The Black Border

Just under the left shoulder of Africa, which juts out boldly into the Atlantic, as though to meet half way the right shoulder of South America, lie, between Sierra Leone and the Bight of Benin, the Slave Coast, the Ivory Coast, and the Gold Coast. It was the lure of gold and ivory that brought to these shores the enterprising traders who first offered the African slave-holders a stable foreign market for the captives of bow and spear and knobkerrie.

Out of this fetid armpit of the Dark Continent came the first black bondsmen to curse the Western world. Thence, across the narrowing ocean, but a night’s flight for Walt Whitman’s “Man-of-War-Bird”—

“At dusk that look’st on Senegal, at morn America”—Portuguese and Spanish traders, but a few years after Columbus had set foot on San Salvador, transported their first human cargoes to the plantations of Brazil and the rich islands of the Caribbean. Here the labor of the blacks proved so profitable that the envious English soon engaged in the traffic, and during the reign of the virginal Elizabeth certain of her noble subjects sought concessions for the monopoly of the West Indian slave trade.

A generation or two later, the first slaves filtered through to the mainland colonies of North America from the Barbados, Antigua, and other West Indian Islands. After the institution had become firmly established, the New England eye, not lacking “speculation,” saw the promise of the East, and New England, pocketing her prayer book while pouching her[Pg 8] musket balls, freighted her bluff-bowed ships with red flannel and glass beads with which to accentuate, if not to clothe, the heathen nakedness, and set sail for the rising sun. Thenceforth the New England slavers sailed in cycles, and their course was charted by rum, slaves, and molasses. The “black-birders” bartered their human cargoes for West Indian molasses, which, by a spirituous, if not a spiritual, process, became New England rum. “Old Medford” filled their holds, westerly winds filled their bellying sails, and the rum was soon converted into more slaves, to be in turn converted again into molasses in completing the gainful cycle.

For a hundred and fifty years Rhode Island and Massachusetts competed successfully with England for the North American trade, and these colonies (with “God’s grace”) throve exceedingly. In the early years of the last century, however, the importation of slaves was interdicted and the last Yankee slaver converted the last rum-bought slave into cash, then, converting himself, he became an Abolitionist, and the well-known “New England conscience” was developed.

But the Puritan slaver, whatever “woes unnumbered” he brought upon his own race, was, in transferring these bought or stolen blacks to the humane Cavalier planters of the South, an unconscious benefactor to thousands of Negro captives and to millions of their descendants, whose masters gave them Christianity and such a measure of civilization, that, in the short space of two hundred years from the cannibal savagery of the stew-pot and the spit, they were fitted, in the New England mind, at least, for manhood suffrage, which came to enlightened England only after more than a thousand years of development!

None of the encyclopedias mentions the Gullah Negroes, nor does the name appear in the dictionaries. Mr. John Bennett, the well-known writer of Charleston, who has, for twenty years, been gathering data concerning this interesting people, places the Gullahs among the Liberian group of tribes; “formerly powerful and numerous, they have been crowded and overrun; their remnant remains about thirty miles inward from Monrovia;” but in 1822, in a publication by the Charleston City Council at the time of the attempted Negro insurrection, reference is made to “Gullah Jack” and his company of “Gullah or Angola” Negroes, thereby making the suggestion that “Gullah” is a corruption of Angola. As Angola and Liberia are at least fifteen hundred miles apart, the former being nearly one thousand miles south of the Equator, these two opinions seem to be in hopeless conflict.

Mr. Bennett says further: “Among the many African tribes brought to this country, the presence of very many Gullah Negroes is apparent from the earliest times. On some plantations, before the days of experienced precaution, it is highly probable they formed a majority of the hands. As early as 1730 a plan had been hatched against Charleston by these Negroes....

“The dialect of the West Coast, from which came these Gullah Negroes, was early commented upon as peculiarly harsh, quacking, flat in intonation, quick, clipped and peculiar even in Africa. Bosman, the Dutch sailor, described its peculiar tonality, and calls its speakers the ‘Qua-quas,’ because they gabbled like ducks.

“The clinging together of these Gullah tribesmen, as indicated above, and their apparent resolute and persistent[Pg 10] character, evidently assisted in impressing their dialectical peculiarities on weaker and more plastic natures brought in contact with them, and fixed the tonality of the Negro dialect of the Carolina low-country....

“For the above reason, of prevalence and domination as a peculiar dialect with singular and marked tonality, the characteristic patois of the districts where these Negroes most abounded, came to be universally referred to as the Gullah dialect.”

Whatever the origin of these Gullahs, Mr. Bennett is probably correct in his estimate of their influence upon low-country Negro speech.

Slovenly and careless of speech, these Gullahs seized upon the peasant English used by some of the early settlers and by the white servants of the wealthier Colonists, wrapped their clumsy tongues about it as well as they could, and, enriched with certain expressive African words, it issued through their flat noses and thick lips as so workable a form of speech that it was gradually adopted by the other slaves and became in time the accepted Negro speech of the lower districts of South Carolina and Georgia. With characteristic laziness, these Gullah Negroes took short cuts to the ears of their auditors, using as few words as possible, sometimes making one gender serve for three, one tense for several, and totally disregarding singular and plural numbers. Yet, notwithstanding this economy of words, the Gullah sometimes incorporates into his speech grotesquely difficult and unnecessary English words; again, he takes unusual pains to transpose numbers and genders.

On some of the sea-islands and on portions of the mainland, sparsely inhabited by whites, the Gullah speech still persists in its original “purity.” The explanation for this is that the Negroes, before and after the war, were in so tremendous a majority on the great plantations of the low-country that only the house servants came in frequent contact with their masters’ families, and these house servants, certainly those who had been “in the house” for generations, spoke with scarcely a taint of Negro speech. The field hands, seldom coming in contact with whites, had neither opportunity nor temptation to amend their speech. There was none to “impeach” their language, and so virile was this Gullah that, in some sections higher up the state, as in Barnwell and Sumter counties, where, in the settlement of estates certain families or colonies of coast-bred Negroes were sold before the war, the Gullah tongue, although with difficulty understood by the other Negroes of the community, still persists like lingual oases in the desert of up-country Negro speech.

This Gullah dialect is interesting, not merely for its richness, which falls upon the ear as opulently as the Irish brogue, but also for the quaint and homely similes in which it abounds and for the native wit and philosophy of its users. Isolated from the whites as were these coast Negroes, and having no contact with the more advanced slaves of the up-country, who, belonging as a rule to small slave-holders, were in close touch with their masters’ families, the coast Negroes retained more of the habits and traditions of their African ancestry and presented, therefore, a more interesting study of the Negro as he was, and to a certain[Pg 12] extent “ever shall be.” Living close to nature, they were learned in woodcraft and the ways of animals and birds and fish, and used this knowledge to illustrate their dealings with their own kind.

The peasantry, the lower classes generally, are the conservators of speech. Writers who have exploited the white mountaineers of the Appalachian ranges of North Carolina and Tennessee have heard from their lips Biblical and Shakesperean English now almost forgotten among educated people. So these coast Negroes still use fragments of Shakesperean English long obsolete among their former masters.

To Mr. Bennett and other philological investigators must be committed the task of working out the sources of many words of this interesting tongue. The purpose here is simply to record the oddities of the dialect as the Coast Country Negroes use it. After all, grotesque and interesting as is this speech to those familiar with it, it is only a vehicle for carrying to the reader the thought and life of an isolated group among the varied peoples that make up the complex population of this Republic.

There have been many writers of Negro dialect. Some stories that have come out of the North, feminine effusions chiefly, have been fearfully and wonderfully made; the thoughts of white people, and very common-place thoughts at that, issuing from Negro mouths in such phonetic antics as to make the aural angels weep!

In fact, no Northern writer has ever succeeded even indifferently well in putting Negro thought into Negro dialect. Even Poe, in “the Goldbug,” put into[Pg 13] the mouth of a Charleston Negro such vocables as might have been used by a black sailor on an English ship a hundred years ago, or on the minstrel stage, but were never current on the South Carolina coast. To recent Southern writers, therefore, one must turn for intelligent understanding of the Negro character and the recording of his speech, which varies in the different sections of the South.

Thomas Nelson Page, recognized as the outstanding exponent of the Virginia Negro in literature, has yet touched his field lightly, considering chiefly the old family man servant and his relations with his master’s household. Very beautifully and tenderly, because very truthfully, Mr. Page has portrayed the ante-bellum Negro man servant; but as to the younger Negro, Negro life before and since the war, and the relations of Negroes to one another, it is to be regretted that he has contributed little or nothing.

The genius of Joel Chandler Harris, who, with Judge Longstreet and his “Georgia Scenes,” fixed Georgia firmly upon the literary map of the world, embalmed the Negro myths and folk-tales of the South so subtly in the amber of his understanding that “Uncle Remus” is known and loved by the children of half the civilized world. There was little creative work in “Uncle Remus.” Mr. Harris claimed to record the stories only “like hit wer’ gun ter me.” These myths were known and told by Negro nurses to the white children over all the Southern states, and in the West Indian Islands as well, but the artistry of Harris lay in the sympathetic understanding of children prompted by his kindly heart, and the human appeal of the tender relations of “the little boy” and[Pg 14] the old Negro family servant was irresistible, not only to the children, but to those happy grown-ups who loved them.

It is interesting to know that in the low-country of South Carolina, instead of “Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox,” it is invariably “Buh Rabbit en’ Buh Wolf.” Strange, too, because wolves must have been found in upper Georgia and Carolina for more than a hundred years after they were exterminated along the coast, within whose forests still abound the grey foxes whose natural prey is the rabbit.

Encouraged by the success of the “Uncle Remus” stories, which greatly surprised this singularly modest man, Mr. Harris wrote novels and other stories of Georgia life among whites and blacks. While these were published successfully, it is upon the animal tales of “Uncle Remus” that his fame has been permanently established.

