"Oh, don't, _dear_ Mossa! you surely kill you'self!"
Upon this, his master, damning him for a "saucy, disobedient nigger,"
drew his bowie-knife and inflicted on him a frightful wound across the
abdomen, from which he died next day. A Jacksonville jury brought in a
verdict of accidental death.
That might have been another good occasion to hand Sol a musket!
Not having any, he remained in the proud and notorious position of
"Mossa Cutter's Larst Niggah."
* * * * *
In a certain part of Florida (obvious reasons will show themselves for
leaving it indefinite) I enjoyed the acquaintance of two Southern
gentlemen,--gentlemen, however, of widely different kinds. One was a
general, a lawyer, a rake, a drunkard, and white; the other was a
body-servant, a menial, an educated man, a fine man-of-business, a Sir
Roger in his manners, and black. The two had been brought up together,
the black having been given to the white gentleman during the latter's
second year. "They had played marbles in the same hole," the General
said. I know that Jim was unceasing in his attentions to his master, and
that his master could not have lived without them. A sort of attachment
of fidelity certainly did exist on Jim's side; and the most selfish man
must feel an attachment of need for the servant who could manage his
bank-account and superintend his entire interests much more successfully
than himself,--who could tend him without complaint through a week's
sleeplessness, when he had the horrors,--who was in fact, to all intents
and purposes, his own only responsible manifestation to the world.
Jim's wife was dead, but had left him two sons and a daughter. When I
first saw him, none of them had been sold from him. The boys were
respectively eighteen and twenty years old. Their sister had just turned
sixteen, and was a nice-looking, modest, mulatto girl, whom her father
idolized because she was looking more and more every day "like de oder
Sally dat's gone, Mossa."
A week after he said that to me, Sally on earth might well have prayed
to Sally in heaven to take her, for she was sold away into the horrors
of concubinage to one of the wickedest men on the river.
To describe the result of this act upon Jim is beyond my power, if
indeed my heart would allow me to repeat such sorrow. It was not
violent,--but, O South, South, lying on a volcano, if all your negroes
had been violent, how much better for you!
Jim, I hear they intend to give you a rifle!
Well, as to that, I remember Jim had heard of such things.
Boarding at the same hotel with the General, I sat also at the same
table. When he was well enough to come down to his meals, he occupied
the third chair below me on the opposite side.
One night, when all the boarders but ourselves had left the tea-room,
the General, being confidentially sober, (I say _sober_, for when he
reached the confidential he was on the rising scale,) began talking
politics with me.
"I see in the 'Mercury,'" said the General, "that some of your Northern
scum are making preparations for another John Brown raid into Virginia."
"Oh no, I fancy not. That's sensation."
"Well, now, you just look h'y'ere! If they do come, d'ye know what _I_'m
gwine to do! If I'm too feeble to walk or ride a hoss, I'll crawl on my
knees to the banks of the Potomac, and"----
"What, with those new Northern-made pantaloons on?"
"D'interrupt me, Sir. I'll crawl on my knees to the bank of the Potomac
and defend Old Virginny to the last gasp. She's my sister, Sir! So'll
all the negroes fight for her. Talk about our not trusting 'em! Here's
Jim. He's got all the money I have in the world; takes care of me when
I'm sick; comes after me, to the Gem when I'm--a little not myself, you
know; sees me home; puts me to bed, and never leaves me. Faithful as a
hound, by Heavens! Why, I'd trust him with my life in a minute, Sir!
Yes, Sir, and----Oh, yes! we'll just arm our niggers, and put 'em in the
front ranks to make 'em shoot their brothers, Sir!"
I said, "Ah?" and the General went out to take a drink, leaving Jim and
myself alone together at the table. The remaining five minutes, before I
finished my tea, Jim seemed very restless. Just as I rose to go, he said
to me,--
"Mossa, could you hab de great kin'ness to come out to de quarters to
see Peter?" (his eldest boy,)--"he done catch bery bad col', Sah."
I was physician in ordinary to the servants in that hotel. In every
distress they called on me. I told Jim that I would gladly accompany
him. When we got to a considerable distance from the main houses, Jim
stopped under an immense magnolia, and, drawing me into its shade, said,
after a sweeping glance in all directions,--
"Oh, Mossa! _is_ dat true, dat dem dere Abolitionists is a-comin' down
here to save us,--to redeem us, Mossa? Is dey a-comin' to take pity on
us, Mossa, an' take dis people out of hell? Oh, _is_ dey, _is_ dey,
Mossa?"
I told Jim that they were very weak and few in number just now; but that
in a few years there would be nobody but them at the North, and then
they'd come down a hundred thousand strong. (I said _one_ hundred
thousand, the modern army not yet having been dreamed of.) I told him to
bide the Lord's time.
He cast a fainting glance over to that window in the negro quarters,
dark now, where his little Sally used to ply her skilful needle. Then he
tossed his hands wildly into the air, and cried out,--
"_Lord's_ time! Oh, _is_ der any Lord?"