_science_ o’ hog-callin’. Dey says ‘p-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-r’og,’ when de hogs
ain’t po’ at all, but fat as buttah. Dey got to git ‘hog’ in some ways
so dey thinks. But dey ain’t no sense in dat. Hogs don’t understan’
dat. Dey can’t talk an’ don’t understan’ de meanin’ o’ talk words. You
mus’ jes’ let ’em know dat when you wants ’em to come youse gwine to
make a noise, de like o’ which ain’t in heaven or yuth. Den dey gits to
knowin’ what dat means. Dat’s my way. When I fetch a yell at ’em, dey
jes’ raise der yeahs, an’ say to der se’f: ‘Dat dar’s Phil, fo’ sho’,
an’ Phil’s de big, ugly, black nigga wid de bauskets o’ cawn.’ When you
says ‘Phil,’ you mean mastah’s big nigga what wuks in de fiel’, an’
plays de banjo, an’ goes fishin’; but when de hogs says ‘Phil,’ dey
mean a big black fella, wid a big yell into him, _an’_ de bauskets o’
cawn. An’ you bettah b’lieve dat makes ’em jump up an’ clap dey han’s
fo’ joy, jes’ like de nigga does when he gets religion ’nuff to make
him shout, an’ _not_ ’nuff to keep him offen the hen roos’s. If a nigga
gits ’nuff religion to keep him from stealin’, it’s a mistake. Dey
don’t never mean to do it, and when dey does, dey ain’t glad a bit,
an’ dey hurries up an’ sends de surplage back.”
Phil’s respect for what he called “niggas” was exceedingly small, and
it was his greatest pleasure in life to demonstrate their inferiority
and emphasize their shortcomings in a hundred ways.
He was “head man” of the hoe hands--which is to say he hoed the leading
row of tobacco hills, and was charged with the duty of superintending
the work of the others. It was his delight to keep his work so far in
advance that he must now and then set his hoe in the ground, and walk
back to inspect the progress, and criticise the performance of slower
workers than he. In all this there was no spice of uncharitableness or
malice, however. He wished his fellows well, and had no desire to hurt
their feelings; but he keenly enjoyed the fun of outdoing them, and
laughing at their inability to cope with him.
It was during wheat harvest, however, that Phil was in his full glory.
The rapidity with which he could “cradle” wheat was a matter of
astonishment to every one who knew him, and, what was more wonderful
still, he was able to maintain a distinctly “spurting” speed all day
and every day.
“Phil,” his master would say, as the men entered the field on the first
day, “I want no racing now; it’s too hot.”
“Now you heah dat, you slow niggas! Mastah says Phil mustn’t kill his
niggas, an’ de onliest way to save yo’ lives is fer yer not to try to
follow me. Jes’ take yo’ time, boys. Race a little among yo’selves, if
yer want to, but don’ yer try to get a look at de heels o’ my boots, if
yer don’ want to go to de bushes an’ has any intrus’ in mastah.”
A negro, exhausting himself in a race, lies down in the bushes to cool
off and recuperate, and hence the winner of the race is said to send
the others “to the bushes.”
Phil’s preliminary remarks were sure to exasperate his fellows and put
them on their mettle. Silently they would determine to “push” him,
and the utmost vigilance of the master was taxed to prevent dangerous
overexertion. If the reapers were left alone for half an hour, several
of them would be sure to overtask their strength, and retire exhausted
to the friendly shade of the nearest thicket. But they never succeeded
in coming up with Phil, or in so tiring him that he was not ready for a
dance or a tramp when night came.
He was a strong man, rejoicing in his strength always; but there was
one thing he would not do--he would not work for himself.
His master was one of those who hoped for gradual emancipation, as
many Virginians did, and thought it his duty to prepare his negroes
for freedom, so far as it was possible for him to do so. Among other
means to this end, he encouraged each to make and save money on his own
account. Each was expected to cultivate a “patch” of his own. Their
master gave them the necessary time and the use of the mules whenever
their crops needed attention.
In this way he thought to train them in habits of voluntary industry
and thrift; and some of them, having no necessary expenses to bear,
accumulated very pretty little hoards of cash from the sale of their
crops every year. But Phil would not raise a crop for himself.
“What I want to raise a crop for?” he would ask. “I don’ want no money,
on’y a quarter sometimes to buy a banjo string or a fish line, an’ I
get plenty o’ quarters pitched at me when I hol’ de gentlemen’s hosses.