In the introduction to one of his volumes Mr. Harris has made a rather exhaustive study and analysis of the origin of these Negro myths. That they are of African origin none can doubt, but as on the West Coast of Africa, whence the slaves came to the American continent and the West Indian Islands, there are neither wolves, foxes, nor rabbits, it would be interesting to know what African animals were their legendary prototypes. In Jamaica many of the “Uncle Remus” tales are current and have been told to English children by their black nurses for generations, but there the Anancy Spider, a black, hairy tarantula-like creature, is substituted for the rabbit in the mythical triumph of mind over matter—cunning over physical strength—while the tiger does duty for the outwitted fox. Whence[Pg 15] comes the Jamaican tiger? One can only surmise that tales of the strength and ferocity of the Jaguar (“el tigre” to the Spaniards) the great spotted cat of South and Central America, were brought from the mainland to the West Indies by the Indians of the Caribbean Coast or the earlier Negro slaves; but in Jamaica even the saddle-horse story is told complete in all its details, the spider, clapping spurs to the tiger’s flanks and riding him up to the house of the “nyung ladies” (Mis’ Meadows an de gals) hitching him to a post and walking boldly in to love’s conquest. For the “Tar Baby” story, instead of the violated spring, the drinking preserve of fox or wolf, a “tar pole” is set up in a banana grove, and to this sticky lure the pilfering spider is found stuck fast by the lord of the plantation when he makes his morning rounds.

Harry Stillwell Edwards, of Macon, is another Georgian whose charming stories in the up-country or cotton plantation dialect have given pleasure to thousands. With an unusual knowledge of the Negro character—the first consideration, if one would present truthful pictures of Negro life—he combines a charming literary style, and his writings deservedly rank high among Negro stories.

Harris touched the Gullah dialect very lightly and not with authority. In “Nights with Uncle Remus,” a later collection of Negro myths, he puts into the mouth of “Daddy Jack” certain variants of the Uncle Remus stories told in the dialect of the coast, and in his introduction to this volume he acknowledges his obligation to correspondents in Charleston and elsewhere on the Carolina and Georgia Coasts for the Gullah stories. It is almost certain that he[Pg 16] lacked first-hand contact with the story-tellers, and thus missed some of the subtleties of their speech as well as the peculiar construction of their sentences, differing entirely, as they do, from those of the up-country Negroes. Mr. Harris also includes in his introduction a brief glossary of Gullah words, and expresses the opinion that this peculiar dialect is more easily read than the Georgia dialect of “Uncle Remus,” an opinion in which, unfortunately for the popularity of “Gullah,” few will concur.

In “Myths of the Georgia Coast,” Col. Charles Colcock Jones, of Georgia (and South Carolina, also, by the way) has given, in generally correct Gullah dialect, the stories current along the coast, many of them variants of those told in “Uncle Remus.” A careful lawyer, Col. Jones has set down, with most meticulous exactness, and without imagination or embellishment, the stories as they were told him on the plantation.

One familiar with Negro speech recognizes that these tales are recorded as they fell from Negro lips, and as such they must be regarded, as far as they go, as the most authentic record of Negro myths on the continent—probably the originals of many of the “Uncle Remus” stories, for the slaves first came from Africa to the coast, bringing with them their myths and legends which gradually infiltrated into the hinterland.

A comparison of Jones’s story of the rabbit and the tar baby with Uncle Remus’s version of the same tale will be interesting as showing, not only the richer and quainter dialect of the Gullah, but also his more direct and homely mode of thought.

The “Coteney” sermons of the Reverend John G. Williams, of Barnwell County, which appeared in the Charleston News & Courier about twenty-five years ago and were subsequently published in pamphlet form, purporting to be pulpit deliverances and consequently showing chiefly the Negro’s conception of his relation to religion, are full of homely wit, and, written in the language of the coast, constitute a noteworthy contribution to dialectal literature.

Mrs. A. M. H. Christensen, of Beaufort, although of Northern birth, enjoyed soon after the war unusual opportunities for acquiring folk-lore stories of the sea-islands and littoral, and she has set forth in a small volume certain of the tales that were told her, which are in the main variants of versions of those already related by Harris and Jones.

Another booklet, by the late J. Jenkins Hucks, of Georgetown, S. C., recording some of the cases that came before him as Magistrate, is, perhaps, the most humorous example extant of Gullah undefiled.

Following the Stories, will be found a fairly complete Glossary of the Gullah speech as used by the Negroes of the Carolina-Georgia Coast and sea-islands, perhaps the only extensive vocabulary of Gullah that has yet been compiled.

The words are, of course, not African, for the African brought over or retained only a few words of his jungle-tongue, and even these few are by no means authenticated as part of the original scant baggage of the Negro slaves.

What became of this jungle-speech? Why so few words should have survived is a mystery, for, even after freedom, a few native Africans of the later importations[Pg 18] were still living on the Carolina Coast, and the old family servants often spoke, during and after the war, of native Africans they had known; but, while they repeated many tales that came by word of mouth from the Dark Continent—the story-tellers were almost invariably of royal blood, and did not hesitate to own it—they seem to have picked from the mouths of their African brothers not a single jungle-word for the enrichment of their own speech.

As the small vocabulary of the jungle atrophied through disuse and was soon forgotten, the contribution to language made by the Gullah Negro is insignificant, except through the transformation wrought upon a large body of borrowed English words. Adopting, as needed and immediately when needed, whatever they could assimilate, they have reshaped perhaps 1,700 words of our language by virtue of an unwritten but a very definite and vigorous law of their own tongue.

In connection with the Glossary, certain characteristic features of this strange tongue are noted. Their consideration will facilitate the reader’s exploration of “The Black Border.”

Of the stories included in this volume, the last fourteen were written and published in The State in the Spring of 1892. The remaining twenty-eight were written and published during the year 1918.

Joe Fields was the most onery looking darkey on Pon Pon. Squat, knock-kneed, lopsided, slew-footed, black as a crow, pop-eyed, with a few truculent looking yellow teeth set “slantindicularly” in a prognathous jaw, he was the embodiment of ramshackle inefficiency. Although he worked only now and then, thanks to the industry of a hard-working wife, he usually owned, encumbered by a chattel mortgage, a wretched half-starved horse upon which he rode to his occasional employments.

Joe, runt as he was, had two sources of pride—the aristocratic lineage of his “owners,” for he had belonged to the Heywards, and the achievement, on his own behalf, of the paternity of twins. Poor, patient Philippa, being only the mother, and a person of no family to speak of, having been the slave of a Charleston baker—whose fortunes rose during the war, though his Confederate yeast didn’t—Philippa, of the bourgeoisie, was not taken into account. “Dem two twin duh my’own,” and “Me nyuse to blonx to Mass Clinch,” were the Andante and Allegro of Joe’s prideful song. When some lusty young wench, during the customary “chaffing” of the plantation dinner hour, would ridicule his small size, Joe would swell with importance, grin like a ’possum, and overwhelm her with the retort: “Little axe cut down big tree! You see dem two twin, enty? Dem duh my’own.” But the “two twins,” poor little dusky wights, were in evidence in the neighborhood and could be estimated at their true[Pg 20] value and Joe’s paternal prowess appraised accordingly, but “Mass Clinch” lived away off “een Walterburruh” and, later, as governor, in Columbia, and his name, mouthed unctuously by his former slave, carried with it a weird, mystical importance, a portentous something that held his auditors with staring eyes and dropping jaws till Joe reached his climax, when the tension relaxed and they returned to earth.

Once started, Joe’s imagination fed upon his words as a dog upon his own fleas. One day when Philippa reprobated his want of industry, Joe, other negroes being present, began to brag: “Wunnuh haffuh wu’k ’cause wunnuh blan blonx to po’ buckruh. Yo’ maussuh ’self haffuh wu’k! Enty I shum een town one time duh stan’ een ’e bake sto’ duh mek bread, en’ ’e kibbuh wid flour ’tell ’e baid stan’ sukkuh deseyuh cedar hedge duh wintuhtime w’en w’ite fros’ dey ’puntop’um?”

“Who? My Maussuh? Mass Clinch? ’Ooman, you mus’ be fool! Enty wunnuh know him duh quality? You ebbuh yeddy ’bout quality wu’k? Wuffuh him haffuh wu’k? No, suh! Him hab him ob’shay, Mistuh Jokok, fuh wu’k. My maussuh tek ’e pledjuh. ’E ride hawss, ’e eat ricebu’d en’ summuh duck en’ t’ing’. Him hab t’irteen plantesshun ’puntop Cumbee Ribbuh. Him plant seb’n t’ous’n’ acre’ rice.”

“Yaas, enty uh tell wunnuh ’e plant nine t’ous’n’ acre’ rice? Wunnuh t’ink me duh lie, enty? Uh swaytogawd, w’en uh bin Cumbee one time uh count fo’ t’ous’n’ head uh nigguh’ duh hoe rice een de baa’nyaa’d fiel’. Nigguh’ stan’ een Mass Clinch’ fiel’ sukkuh crow’ duh mustuh! En’ him hab seb’n hund’ud mule’!”

“Co’se de mule’ wu’k, en’ de nigguh’ wu’k, en’ Mistuh Jokok wu’k. Eb’rybody wu’k ’scusin’ my maussuh. Dem mule’ hab long tail’ dull summuhtime fuh switch fly, but w’en wintuhtime come en’ dem ’leb’n hund’ud mule’ tail’ roach, de pyo’ hair wuh shabe off’um mek one pile stan’ big mo’nuh rice rick!”

“Hukkuh yo’ maussuh plant all dat rice en’ t’ing’ ef ’e yent wu’k?”

