered this I do not know; it must
have been proned in upon me, as the niggers say. I observed that he
gripped the neck of his fiddle a little tighter, and suddenly he swung
off from “Money-musk” into one of those queer serenades which you have
heard now and again on the plantation. Where the niggers ever picked up
such tunes the Lord only knows, but they are heart-breaking ones.
Following the glance of Featherstone’s eyes, I looked around, and I
saw, standing within the circle of teamsters, a tall mulatto woman. She
was a striking figure as she stood there gazing with all her eyes, and
listening with all her ears. Her hair was black and straight as that of
an Indian, her cheeks were sunken, and there was that in her countenance
that gave her a wolfish aspect. As she stood there rubbing her skinny
hands together and moistening her thin lips with her tongue, she looked
like one distraught. When Featherstone stopped playing, pretending to
be tuning his fiddle, the mulatto woman drew a long breath, and made an
effort to smile. Her thin lips fell apart and her white teeth gleamed
in the firelight like so many fangs. Finally she spoke, and it was an
ungracious speech:—
“Ole Giles Featherstone, up yonder—he’s my marster—he sont me down here
an’ tole me to tell you-all dat, bein’s he got some vittles lef’ over fum
dinner, he’ll be glad ef some un you would come take supper ’long wid
’im. But, gentermens”—here she lowered her voice, giving it a most tragic
tone—“you better not go, kaze he ain’t got nothin’ up dar dat’s fittin’
ter eat—some cole scraps an’ de frame uv a turkey. He scrimps hisse’f,
an’ he scrimps me, an’ he scrimps eve’ybody on de place, an’ he’ll scrimp
you-all ef you go dar. No, gentermens, ef you des got corn-bread an’
bacon you better stay ’way.”
Whatever response the teamsters might have made was drowned by
Featherstone’s fiddle, which plunged suddenly into the wild and plaintive
strains of a plantation melody. The mulatto woman stood like one
entranced; she caught her breath, drew back a few steps, stretched forth
her ebony arms, and cried out:—
“Who de name er God is dat man?”
With that Featherstone stopped his playing, fixed his eyes on the woman,
and exclaimed:—
“_Where’s Duncan?_”
For a moment the woman stood like one paralyzed. She gasped for breath,
her arms jerked convulsively, and there was a twitching of the muscles of
her face pitiful to behold; then she rushed forward and fell on her knees
at the fiddler’s feet, hugging his legs with her arms.
“Honey, who is you?” she cried in a loud voice. “In de name er de Lord,
who is you! Does you know me? Say, honey, does you?”
Featherstone looked at the writhing woman serenely.
“Come, now,” he said, “I ask you once more, _Where’s Duncan?_”
His tone was most peculiar: it was thrilling, indeed, and it had a
tremendous effect on the woman. She rose to her feet, flung her bony arms
above her head, and ran off into the darkness, screaming:—
“He sold ’im!—he sold Duncan! He sold my onliest boy!”
This she kept on repeating as she ran, and her voice died away like an
echo in the direction of the house on the hill. There was not much joking
among the teamsters over this episode, and somehow there was very little
talk of any kind. None of us accepted the invitation. Featherstone put
his fiddle in his bag, and walked off toward the wagons, and it was not
long before everybody had turned in for the night.
I suppose I had been asleep an hour when I felt some one shaking me by
the shoulder. It was Crooked-leg Jake.
“Marse Isaiah,” said he, “dey er cuttin’ up a mighty rippit up dar at dat
house on de hill. I ’spec’ somebody better go up dar.”
“What are they doing?” I asked him drowsily.
“Dey er cussin’ an’ gwine on scan’lous. Dat ar nigger ’oman, she’s
a-cussin’ out de white man, an’ de white man, he’s a-cussin’ back at
her.”
“Where’s Featherstone?” I inquired, still not more than half awake.
“Dat what make me come atter you, suh. Dat white man what bin ’long wid
us, he’s up dar, an’ it look like ter me dat he’s a-aggin’ de fuss on.
Dey gwine ter be trouble up dar, sho ez you er born.”
“Bosh!” said I, “the woman’s master will call her up, give her a
strapping, and that will be the end of it.”