I don’ want no money, an’ I wouldn’t know what to do wid it if I had
it. My mastah takes good care o’ me, an’s long as dar’s a piece o’
meat in de smokehouse, Phil knows he’s gwine to have plenty to eat. I
ain’t gwine to earn no money an’ be cas’in’ ’flections on my mastah.
My mastah gives me mo’ clo’es ’an I kin war out; an’ _what de devil_ I
want to be makin’ money for, I donno.”
It was of no use to argue the matter. His mind was quite made up, and
there was no possibility of changing it.
Phil’s marital philosophy was unique. He changed wives half a dozen
times while I knew him, but one set of rules governed his choice in
every instance. There were certain qualifications of a rather singular
sort, which he deemed essential in a wife. She must not live on the
plantation for one thing, or on one of those immediately adjoining,
“’Cause den we’re sho’ to see too much o’ one anoder, an’ ’ll git tired
o’ de ’rangement.” In the second place he would marry none but _old_
women, “’Cause de young ones is no ’count anyway. Dey don’ half take
car’ o’ dey husban’s stockin’s and things. ’F you want holes in yer
stockin’s an’ buttons off yer shut collahs, jes’ you marry a young
gal.” The third requisite was that the wife should be a slave, and
the daughter of slaves on both sides. This qualification he insisted
upon, even in the choice of masculine associates. His contempt for
“free niggas” was supreme, almost sublime. He neglected no possible
opportunity of villifying them, and practised no sort of economy in his
expenditure of invective upon them.
Most of the negroes--in Virginia, at least--were very religious.
Naturally their religion was intensely emotional in its
character,--ecstatic, sombre, gloomy,--and quite as naturally it was
largely colored with superstition. But religion of this kind had no
charm for Phil, who, as the reader may possibly have guessed, prided
himself on being strictly logical in all his views and actions.
“Bro’ Ben,” he said to one of his fellows one day, “youse done got
religion, I heah. Anyway, your face is twict as long as it ought to be.
Has yer got religion fo’ sho’?”
“Now, Phil, I don’t want none o’ your wickedness. Bless de Lord, Ise
_got_ religion.”
“Oh, you _is_ got it, is you? Now lemme ax yer a question or two. Youse
got religion, yer say?”
Ben: “Yes, Ise got religion.”
Phil: “Well, den, you’re gwine to heaven after while--when yer dies?”
Ben: “Yes, Ise got de ’surance o’ dat, bro’ Phil.”
Phil: “An’ you’d ’a’ gone to hell, if you hadn’t got de ’surance, as
you calls it, wouldn’t you?”
Ben: “If I’d ’a’ died in my sins, course I’d ’a’ gone to hell.”
Phil: “Well now fo’ a nigga what’s jes’ made his ’rangements to keep
out’n hell an’ git into heaven, youse got de mos’ onaccountable long
face I ever did see, an’ dat’s all about it.”
When Ben had retired in disgust, I remonstrated with Phil.
“What do you tease Ben for, Phil?” I asked. “You know better than to
make fun of religion.”
“Course I do, mastah, an’ dat’s jes’ it. Ben ain’t got no religion, an’
I knows it. He’s jes’ puttin’ on dat solemncholy face to fool de good
Lord wid. Ben’ll steal, mastah, whenever he gits a chaunce. He ain’t
got no mo’ religion ’n a hog. Sho. What he know ’bout religion, goin’
down under de hill to pray, an’ all dat nonsense? Couldn’t git him to
sing a song or whistle a tune now on no account whatsumever, but he
ain’t no better nigga for dat. Didn’t I see? He shouted mighty loud
las’ night, but he shu’ked his wuk dis mawnin’ an’ didn’t half curry
his mules; an’ religion dat don’t make a nigga take good car’ o’ po’
dumb creeters like mules ain’t wuth nuthin’ at all, no way yo’ kin fix
it. When dey keeps de row up jes’ a little better, an’ don’t cover up
no weeds dey ought to cut down, an’ takes good car’ o’ mules, an’ quits
stealin’, den I begins to ’spect ’em o’ havin’ de real religion. But
dey can’t fool Phil wid none o’ dere sham solemncholies.”