“Enty I tell wunnuh him lib een Walterburruh? Duh summuhtime ’e does dribe duh plantesshun now en’ den fuh see how him crap stan’. Him dribe two hawss’, en’ de buckle on ’e haa’ness shine lukkuh gol’. One nigguh duh seddown behine ’e buggy wid alltwo ’e han’ fol’ befor’um lukkuh hog tie. Mass Clinch hab on one kid glub ’pun ’e han’ wuh come to ’e elbow. W’en ’e git Cumbee, ’e light out ’e buggy. T’ree nigguh’ run up fuh hol’ ’e hawss’ head. Mistuh Jokok mek’um uh low bow. Mass Clinch iz uh berry mannussubble juntlemun, alldo’ him iz quality, en’ him ’spon’ to de bow. Den ’e biggin fuh walk. Him hab shishuh rich walk! Den ’e cock ’e hat one side ’e head. You nebbuh see nobody kin cock ’e hat stylish lukkuh Mass Clinch. Den ’e onbutt’n ’e weskit. ’E pit ’e lef’ han’ een ’e britchiz pocket, en’ swing ’e walkin’ stick een ’e right han’, en’ biggin fuh quizzit him ob’shay. By dis time ’e git ’puntop de baa’nyaa’d hill en’ look obuh ’e fiel’.

“‘Jokok’,” ’e say, “‘dat de stretch flow you got on my rice, enty?’”

“‘De debble’!” ’e say. “‘’E mus’ be mos’ time fuh ricebu’d!’”

“‘We got one cootuh soup mek out’uh tarrypin’ wuh bin een one pen duh fatten ’pun gritch en’ t’ing,’ en’ one trout fish, en’ summuh duck’.”

“‘Berry well, mek we a few julip’,” ’e say. “‘You got enny mo’ ’pawtun’ bidness dat ’quire my ’tenshun?’”

“‘Yaas, suh; snake hole en’ crawfish en’ t’ing’ spile one uh we bank, en’ de trunk blow out, en’ uh hab uh berry bad break, en’ Cumbee ribbuh comin’ een de fiel’. You wantuh shum, suh?’”

“‘No, I t’engk you’,” ’e say. “‘Leh de ribbuh tek ’e co’se. Leh we eat’.”

“W’en ’e gitt’ru ’e bittle, ’e hab ’e fo’ hawss’ hitch up, en’ Mistuh Jokok pit two-t’ree bag uh cootuh en’ ricebu’d en’ summuh duck een him cyaaridge, en’ ’e gone spang Walterburruh, same lukkuh bu’d fly! Da’ duh my maussuh!”

By the time Joe concluded his story the noon hour was over, and the awed negroes rose silently to resume their work. One old mauma, turning to Joe as she knocked the ashes out of her clay pipe and carefully stuck it in the knotty wool behind her ear, said, “Joe, dat duh Gawd you binnuh talk ’bout, enty?”

“No, enty I tell wunnuh duh Mass Clinch Heywu’d! Him duh my maussuh, me duh him nigguh. Me ain’ haffuh wu’k, him ain’ haffuh wu’k. W’en wunnuh look ’puntop’uh she, wunnuh look ’puntop’uh me. Me en’ him alltwo stan’ same fashi’n.”

“I t’aw’t,” said the old woman, scornfully, “I t’aw’t ’e mus’ be de blessed Gawd you bin gib shishuh high[Pg 23] praise, but I always yeddy suh Him duh de ainjul’ maussuh, en’ I yeddy suh de ainjul’ w’ite en’ shiny lukkuh staar een de sky, but you, nigguh! YOU black ez uh buzzut!”

How beneficent must have been the institution of slavery under kindly masters which could cause Joe Fields, black, yellow-eyed, knock-kneed, slew-footed, longtime husband of Philippa, sometime father of twins, to boast, 53 years after the war, of the prowess and attainments of his former master, Duncan Clinch Heyward, sometime governor of South Carolina, now collector of internal revenue and sitting at the receipt of customs in the tall Palmetto building at Columbia, with dominion over war tax, surtax and every other impost internally levied by a benevolent government upon its loyal people. Although, perhaps, an infant in arms when Joe first looked freedom in the face, this “master” was exalted in the mind of his former slave to almost Godlike proportions. “Joe’ maussuh duh him Jedus,” conservatively remarked Philippa.

The negroes about Pon Pon had been considerably exercised over the lengthening of the daylight hours by pushing forward the hands of the clock. Always suspicious of a Caucasian in the woodpile, it was generally regarded as a device for increasing the hours of negro labor. At a recent gathering of the idle black at Adams Run station, the opinion was expressed that the President, although a “Dimmycrack,” must be “a smaa’t man” to have lengthened the days on the darkeys and taken over the railroads.

New York, in the minds of the coast negroes, is the ultima Thule—at once the farthest North, and the very core and center of Yankeedom, where, in awful majesty, the President of the United States is supposed[Pg 25] to sit like Zeus upon Mt. Olympus, or “my maussuh” in Columbia.

“Yaas, man,” said Joe, “de Prezzydent smaa’t man, fuh true, but ’e yent smaa’t lukkuh maussuh, ’cause my maussuh haffuh gone New Yawk fuh tell de Prezzydent wuh fuh do. Same lukkuh maussuh tell Mistuh Jokok, him ob’shay ’puntop Cumbee, hummuch rice en’ t’ing’ fuh plant, same fashi’n him tell de Prezzydent wuh fuh do, en’ de Prezzydent smaa’t ’nuf fuh do’um.

“Todduh day uh hab uh hebby disapp’int. Uh yeddy suh uh big buckruh wedd’n’ bin fuh hab een Adam’ Run billage, en’ uh yeddy suh my maussuh fuh come spang f’um Cuhlumbia to de wedd’n’. Uh gone en’ pit on me shoe’ en’ da’ new britchiz wuh uh buy yeah ’fo’ las’, en’ uh pit on uh old weskit wuh uh bin hab, so ’e kin mek me fuh look lukkuh maussuh, en’ uh tek me two foot en’ walk, ’cause da’ las’ oxin wuh uh buy done dead onduhneet’ de mawgidge da’ buckruh mek me fuh pit ’puntop’um, en’ uh yent hab nutt’n’ fuh ride, en’ uh gone slam Adam’ Run billage to de wedd’n’, so uh kin see maussuh, en’ uh stan’ outside de ’Piskubble chu’ch en uh fast’n’ alltwo me yeye ’pun de do’ fuh see w’en de buckruh’ gone een en’ w’en dem come out, en’ ’nuf buggy en’ cyaaridge en’ t’ing’ dribe up to de do’, en’ some dem torruh t’ing wuh buckruh hab now—uh cyan’ call ’e name, but ’e hab fo’ w’eel en’ ’e run lukkuh bu’d fly, en’ ’e smell lukkuh kyarrysene—en’ uh see de buckruh git out en’ gone een de chu’ch en’ de preechuh pit on ’e new shroud, ’cause ’e done buy anodduh one attuh Estelle t’ief de fus’ one ’e hab. Bimeby, eb’rybody come out de do’, en’ uh look ’tell uh pop-eye,’ but uh nebbuh see no maussuh; en’ den uh fin’ out suh maussuh ent hab uh chance fuh come to de[Pg 26] wedd’n’ cause him haffuh gone New Yawk fuh tell de Prezzydent wuh fuh do! Yaas, suh, da’ duh my maussuh! Same way ’e mek Mistuh Jokok en’ dem nigguh’ en’ t’ing’ fuh stan’ ’roun’ ’puntop’uh Cumbee ribbuh, uh yeddy suh same fashi’n him fuh do een Cuhlumbia en’ New Yawk. Uh yeddy suh my maussuh fuh lib een Cuhlumbia een one high house. ’E high mo’nuh loblolly pine tree. De house hab seb’n hund’ud room’, but dem buckruh’ wuh bin Cuhlumbia tell me de house ent hab no step fuh climb. W’en maussuh ready fuh go to de top uh ’e house, ’e gone een one leetle room, en’ ’e shet de do’ en ’e shet ’e yeye. Fus’ t’ing you know, ’e gone spang to de top uh ’e house. Wen ’e op’n ’e yeye de do’ op’n, en’ ’e walk een ’e office en’ ’e hab ’nuf man en’ nyung lady een ’e office. ’E seddown befo’ ’e table. ’E table big lukkuh winnuh-house flatfawm. ’E pit uh seegyaa’ een ’e mout’. ’E cross ’e foot. ’E call one dem nyung lady. ‘You got any match?’ maussuh ax’um.

“‘Please gimme uh matches,’ maussuh say, berry puhlite, ‘en’ light’um fuh me.’ De nyung lady g’em de match, but him say suh maussuh hab mo’ ’speriunce fuh light match’ den w’at him hab. Maussuh say, ‘berry well,’ en’ him ’cratch’ de match ’pun ’e britchiz. ’E ketch fire. ’E light ’e seegyaa’. ’E blow smoke! ’E study! Bimeby ’e reach obuh ’e table. ’E tetch one leetle sump’n’nurruh lukkuh rattlesnake’ butt’n. De t’ing hab lightnin’ een’um, but ’e nebbuh t’unduh. W’en maussuh tetch’um, de felluh go ‘ping,’ same lukkuh oonuh t’row stick ’puntop tallygraf wire. Bimeby, fo’ man’ run een de room. ‘Hummuch money oonuh tek f’um de buckruh teday?’ maussuh ax’um. ‘You tek all dem got?’”