“No, suh! no, suh!” exclaimed Jake; “dat ar nigger ’oman done got dat
white man hacked. Hit’s des like I tell you, mon!”
I drove Jake off to bed, turned over on my pallet, and was about to go to
sleep again, when I heard quite a stir in the camp. The mules and horses
were snorting and tugging at their halters, the chickens on the hill were
cackling, and somewhere near, a flock of geese was screaming. Just then
Crooked-leg Jake came and shook me by the shoulder again. I spoke to him
somewhat sharply, but he didn’t seem to mind it.
“What I tell you, Marse Isaiah?” he cried. “Look up yonder! Ef dat house
ain’t afire on top, den Jake’s a liar!”
I turned on my elbow, and, sure enough, the house on the hill was
outlined in flame. The hungry, yellow tongues of fire reached up the
corners and ran along the roof, lapping the shingles, here and there,
as if blindly searching for food. They found it, too, for by the time
I reached the spot, and you may be sure I was not long getting there,
the whole roof was in a blaze. I had never seen a house on fire before,
and the sight of it made me quake; but in a moment I had forgotten all
about the fire, for there, right before my eyes, was a spectacle that
will haunt me to my dying day. In the dining-room—I suppose it must have
been the dining-room, for there was a sideboard with a row of candles
on it—I saw the mulatto woman (the same that had acted so queerly when
Featherstone had asked her about Duncan) engaged in an encounter with
a gray-haired white man. The candles on the sideboard and the flaring
flames without lit up the affair until it looked like some of the
spectacles I have since seen in theatres, only it was more terrible.
It was plain that the old man was no match for the woman, but he fought
manfully for his life. Whatever noise they made must have been drowned by
the crackling and roaring of the flames outside; but they seemed to be
making none except a snarling sound when they caught their breath, like
two bull-dogs fighting. The woman had a carving-knife in her right hand,
and she was endeavoring to push the white man against the wall. He, on
his side, was trying to catch and hold the hand in which the woman held
the knife, and was also making a frantic effort to keep away from the
wall. But the woman had the advantage; she was younger and stronger, and
desperate as he was, she was more desperate still.
Of course, it is a very easy matter to ask why some of my companions or
myself didn’t rush to the rescue. I think such an attempt was made; but
the roof of the house was ablaze and crackling from one end to the other,
and the heat and smoke were stifling. The smoke and flames, instead of
springing upward, ranged downward, so that before anything could be done,
the building appeared to be a solid sheet of fire; but through it all
could be seen the writhing and wrestling of the nigger woman and the
white man. Once, and only once, did I catch the sound of a voice; it was
the voice of the nigger woman; she had her carving-knife raised in the
air in one hand, and with the other she had the white man by the throat.
“_Where’s Duncan?_” she shrieked.
If the man had been disposed to reply, he had no opportunity, for the
woman had no sooner asked the question than she plunged the carving-knife
into his body, not only once, but twice. It was a sickening sight,
indeed, and I closed my eyes to avoid seeing any more of it; but there
was no need of that, for the writhing and struggling bodies of the two
fell to the floor and so disappeared from sight.
Immediately afterward there was a tremendous crash. The roof had fallen
in, and this was followed by an eruption of sparks and smoke and flame,
accompanied by a violent roaring noise that sounded like the culmination
of a storm. It was so loud that it aroused the pigeons on the place,
and a great flock of them began circling around the burning building.
Occasionally one more frightened than the rest would dart headlong into
the flames, and it was curious to see the way it disappeared. There would
be a fizz and a sputter, and the poor bird would be burnt harder than a
crackling. I observed this and other commonplace things with unusual
interest—an interest sharpened, perhaps, by the fact that there could be
no hope for the two human beings on whom the roof had fallen.
Naturally, you will want to ask me a great many questions. I have asked
them myself a thousand times, and I’ve tried to dream the answers to them
while I sat dozing here in the sun, but when I dream about the affair at
all, the fumes of burning flesh seem to fill my nostrils. Crooked-leg
Jake insisted to the day of his death that the man who had driven our
team sat in a chair in the corner of the dining-room, while the woman and
the man were fighting, and seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. It may be
so. At any rate none of us ever saw him again. As for the rest, you know
just as much about it as I do.