Phil was a trifle hard and uncharitable, perhaps, in his judgments
upon his fellows in a matter of this kind; but there was, at any rate,
no hypocrisy in his composition. And what is more singular still, I
was never able to discover any trace of superstition in his conduct.
He laughed to scorn the signs and omens with which the other negroes
were perpetually encouraged or affrighted. Friday was as lucky a day
as any in his calendar. He would even make his fire with the wood of a
lightning-riven tree, and stranger still, was not afraid, as all the
rest were, on the occasion of a funeral, to bring away the shovels used
in the church-yard, without waiting till the moon and stars had shone
upon them.
“How is it, Phil,” I once asked him, “that you don’t believe in any of
the luck signs?”
“Do you b’lieve in ’em, mastah?” he asked in reply.
“No, of course not, but all the black folks do, except you.”
“Mastah, ain’t you foun’ out yit dat niggas is bawn fools? When my
mastah wants de hogs changed from one piece o’ woods to annuder, he
don’t go to makin’ blin’ signs to me, but he comes an’ tells me what he
wants; an’ de good Lord what made de wuld, he ain’t a-goin’ to make no
blin’ signs, nuther. He’s done tole us in de good book an’ in all de
wuld aroun’ us what to do. He’s put sense in our heads to un’erstan’
what he means, an’ he ain’t gwine to govern de univarse wid a lot o’
luck signs, like a nigga would do it. ’Sides, Ise done all de unlucky
things heaps o’ times, an’ ain’t never had no bad luck yit.”
When the war came, Phil was a stanch Southerner in all his feeling,
and firmly held to his faith in the success of his side, even to the
end. The end crushed him completely. When his master explained to the
colored people their new condition of freedom, and proposed to engage
them for wages, Phil stoutly refused.
“De odder folks may do as dey pleases, mastah, but Phil’s gwine to be
your nigga jes’ as he always was. I ain’t gwine to be free nohow. I
ain’t got no free nigga blood in me. I never saw no free nigga what
wasn’t hungry; an’ I don’t know no free nigga what _won’t steal_;
more’n dat, I never know’d a free nigga what wouldn’t sneak up on birds
an’ _shoot ’em on de groun’_. I tell you, I ain’t gwine to be no sich
folks as dem. Ise your nigga, an’ Ise gwine to be jes’ dat. I’ll do my
wuk, an’ I ain’t goin’ to take no wages, an’ you’ll take car’ o’ me
jes’ as you always did, on’y don’t never call me no free nigga. Ise a
slave, I is, an’ Ise got de bes’ mastah in ole Virginy, an’ I ain’t
fool ’nough to want to change de sitiwation.”
His master explained to him the necessity of the case, and showed him
how impossible it was, by any mutual agreement, to alter the fact of
freedom, or to escape its consequences.
“You must accept wages, Phil, for I may die or go into bankruptcy, and
you may grow old or get ill; and if I should be poor or dead, then
there would be nobody to take care of you. You must work for wages and
take care of your money, so that it may take care of you.”
“Mastah, do you mean to tell Phil dat de law makes me a free nigga
whedder or no?”
“Yes, Phil.”
“Den stick yo’ fingers in yo’ years, mastah, ’cause Ise gwine to swear.
_Damn_ de law. Dat’s what I say about dat. An’ now Ise jus’ gwine to
die, an’ dat’s all about it.”
The poor fellow walked away with bowed head and tear-stained face.
The broad, stalwart shoulders were bent beneath the weight of
responsibility for himself. He was a strong man, physically, but the
merest child in character, and the feeling that he no longer had any
one but himself to lean upon, was more than he could bear. The light of
cheerfulness and good humor went out of his face. The joyousness of his
nature disappeared, and before the summer had ripened into autumn, poor
Phil lay down and died of a broken heart.
OLD TIMES IN MIDDLE GEORGIA.
BY
RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON.
Cloth. 12mo. Price, $1.50.
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“Short but delightful stories by Richard Malcolm Johnston, each
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AMERICAN HISTORY
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] These notes were originally printed in the great war book of the
Century Company, entitled: “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.” They
are here reprinted by the courteous and very generous permission of the
Century Company.
[2] This story was first printed in the _Galaxy_ for December, 1875.
It is here reprinted by courteous permission of Colonel William Conant
Church, now of the _Army and Navy Journal_, under whose editorship
the _Galaxy_ was made a conspicuous and honorable factor in American
literature.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.