“‘Berry well,’ maussuh say. ‘Ef you tek all dem got, uh haffuh study ’pun uh plan fuh git mo’, en’ ’e tell de fo’ man’ fuh gone. W’en dem gone, maussuh study. ’E pit ’e head one side sukkuh bluejay. ’E blow smoke, en’ ’e study. Maussuh too schemy! Bimeby, ’e say to ’eself: ‘Wuh me en’ de Prezzydent gwine do? Us done ketch all de money wuh de buckruh got, en’ us yent lef’um nutt’n’ ’cep’ de railroad. Nigguh’ ent got nutt’n’ but dem han’ en’ dem foot’. Nigguh’ ent fuh hab no money. Nigguh’ fuh w’uk. Leh we see,’ ’e say. ‘Fus’ t’ing, me en’ de Prezzydent haffuh wu’k! Alltwo uh we duh juntlemun, en’ juntlemun ent fuh wu’k.’ Maussuh pit on ’e hat. ’E gone deepo’ een Cuhlumbia. ’E ride de westyblue strain, en’ ’e nebbuh git off ’tell ’e git spang New Yawk! ’E gone to de Prezzydent’ house. De Prezzydent mek’um uh bow. ’E ax’um, ‘How you lef’ yo’ fambly en’ yo’ crap?’ Maussuh treat’um berry mannussubble. ’E tell’um ’e fambly well, but ’e crap ent stan’ so berry good, ’cause nigguh’ seem lukkuh dem ent lub fuh wu’k ’fo’ day clean een de mawnin’, en’ dem dat good-fuhnutt’n’ dem wan’ knock-off soon ez daa’k come. ‘Dem eegnunt tuh dat,’ de Prezzydent tell’um. ‘Ent you hab moonlight night’ ’puntop Cumbee ribbuh?’ Maussuh tell’um yaas, him hab moonlight, fuh true, but seem lukkuh moonlight night’ duh summuhtime nigguh’ fuhrebbuh duh shout en’ beat stick. Maussuh tell’um ef him kin mek uh law fuh pit anodduh hour een eb’ry day, him kin git mo’ wu’k out de nigguh’. ‘Berry well,’ de Prezzydent tell’um. En’ ’e mek law fuh sattify maussuh, same lukkuh maussuh tell’um.

“Den maussuh cross ’e foot, en’ ’e study some mo’. ’E git schemy ’gen! Maussuh tell’um t’engky fuh de law wuh ’e mek, but ’e tell’um one t’ing wuh bodduhr’um duh de railroad wuh run f’um W’ite Hall fuh gone town. ’E tell’um eb’ry Sattyday W’ite Hall deepo’ black wid nigguh’ fuh gone town fuh t’row’way dem money. Maussuh tell’um de ticket en’ de ’scusshun too cheap, en’ ef de Prezzydent gi’ him de railroad, him will chaa’ge mo’ money fuh de ticket, en’ den de nigguh’ cyan’ trabble so fas’. De Prezzydent tell’um, yaas, ’e plan berry good, but him hab uh sonny-law wuh hab uh berry good ecknowledge fuh git money out’uh buckruh’, en’ ef him kin git’um out’uh buckruh’, him kin git’um out’uh nigguh’ alltwo, so ’e say ’e gwine tek de railroad f’um de buckruh’ en’ g’em to ’e sonny-law, en’ maussuh tell’um berry well, him ’low’um fuh do dat, en’ den maussuh come home en’ write uh ansuh to Mistuh Jokok fuh tell’um nigguh’ fuh wu’k one mo’ hour eb’ry day Gawd sen’, en’ Mistuh Jokok pass de wu’d; en’, please Gawd, de Prezzydent’ sonny-law mek nigguh’ fuh pay mo’ fuh ride de railroad, en eb’rybody say suh de Prezzydent shishuh smaa’t man fuh mek dem law, but, oonuh yeddy me! duh my maussuh mek de Prezzydent fuh mek law! Him schemy fuh t’ink all dem t’ing so him en’ de Prezzydent ent haffuh wu’k! My maussuh ent full wu’k. No, suh!”

Under whatever star Philippa had been born, she had known only ill luck since her acquisition of a husband in Joe Fields, the slew-footed former slave of former Governor Heyward. Joe’s pride in his former master was too great to permit him to walk, and the mortgaged horse or mule which he usually owned seldom lived very long on the light rations and scant attention it received. Its demise would soon be followed by another animal purchase, another mortgage, and another death. Joe occasionally worked when it suited him, but Philippa toiled unceasingly, and, although she seldom lived at home, she was very proud of the little establishment which her labor maintained. Always distrustful of Joe, she yet gave him the custody of, and dominion over, the few material things she possessed, representing in her character the contradictions not infrequently met with among those of her sex in higher circles.

Once upon a time, Philippa aspired to animal husbandry. Tired of buying bacon for Joe at the Cross Roads store, she applied the savings of several months of hard labor to the purchase of a young sow, and, perhaps in compliment to Joe, she bought a Berkshire, the blackest pig she could find. During the months of anticipation, while she worked for the money with which to make the purchase, her mind was full of the little black pigs that some time would be running about her yard around the cabin in the woodland, furnishing meat in prospect, and immediate companionship for Joe and their taciturn black daughter, Christopher[Pg 30] Columbus, who kept the home fires burning with whatever lightwood knots she could pick up in the pineland, while the wife and mother worked for “de buckruh” several miles away.

“Joe en’ Cuhlumbus sho’ gwine hab uh good cump’ny w’en uh buy da’ hog en’ sen’ um home,” she thought. “Ef uh kin raise ten pig’ dis’yeah, maybe nex’ yeah uh kin raise two-t’ree hund’ud, en’ dem kin git ’nuf fuh eat een de swamp en’ de pinelan’ bidout buy’um no bittle.”

So her fancy pictured her humble premises teeming with little pigs, first squirming in their beds among the straw, then grunting and running about the place, while Joe and Columbus, squatting on the door step of the cabin, communed with them in spirit and watched them grow. Later, the husky shoats would forage the pinelands and swamps for mast and acorns, and root about in the muddy branches for slugs and crayfish, then, grown to fat porkers, they would be slaughtered, salted and smoked, and hams, shoulders, and flitches would hang in festoons from the cabin rafters. So they successively passed through the seven ages of swine. At last the sow that was to transmute Philippa’s dreams into realities was bought and paid for, and a message dispatched to Joe to come and take her home. In due time he arrived with ox and cart and, admonished by Philippa to meet the responsibility placed upon him, he drove away, the guardian of her hopes.

But Joe was not a forward-looking man. His eyes, lacking speculation, were filled with the insistent materialism of the moment. A present pig was worth a hundred in prospect. His eyeballs popped and his lips leaked as he viewed Opportunity that grunted so tantalizingly[Pg 31] at his door, and the gnawings of “Guamba” (the meat hunger of the savage African tribes) played Lady Macbeth to his halting thoughts of murder and turned them into resolution.

“Yaas, ma’am, uh glad fuh git uh chance fuh wu’k out ’gen, ’cause Joe’ shishuh po’ puhwiduh. ’E nebbuh hab no bittle een de house fuh eat. ’E lub fuh eat, but ’e say suh ’cause him maussuh duh quality, suh him ent fuh nyam no dry bittle. Cawn hom’ny ent wut’ fuh Joe ’scusin’ ’e got hog meat ’long’um fuh greese ’e mout’, en’ da’ time we’n uh binnuh wu’k Pon Pon uh lavuh’ haa’d fuh two munt’ fuh buy uh sow so uh kin raise hog meat fuh keep f’um fuhrebbuh duh run duh sto’ fuh bodduh wid dem Jew’ en’ t’ing’, en’ w’en uh done pay fuh de sow, uh sen’ one metsidge fuh tell Joe fuh come fuh fetch’um home. Yuh come Joe een ’e oxin cyaa’t! ’E dat swonguh, ’e mos’ mek somebody wuh ent know’um t’ink suh himself wu’k fuh buy de hog. Joe tie all fo’ de sow’ foot, ’e pit’um een ’e cyaa’t, en’ ’e gone! Attuh uh week done gone, uh sen’ wu’d fuh tell Joe fuh come fuh see me fuh tell me how de hog git ’long. Bimeby Joe come, ’e tell me de hog hab uh berry good he’lt’. Uh t’engkful fuh yeddy dat, ’cause uh study ’puntop da’ hog tummuch. Anodduh week done gone, uh sen’ fuh Joe ’gen. ’E come. Uh ax’um how de hog’ he’lt’. ’E say ’e he’lt’ ent so berry good, ’e say seem lukkuh de hog kind’uh po’ly. Uh baig’um fuh ent tek ’e yeye off de hog, en’ ’e mek me uh prommus suh ’e gwine watch’um same lukkuh de sow duh ’e own chile. Anodduh week gone. Joe come ’gen. ’E fetch uh berry sad news f’um de hog, ’cause ’e say suh de hog duh leddown, en’ him berry ’f’aid suh ’e dey at de p’int uh de’t’. Wen him tell me dat,[Pg 32] uh seddown en’ uh cry, but w’en uh look ’puntop’um uh see suh Joe hab uh berry sattify’ face, en’ ’e jaw look hebby ’tell ’e stan’ lukkuh mufflejaw fowl, but stillyet uh nebbuh ’spishun nutt’n’, en’ uh ax Joe wuffuh mek ’e jaw fat. ’E tell me ’e hab uh teet’ache, en’ dat w’ymekso ’e jaw swell. Joe gone. Nex’ week ’e come ’gen. ’E jowl hebby ez uh buckruh’ barruh Chris’mus time, en’ ’e face look berry sattify. Uh ax’um how de hog? ’E say de hog dead ’tell buzzut done eat’um. Wen uh yeddy dat wu’d, me h’aa’t hebby ’tell ’e ready fuh drap out me t’roat ’pun de du’t. Uh look ’pun Joe ’gen. Uh study ’pun how ’e jaw fat. Uh biggin fuh ’spishun. Uh ax’um ef ’e still hab uh teet’ache een ’e jaw. ’E tell me yaas, ’e teet’ache hot’um ’tell ’e cyan’ nyam ’e cawn hom’ny. Uh ax’um ef ’e teet’ hot’um to dat, hukkuh him mout’ kin grin lukkuh possum mout’ duh wintuhtime w’en ’e dey een possimmun tree? ’E say suh ’e teet’ache hot’um ’tell ’e mek’um fuh grin. W’en ’e tell me dat, uh know him duh lie, en’ uh know berry well weh de hog gone, ’cause him hab shishuh selfish face uh know suh nutt’n’ gwine mek’um grin ’cep’n’ ’e belly tight. Dat, en’ brag ’bout ’e maussuh, duh de only two t’ing fuh sweet’n ’e face fuh mek laugh come een ’e mout’! Uh tell’um, berry well, uh fret ’bout de hog ’tell uh haffuh gone home en’ look ’puntop de po’ creetuh’ bone. ’E tell me suh buzzut done scattuh ’e bone. Uh tell’um, nemmine, uh gwine fin’um ef uh haffuh hunt spang tuh Caw Caw Swamp! Joe stick out ’e mout’ ’tell ’e oagly ez uh catfish, but uh yent mine’um, en’ uh climb’ een de oxin cyaa’t en’ mek’um fuh dribe tuh de house. Uh know berry well suh uh kin mek Cuhlumbus fuh tell me de straight ’bout de hog, ’cause uh train’um fuh watch ’e Pa same ez beebu’d watch beehibe. W’en uh git home uh holluh fuh[Pg 33] Cuhlumbus, but ’e yent mek no ansuh en’ uh know ’e mus’be gone deepo. Uh look full de key een de knot hole een one de house’ log weh ’e does lef’um w’en ’e gone out, but befo’ uh gone een de house uh tell Joe fuh show me weh de hog done dead, so uh kin look ’pun ’e bone. Joe look shameface’ ez uh suck-aig dog w’en oonuh ketch’um een uh hen nes,’ but ’e nebbuh crack ’e teet’, en’ ’e gone tuh de aige uh de swamp en’ ’e tell me suh dey de hog dead, en’ de buzzut mus’be flew ’way ’long ’e bone, ’cause none ain’ lef’. Uh tell’um ’e buzzut strong fuh true, but de nigguh lie so easy, uh haffuh suck me teet’ at’um. Uh gone dull house, uh onlock de do’ en’ uh gone een. De fiah done out een de chimbly, but een de cawnuh uh de chimbly uh see de big spiduh duh set, kibbuh’ up wid ashish en’ dead coal’. Uh ax Joe wuh ’e got fuh eat. ’E say ’e dunno wuh Cuhlumbus cook’ befo’ ’e gone out. ’E say ’e ’spec’ Cuhlumbus him roas’ tettuh, eeduhso bile’ hom’ny een de spiduh. Uh tek off de kibbuh. Please me Jedus, uh see de hog’ head dey een de spiduh done cook, en’ uh know ’e duh my’own, ’cause ’e hab de w’ite people’ maa’k wuh uh buy’um f’um een alltwo ’e yez! W’en uh look ’puntop de sow head, en’ ’membuh all de t’ing uh bin agguhnize ’bout fuh git da’ hog, uh hab uh berry hebby sperrit en’ water full’ alltwo me yeye. Uh ax Joe weh da’ hog meat come f’um? ’E say him ent know nutt’n’ ’t’all ’bout’um, ’e say suh somebody mus’be gi’ Cuhlumbus de meat. ’E say suh him binnuh nyam de pyo’ cawn hom’ny ’tell him hab uh dry drought een ’e t’roat. Uh tell’um, ‘Joe, you sho’ iz uh fait’ful liah fuh tell lie. Yo’ jaw swell wid de pyo’ fat you git f’um eat my hog, en’ da’ berry sow gwine ride you duh night time. ’E fuh haant you long ez you lib.’ Cuhlumbus come. Uh ax’um hukkuh[Pg 34] de sow git ’e de’t’. ’E say suh ebbuh sence de hog come home, ’e Pa binnuh hankuh at’um fuh eat. ’E say suh eb’ry day ’e Pa seddown on de do’ step duh watch de hog duh root ’bout de yaa’d, en’ eb’ry time de hog grunt, ’e Pa dat hongry fuh eat’um, ’e gnash ’e teet’ en’ water run out ’e mout’. One time de hog git ketch een de fench en’ squeal. W’en Joe yeddy ’e woice ’e run out, en’ ’stead’uh ’e loose’um out de fench, ’e tek axe, knock’um een e’ head, en’ ’e tell Cuhlumbus ’e kill’um fuh pit’um out ’e mis’ry. Den ’e staa’t fuh eat’um to ’e tail en’ eat spang t’ru de hog ’tell ’e git to ’e head wuh uh fin’ een de pot! De berry day da’ nigguh tell me suh de sow eenjy uh berry po’ he’lt’, ’e done eat de hog’ two hanch! Uh done wid feed Joe! Ef ’e maussuh lub’um tuh dat, him kin feed’um! Meself, uh done!”

Though the abandoned Joe made bones of Philippa’s hopes, he made none about acknowledging the butchery, and boasting of it, away from home.

“Yaas, man, uh fat fuh true. Uh binnuh eat hog meat. Philpuh him buy uh hog en’ sen’ um home, en’ de hog meet uh acksident een de fench, en’ uh ’f’aid ’e gwine dead lukkuh da’ todduh hog ’e hab fuh dead on me han’ one time, en’ buzzut git’um ’fo’ uh hab uh chance fuh eat’um. Buzzut git uhhead’uh me one time, but ’e nebbuh do’um two time! My maussuh’ nigguh haffuh smaa’t mo’nuh buzzut! Stepney[1] ain’ fuh come een my house! Me fuh ’low my maussuh’ nigguh fuh perish fuh hog meat? Me jaw full dry ’long cawn hom’ny, en’ buzzut mout’ fuh greesy ’long de ’ooman hog meat, enty? No suh! Uh gwine nyam’um fus’! Uh kill’um ’fo’ ’e dead!”

Several years ago there lived on the “Lewisburg” rice plantation of former Governor Duncan Clinch Heyward, one Monday White, a yellow negro and a persistent and imaginative practical joker. The little “Devil’s Fiddles” which boys construct of empty tin cans and rosined string emit unchristian squeaks and groans when played upon with smooth hardwood sticks, and Monday believed that a similar device on a larger scale could be so manipulated as to frighten into hysterics half the negro population along Combahee River. Begging from the store a large empty powder keg, he surreptitiously rigged it up with stout twine which, well rubbed with rosin and scraped with a dry hickory stick for a bow, produced a hoarse and horrible sound which might have passed among the uninitiated for the roar of a lion—or for anything else.

Monday knew that the superstitious negroes feared most the unknown. The negro who would have taken a chance with alligator or bull, or the even more dangerous hind legs of a mule, could be scared stiff by a weird, unfamiliar sound in the woods at night. So Monday decided that the ear-jarring sound emitted by his double-bass “Devil’s Fiddle” should do service for the roar of a lion, as these creatures were unknown on Combahee, and the few negroes who had once seen lions when the circus visited Walterboro, brought back marvelous tales of their ferocity and their terrible voices.

Monday baited his victims skilfully. One Saturday night when the store was crowded with trading negroes, he led the conversation lionwards. He needed[Pg 36] tales of terror, and the two or three negroes who had once seen lions were willing to oblige. One of them had even seen them fed. “W’en uh bin Walterburruh, uh look ’puntop one dem annimel fuh call lion, en’ uh shum w’en dem duh g’em ’e bittle fuh eat.”

“No man, buckruh feed’um. Nigguh ent fuh feed’um. Da’ t’ing dainjus tummuch! Nigguh duh him bittle. Lion en’ nigguh alltwo come f’um Aff’iky, en’ w’en dem Aff’ikin king en’ t’ing hab lion een dem cage, ’e g’em uh nigguh fuh eat eb’ry day Gawd sen’, en’ ’e crack nigguh’ hambone een ’e jaw sukkuh dem Beefu’t nigguh crack crab claw’ w’en ’e done bile. Him done fuh lub nigguh! W’en dem sukkus man fuh feed’um een Walterburruh, dem fetch half uh bull yellin’ fuh ’e bittle, en’ w’en da’ t’ing look ’puntop de meat, ’e tail t’rash’ ’pun de flo’ sukkuh nigguh duh t’rash rice ’long flail, en’ ’e gyap ’e mout’ same lukkuh Mistuh Jokok op’n ’e trunk mout’ fuh t’row uh flow ’puntop Mass Clinch’ rice! ’E woice roll lukkuh t’unduh roll, en’ w’en ’e holluh, eb’ry Chryce’ nigguh t’row ’e han’ obuh e’ two’ yez en’ run out de tent, en’ gone!”

“Tengk Gawd dem annimel nebbuh come ’puntop Cumbee!” a woman fervently exclaimed.

“Yaas, tittie,” said another, “ef da’ t’ing ebbuh come yuh, me fuh run Sabannuh. Uh nebbuh stop run ’tell uh done pass de Yamassee!”

Others joined in the trembling chorus and Monday, when they had become sufficiently worked up, shrewdly spilled the first spoonful of powder leading to his mine. “Oonuh nigguh, one buckruh binnuh talk ’puntop de flatfawm to W’ite Hall deepo dis mawnin’, en’ uh yeddy’um tell dem torruh buckruh suh one sukkus hab[Pg 37] uh acksident to Orangebu’g, en’ one lion git out ’e cage en’ run een de swamp en’ gone, en’ de buckruh try fuh ketch’um but dem ’f’aid fuh gone een de swamp, en’ dem sen’ dem dog attuhr’um, en’ de lion kill t’irteen beagle one time!”

“Oh Jedus!” cried an excited woman, “Uh berry ’f’aid da’ t’ing gwine come Cumbee! Hummuch mile Orangebu’g stan’ f’um yuh?”

“Uh dunno hummuch mile,” Monday replied, “but uh know lion kin mek’um ’tween middlenight en’ dayclean, en’ ef uh ebbuh yeddy ’e woice roll een dish’yuh swamp, meself gwine git een me trus’me’gawd coonoo en’ uh fuh gone down Cumbee ribbuh, en’ uh nebbuh stop paddle ’tell uh git Beefu’t!”

A week passed. Like the waves from a stone thrown into still waters, the lion stories spread among the outlying plantations in all directions. Saturday night found Monday early at the store. Another convenient buckra at White Hall station had told that morning of the lion’s escape from the Edisto and his crossing over the intervening pinelands into the Salkehatchie Swamp and, as most people know, the Salkehatchie River, below the line of the Charleston and Savannah railway, becomes the Combahee. The lion was loose, therefore, in their own proper swamp, and might even now be riding a floating log down the current of their beloved river!

Monday stealthily slipped out. An hour later, when the negroes in and about the store had worked themselves up to a delectable pitch of excitement, an unearthly groaning roar came from the woods nearby. The night was hot, but the negroes almost froze with fear, and the clerk, in whom Monday had confided,[Pg 38] raised no objection when the negroes within the store called in their companions from the outside and asked permission to bar the door.

“Oonuh yeddy’um, enty! Wuh uh tell you ’bout da’ t’ing’ woice?” said the negro who had seen lions in Walterboro.

Monday’s “Devil’s Fiddle” groaned again, and as its dying notes trembled on the summer night, a rush was made to close and bolt the windows. The kerosene lamps smoked and flared in the fetid air. The men listened and shuddered as the recurrent roars, now muffled, reached their expectant ears. The women wailed. “O Gawd! uh lef’ me t’ree chillun shet up een me house,” cried one. “Uh ’spec’ da’ t’ing done nyam’um all by dis time!”

“Shet yo’ mout’, ’ooman,” said a masculine comforter. “Hukkuh him kin eat en’ holluh alltwo one time? Yo’ chillun ent fuh eat.”

“Me lef’ my juntlemun een de house,” said another woman, with resignation, “Uh ’spec’ him done eat.”

“Wuh you duh bodduh ’bout loss uh man?” said the mother. “Man easy fuh git tummuch. Me yent duh bodduh ’bout man. Uh kin git anodduh juntlemun ef da’ t’ing nyam my’own, but weh uh fuh git mo’ chillun?”

“Go’way, gal, ef you kin fuh git anodduh juntlemun, same fashi’n Gawd help you fuh git anodduh chillun.”

After a while the roaring ceased and the clerk, being perilously near suffocation, calmed the fears of the negroes and opened the windows. The trembling darkeys cocked their ears and listened apprehensively, but the shrilling of the Cicada among the pines and the bellowing of the bullfrogs in the distant canals were the only sounds that broke the silence of the night so[Pg 39] recently full of terrors. After awhile the door also was unbarred and opened, and a bold man borrowed an axe from the storekeeper and adventured far enough to cut some slabs of lightwood from a familiar stump. The hero added to his popularity by splitting these up and distributing them among the members of the gentler sex, whose escorts lighted torches and convoyed them in a body back to the quarters, where the children and husbands whom they left at home were found intact.

At church on Sunday, the Lewisburg negroes spread among their brethren from the other plantations the news of the coming of the lion, and the “locus pastuh” fervently touched upon the king of beasts. “Puhtec’ we, Maussuh Jedus, f’um da’ t’ing oonuh call lion. Lead’um, Lawd, to weh de buckruh’ cow en’ t’ing’ duh bite grass so him kin full ’e belly bedout haffuh nyam nigguh, en’ ef ’e yiz haffuh tek nigguh fuh ’e bittle, do, Lawd, mek’um fuh tek dem sinful nigguh wuh ent wut, en’ lef’ de Lawd’ renointed. Mek’um fuh do wid de good sistuh en’ bredduh ’puntop dis plantesshun same lukkuh oonuh mek’um fuh do long Dannil—” “Yaas, Lawd,” shouted Monday, the hypocrite, “ef ’e yiz fuh eat nigguh, mek’um fuh eat dem nigguh ’puntop’uh Bonny Hall ’cross de ribbuh, en’ tek ’e woice out’uh we pinelan’.” “Yaas, Lawd!” “Please suh fuh do’um, Lawd!” shouted the fervent brethren and sisters. And stealthily, about two hours after dark that night, while the emotional negroes were alternately laughing, shouting and praying, Monday put his Devil’s Fiddle into a sack, slipped into his canoe, and, crossing to the opposite shore of the river, roared frightfully along the Bonny Hall water line, terrifying the negroes on[Pg 40] that plantation and filling the Lewisburg darkeys with thankfulness that their prayers had been answered.

Another week passed. Monday, playing with them as a cat plays with a mouse, kept quiet, until by Saturday night, no news having come of any damage at Bonny Hall, the Lewisburg negroes hoped that the lion had been captured by “de sukkus buckruh,” or had left the neighborhood, and soon after nightfall, half the plantation gathered at the store.

About nine o’clock, when the store was jammed with briskly trading negroes, from afar in the woods came the ominous roar of the hand-made lion. It was distant, and the negroes, while badly frightened, stood their ground to await developments, but a few minutes later the awful sound came again from a nearer point, and by the time the roaring had come within a quarter of a mile of the place, the negroes were panic-stricken, and most of them hurried from the store and ran to the quarters, where they bolted themselves in, to pass a night in fear and trembling, for at intervals until past midnight, their ears carried terror to their souls. On Sunday, Monday, wearing the sanctimonious expression of a cat that has just swallowed the canary, moved among them, listening with sympathetic ears to the tales of perilous adventures that some of them had experienced. “Bredduh W’ite,” said a church sister, “lemme tell you. Las’ night uh gone to Sistuh Bulow’ house attuh daa’k. Uh did’n’ bin to de sto’, ’cause las’ week de buckruh credik me, en’ uh ’f’aid ’e gwine ax’me fuh pay’um wuh uh owe’um, en’ uh gi’ Sistuh Bulow de money fuh buy me rashi’n’ en’ t’ing’, en’ uh seddown een ’e yaa’d fuh wait ’tell ’e come back. Him house ent dey een nigguhhouse yaa’d, ’e stan’ to[Pg 41] ’eself ’pun de aige uh de pinelan’. Bumby uh yeddy da’ t’ing’ woice. W’en uh yeddy’um fus’, ’e bin fudduh, en’ uh t’awt ’e bin Jackass duh holluh, but w’en ’e git close, uh ruckuhnize ’e woice, en’ uh know ’e duh lion. Uh dat ’f’aid, uh cyan’ talk. Uh trimble sukkuh mule’ shoulduh duh shake off cowfly. W’en da’ t’ing come t’ru de bush en’ look ’puntop me, me two eye’ pop’ out me head! ’E stan’ high mo’nuh Mass Clinch’ mule. ’E yeye shine lukkuh dem fiah buckruh does mek ’puntop’uh Jackstan’ duh pinelan’ duh summuhtime fuh keep off muskittuh! W’en ’e op’n ’e jaw, ’e t’roat red lukkuh beef haslett! ’E mout’ full’up wid teet’ sukkuh harruh, en’ blood duh drip out ’e jaw sukkuh water drap outuh nigguh mout’ w’en ’e look ’puntop’uh watuhmilyun! W’en uh shum stan’ so, uh drap’ ’puntop me two knee’ en’ uh baig’ me Jedus fuh sabe me! Uh dat ’f’aid, uh shet me yeye’, en’ w’en uh done pray en’ op’n’um’ ’gen, de t’ing gone!” And so on, each tale of dreadful experience told by one negro, being over-matched by the next, who, if one gave “free rein” to her imagination, would be sure to strip the bridle off her’s and throw it away. “Meself shum,” related a 20th Century Munchausen in petticoats. “Uh bin down de road uh piece ’bout two hour’ attuh daa’k fuh try fuh ketch da’ gal, ’cause uh kinduh ’spishun my juntlemun, en’ uh binnuh folluh ’e track fuh ketch’um, but uh nebbuh ketch’um yet, but uh gwine fuh ketch’um, ’cause uh got me yeye ’puntop da’ gal f’um W’ite Hall wuh tote dem bottle en’ t’ing onduhneet’ ’e frock fuh sell rum to all dese man eb’ry Satt’d’y night, en’ mek’um fuh t’row ’way dem money ’stead’uh g’em to dem wife en’ t’ing’, en’ uh bin swif’ ’pun da’ gal track, ’cause yistidd’y w’en my juntlemun git pay’off fuh ’e wu’k, ’e come en’ pit[Pg 42] half ’e money een me han’ befo’ uh kin ax’um fuhr’um, en’ da’ t’ing mek me fuh know him duh fool me. Uh look ’puntop’um en’ uh shum duh grin. Sattifaction duh run roun’ da’ nigguh mout’ same lukkuh puppy run roun’ de yaa’d attuh ’e own tail! Uh know man tummuch, en’ w’en ’e stan’ so, ’e yent fuh trus’! Eb’ry time man gi’ money to ’e lawfully lady, ’e h’aa’t duh cry, en’ w’en him look lukkuh ’e glad fuh g’em, ’e face duh lie, ’e try fuh kibbuh up ’e h’aa’t, en’ ’e done mek’up ’e min’ fuh fool’um, but me! uh got uh ecknowledge fuh look t’ru ’e face, en’ w’en uh look ’puntop ’e h’aa’t, ’e stan’ crookety ez uh cowpaat’! Da’ gal kin fool some dem todduh ’ooman, but ’e yent fuh fool me! Him hab two petticoat’, one mek out’uh homespun clawt’, lukkuh we’own, en’ todduh one hab skollup’, lukkuh buckruh lady’ own. W’en him hab on de clawt’ petticoat, none de man nebbuh bodduhr’um, but w’en ’e walk t’ru Lewisbu’g nigguhhouse yaa’d wid da’ skollup’ petticoat staa’ch’ stiff, en’ ’e frock hice up high fuh show’um, en’ dem man look ’puntop de skollup en’ yeddy de staa’ch duh talk ‘she, she, she’ w’en ’e walk, dem know suh ’e got rum fuh sell—dat duh ’e sign—dem t’roat’ biggin fuh dry, en’ dem eb’ry Gawd’ one pick uh chance fuh folluhr’um, but dem todduh ’ooman, dem t’ink suh man lub da’ skollup’ t’ing ’cause ’e stylish, en’ dem study ’bout git skollup’ petticoat demself fuh mek man fuh folluhr’um, but duh nutt’n’ but de pyo’ rum dem man dey attuh. Dem fuh folluh da’ gal ef ’e petticoat mek out’uh grano sack!

“W’en uh did’n’ ketch de gal, uh staa’t’ fuh gone home, en’ uh look ’way off t’ru de pinelan’ en’ uh see two t’ing duh shine sukkuh injine headlight! Uh look ’gen, ’e come close, en’ uh see ’e duh annimel eye! Bumby[Pg 43] ’e op’n’ ’e mout’ fuh holluh. Spaa’k’ duh come outuhr’um en’ ’e woice roll ’tell de groun’ shake. Uh nebbuh hab no time fuh pray. W’en uh see da’ fiah come out ’e mout’, uh tell’um, ‘so long, bubbuh, uh gone!’ en’ uh hice me ’coat en’ uh tek me two foot een me han’ en’ uh nebbuh study ’bout no road. Uh gone slam t’ru de bush! Brian ’cratch’ me, uh dunkyuh. Jackwine’ ketch’ me foot en’ obuht’row me, uh jump up, uh gone ’gen! One harricane tree bin ’cross de paat’, uh bus’ t’ru’um sukkuh fiah gone t’ru broom grass fiel’. Nutt’n’ nebbuh stop me, ’cause, bubbuh, uh run! W’en uh git een de big road, uh hog binnuh leddown fuh tek ’e res’. Wen ’e yeddy me foot duh beat groun’, ’e jump up fuh run, but uh obuhtek’um dat swif’, me foot kick’um ez uh gwine, en’ uh yeddy’um holluh behin’ me sukkuh tarrier duh graff’um by ’e yez! Briah tayre off me frock ’tell, time uh git nigguhhouse yaa’d, uh yent hab nutt’n’ lef’ but me shimmy, en’ w’en dem nigguh look ’puntop me dem t’ink uh sperrit come out de ’ood. Uh run een me house, uh shet me do’, en’ uh nebbuh come out ’gen ’tell sunhigh!”

Monday inclined his ear and listened to the negroes, but he showed them no mercy, and before the end of the third week his lion became so bold that a roar came even in broad daylight from among the reeds along the river bank, frightening the laborers out of the fields and even prompting a neighboring planter to order his foreman to lock up the mules for safety when he saw the hands flying in terror from the ricefields! At last, to avoid industrial paralysis, the owner of the plantation, discovering Monday’s plot, suppressed the powder keg lion. And the master saved his people, the Halcyon nested again on the waves of the Combahee,[Pg 44] bringing peaceful days and peaceful ways to the Lewisburg plantation, with nothing more exciting than the quest of “da’ skollup’ petticoat,” but—“that’s another story.”

The lion of Lewisburg was dead. By order of former Governor Duncan Clinch Heyward, the Devil’s Fiddle with which Monday White, yellow-skinned plantation practical joker, had terrorized the negroes of the neighborhood for three weeks, had been hidden away, and the groaning roar of the powder keg lion was no longer heard in the land. Monday, the clerk at the store and the master of the plantation, guarded the secret carefully and the negroes, who no longer heard the terrible voice echoing through the woods at night, or along the reeds by the river, believed that the lion, exorcised by the spirit of prayer, had departed from among them and gone to some less regenerate community. Those who had told marvelous tales of the fierce creature whose flaming eyes had burned into their souls, whose bloody jaws had frozen them with fright, told and retold with elaboration and close attention to detail,—and finally themselves believed, the first told stories of their encounters with the monster. Some of those who had had no personal experience with the lion of Lewisburg believed only part of the oft told tales. Others were frankly skeptical, for, while practically all of them believed in the lion, few were willing to yield to the story-tellers the prestige of having come unscathed through such perilous adventures. These stories are always liberally discounted among the negroes, however. At a “baptizing” on the Combahee, the big black pastor had doused in the canal one after another of the “seeking” sisters. They emerged from the turbid waters gurgling and choking, but all were[Pg 46] too full of water, or the spirit, for utterance. At last one lusty wench with better breath control than the others came up smiling, and with wind enough for speech. “Oh Jedus!” she yelled, determined to create a sensation, “uh see Gawd onduhneet’ de water! Uh fin’ me Gawd. ’E look ’puntop me!”

“You lie!” said the envious sister who had just preceded her, “’tis cootuh! Enty I shum?”

Gradually the negroes recovered their confidence, and resumed their nocturnal rambles, visiting from one plantation to another, but they usually went in small companies and seldom adventured alone, save when some bibulous man, glimpsing the “skollup’ petticoat” of the peripatetic bootlegger from White Hall as she swished her starched symbol through the Lewisburg quarters on Saturday nights, followed with parched tongue and arid throat to some convenient spot where coin could be exchanged for contraband.

In some way it was generally understood that, supplementing the plantation prayers, “Mass Clinch,” through personal magnetism or the exercise of some former-gubernatorial authority, had had a great deal to do with speeding the going leonine guest. This rumor traveled by grapevine thirty-odd miles from Combahee to Adams Run, the abiding place of Joe Fields, the former governor’s former slave, whose confidence in “Maussuh’s” powers of accomplishment, equalled the Mohammedan belief in the esteemed Prophet’s ability to stock the Hereafter with Houris. It was true that “Maussuh” had commanded the roaring to cease—and it did, but Joe’s imagination insisted upon supplying all the “corroborative detail.”

Joe foregathered with some of his friends at the railway[Pg 47] station, for things were not going pleasantly at home. His wife Philippa was one of those hard-working, aggravating creatures who, by her very industry and self-abnegation, forced upon the lordly loafer by whom she was husbanded a sense of his own inferiority. Philippa worked out among the white people, cooking and washing and scrubbing, while Joe rode about on a mortgaged horse or ox and boasted as a Sir Oracle at the Cross Roads or the station. Philippa was always willing to feed Joe, but she was none the less ready to season his food with the sauce of her tongue, and whenever she came home, her sense of duty urged her to remind Joe of his shortcomings. Once a fighter, hard work and scanty food had worn her body and somewhat broken her spirit, and she no longer thrashed her grown daughter Christopher Columbus as she once did, “jes’ ’cause ’e look lukkuh ’e pa,” but Joe, having to take the sauce with the meat, seldom wasted time in replying that he could utilize in eating, and thus the more speedily put himself out of earshot. Once away among his cronies, however, he expressed himself boldly and truculently. “Da’ ’ooman keep on fuh onrabble ’e mout’ ’tell uh w’ary fuh yeddy’um. ’E stan’ sukkuh briah patch w’en blackberry ripe. ’E gi’ you bittle fuh eat, but ’e ’cratch you w’ile you duh eat’um! Him iz uh fait’ful ’ooman fuh true, en’ ’e lub fuh wu’k, but w’en him dey home, uh yent fuh hab no peace. Seem lukkuh nutt’n’ wuh uh do nebbuh suit’um. Ef uh seddown een me rockin’ cheer duh fiah fuh tek me res’ w’ile uh duh nyam me bittle, ’e fau’t me fuh dat. Same fashi’n ef uh git ’puntop me oxin fuh ride to de Cross Road, oonuh kin yeddy’um talk ’bout uh lazy man ent wut!”

“Who, me? Me fuh hab hoe een me han’? No, suh! Maussuh’ nigguh ent fuh hol’ hoe! Wuffuh me haffuh hol’ hoe w’en uh hab po’buckruh nigguh fuh wife? Him fuh hol’ hoe! Philpuh’ maussuh duh po’ buckruh f’um town. Him binnuh bake bread ebbuh sence slabery time. Wuh him ebbuh do? Him ebbuh kill lion?”

“Kill lion! Wuh you duh talk ’bout nigguh? Whoebbuh you ebbuh yeddy kin kill lion?”

“Go’way, Joe! You duh dream. Een de fus’ place, no lion ent fuh dey een dis country, een de two place, you ent got no maussuh, en’ een de t’ree place, ef you iz bin hab maussuh, him ent able fuh kill no lion.”

“Me yent hab no maussuh! Enty you know suh uh nyuse to blonx to Mass Clinch Heywu’d to Lewisbu’g plantesshun ’puntop Cumbee? Oonuh eegnunt nigguh’, oonuh yent know suh him hab t’ree t’ous’n’ acre’ rice en’ mo’nuh t’ree t’ous’n’ nigguh’ en’ mule en’ t’ing’? Oonuh nebbuh yeddy ’bout da’ lion wuh git’way f’um de sukkus to Orangebu’g todduh day en’ gone down Sawlketchuh swamp ’tell ’e git Cumbee, en’ ’e run all Maussuh’ nigguh’ out ’e fiel’ en’ ’e mek Maussuh’ ob’shay, Mistuh Jokok, fuh climb tree?”

“Nobody nebbuh yeddy ’bout’um, Joe, en’ you nebbuh yeddy ’bout’um. Hukkuh you fuh yeddy ’bout’um? You bin Cumbee?”

“Uh yent bin no Cumbee, but uh got uh titile lib on Maussuh’ place Cumbee, dat how uh yeddy ’bout’um.”

“W’en de lion git’way out de sukkus ’e gone spang[Pg 49] f’um Orangebu’g to Sawlketchuh swamp en’ ’e nebbuh stop ’tell ’e git Lewisbu’g!”

“Enty you know suh Maussuh’ nigguh’ fat? Maussuh’ nigguh’ fat fuh sowl! Lion hab sense ’nuf fuh know fat nigguh w’en ’e shum, en’ him kin smell fat nigguh mo’ fudduh den him kin smell po’ nigguh, en’ Maussuh mek shishuh hebby crap uh rice en’ ’tettuh en’ t’ing dat him nigguh’ fat mo’nuh all dem todduh nigguh’ ’puntop Cumbee ribbuh!

“Soon ez de lion git Lewisbu’g, ’e stop. ’E know suh him bittle dey dey, en’ ’e mout’ biggin fuh run water. Bumbye duh night-time, ’e woice roll een Maussuh’ pinelan’ en’ all dem nigguh’ tarrify’ sukkuh chickin tarrify’ w’en fu’lhawk’ wing t’row shadduh obuhr’um! Dem nigguh’ ’f’aid ’tell dem fool! Dem lock demself een dem house duh night, en’, alldo’ ’e duh summuhtime, dem mek fiah fuh bu’n so de lion cyan’ come down de chimbly. W’en de lion cyan’ git no nigguh’ fuh eat ’cause dem all lock’up, ’e gone duh ’ood en’ meet uh cow en’ ’e kill him fuh ’e bittle. W’en ’e done nyam de t’ree cow—”

“T’ree cow! Joe, hukkuh him kin eat t’ree cow’ w’en ’e only kill one?”

“Him nyam t’ree cow’, enty? Him kin nyam’um uh dunkyuh ef ’e yent dead. You ebbuh see lion? Wuh Pon Pon nigguh know ’bout lion? Seem lukkuh w’en ’e done nyam dem t’ree cow’, ’e jis’ mek’um fuh hongry good, en’ ’e gone back nigguhhouse yaa’d fuh see ef him kin git uh chance fuh nyam nigguh’. ’E walk up en’ down, ’e t’rash’ ’e tail, ’e gnash’ ’e teet’ en’ ’e holluh sukkuh jackass en’ alligettuh en’ bull all t’ree one time! You kin yeddy dem nigguh’ een dem house duh pray.[Pg 50] Dem eb’ry Gawd’ one prommus dem Jedus fuh folluh Him wu’d, ef ’e only spayre dem life. One tell’um suh ef Him tek de lion’ jaw off’um, him nebbuh t’ief Maussuh’ rice no mo’, en’ eb’ry one tell de Lawd ’bout some uh dem light sin wuh dem willin’ fuh t’row’way ef dem life sabe.”

“No, man, dem ent fuh t’row’way dem hebby sin, uh dunkyuh ef lion crack dem bone’. Een slabery time nigguh baig ’e maussuh’ paa’d’n fuh t’ief ’e fowl w’en ’e git ketch, but w’en ’e kill cow, ’e nebbuh crack ’e teet’, en’ eb’n so ef ’e maussuh ketch’um duh skin de cow, him fuh tell ’e maussuh ’e fin’um dead een de ’ood, en’ ’e duh skin’um fuh tek de hide to ’e maussuh fuh sabe’um f’um buzzut! No, man; oonuh fuh hol’ oonuh hebby sin sukkuh sheep buhr hol’ mule’ tail, ’tell Gabrull blow ’e hawn en’ de Lawd tek’um off!”

“Bumbye w’en dayclean en’ de lion nebbuh git no nigguh, ’e gone en’ kill fo’ mo’ cow’, en’ w’en ’e done nyam’um ’e gone duh ’ood en’ leddown fuh tek ’e res’, en’ nobody nebbuh yeddy’um ’gen ’tell Sat’d’y night come. All t’ru de week de nigguh’ swonguh en’ sattify een dem min’ ’cause dem t’ink suh dem pray’ mek de lion fuh gone’way en’ le’m’lone, but ’e yent duh no pray’ mek’um fuh gone, duh dem fo’ cow’ wuh ’e nyam, mek’ ’e belly full ’tell ’e yent hab no room fuh nigguh!”

“W’en Sat’d’y night come, de lion holluh ’gen en’ all de nigguh’ run out de sto’ en’ gone een dem house fuh hide. Monday come, en’ de nigguh’ ’f’aid fuh gone een Maussuh’ fiel’ fuh wu’k. Mistuh Jokok dunno wuh fuh do. Him sen’ uh ansuh to Cuhlumbia fuh tell Maussuh ’cep’n’ him come Lewisbu’g, all him nigguh’ fuh eat.[Pg 51] Maussuh ride de train. ’E come. ’E git off W’ite Hall deepo, ’e git ’pun ’e hawss, ’e tu’n to ’e ob’shay, ’Jokok,’ ’e say, ‘Weh da’ annimel fuh hide? Lemme shum!’”

“Mistuh Jokok tell’um de las’ time dem yeddy ’e woice, ’e bin een de t’icket en’ reed en’ t’ing by de ribbuh bank. Maussuh nebbuh wait fuh yeddy no’ mo’. ’E snatch ’e rifle out’uh Mistuh Jokok’ han’, ’e jam ’e two spuhr een e’ hawss’ belly, ’e hawss jump’ nine foot off de groun’ een de ellyment, en’ ’e gone! Maussuh run ’e hawss ’tell ’e git ’cross de causeway ’pun de ribbuh bank, den ’e biggin fuh ride slow en’ t’row ’e yeye befor’um fuh see weh da’ t’ing fuh hide. W’en ’e git close de briah en’ t’ing, ’e hawss cock’ ’e yez befor’um, ’e snawt’ en’ ’e ’tan’up ’trait ’pun ’e hine foot. W’en ’e do dat, Maussuh know suh de lion dey een dem bush! De hawss come down ’pun ’e fo’ foot. ’E duh shake sukkuh rice t’rasher shake. Maussuh yeddy sump’nurruh duh groan een de t’icket. Bumbye de lion come out. W’en ’e op’n’ ’e mout’ ’e teet’ long sukkuh cawncob! Maussuh t’row ’e rifle to ’e yeye. ’E only hab one ball een’um en’ ’e know suh ef him ent kill da’ t’ing dead, da’ lion fuh nyam him en’ ’e hawss alltwo. Maussuh tek aim at ’e t’roat. ’E cut loose, ‘bam!’ W’en de gun crack, ’e look! De lion’ head roll down de bank ’tell ’e fall een de ditch! Maussuh cantuh up to Lewisbu’g. ’E tell Mistuh Jokok fuh sen’ uh waagin en’ fo’ mule’ fuh fetch’um to de yaa’d. Dem medjuhr’um en’ ’e stan’ t’irteen foot long! W’en de nigguh’ yeddy suh ’e dead, dem stop wu’k en’ dem fuh mek fiah en’ shout roun’ da’ lion de Gawd’ night! Bumbye buckruh’ come fuh look ’puntop’um en’ w’en dem yeddy suh ’e seb’nteen foot long, dem ’stonish!”

“Yaas, uh ’spec’ nigguh’ en’ buckruh’ alltwo fuh[Pg 52] ’stonish ef dem kin yeddy you fuh tell’um, Joe. Da’ lion duh git mo’ longuh! W’ile ago you bin fuh mek’um t’irteen foot long.”

“Fus’ time dem medjuhr’um ’e yent bin hab no head. Enty ’e fuh medjuh mo’ attuh dem tie ’e head back ’pun ’e neck weh Maussuh’ ball cut’um off? Oonuh mus’be fool!”

“Joe,” said another doubting crony, “hukkuh da’ leely ball kin fuh cut off da’ lion’ head? ’E tek soad, eeduhso axe, fuh do da’ t’ing?”

“Who’ Maussuh kill da lion! Duh yo’ Maussuh, enty? Enty uh tell oonuh eegnunt nigguh’ suh de hawss skayre ’tell ’e shake, en’, same time Maussuh pull’ ’e trigguh, de hawss trimble’ ’tell ’e mek da’ ball fuh wabble ‘cross de lion’ neck ’tell ’e cut ’e t’roat f’um yez to yez!”

Old Friday Giles was the English purist of Penny Creek. A former “driver” and slave of Mr. Edward Barnwell, his manners were pompous, though ingratiating. His speech was unusually good save for his ludicrous use of “she” and “her” for all things singular, animate or inanimate.

For many years “Old Barney,” an Ayrshire bull acquired from the Barnwell family, was the terror of all the negroes roundabout. True to his Scottish breeding, Barney was both stubborn and acquisitive and lived up to

Barney had the power. Therefore he took. He loved green peavines as the Scot loves his haggis, and whenever he fancied them he had but to lean against the miserable fences enclosing the negroes’ patches, walk through, and help himself. The negroes would shoot him up with firearms and ammunition of all sorts and his hide was constantly full of lead of every size from mustard seed to swan shot, but fear kept the marksmen from getting near enough to hurt him seriously, so Barney philosophically took the lead without, and the peavines within, and after eating his fill would lie down in the field and chew his cud complacently, walking out later through the owner’s front yard, pausing to paw the dirt contemptuously and pull a few mouthfuls[Pg 54] from the Seewee bean vines that climbed about the garden palings.

One day Friday’s field was invaded, and, hat in hand, he came to the doorstep to complain. “Missis,” he said, “dat bull Baa’ney, she is ridickilus! Missis, I mek my fench ten rail high. I stake her and I rider her, but ole Baa’ney she put her breas’ agains’ my fench, she lean on her, she break her down. She enter my fiel’, she eat my peas. I shoot her, but she is indifferent to my shot. When she conclude eatin’ my peas, she lie down, and, Missis, she was so full that she could not rise!” But Friday was a gentlemanly old darkey and treated his sturdy, quick-talking wife, Minda, with great gallantry, practical gallantry, too, as she bore him (and raised) 17 sons and daughters, thereby earning the well-done of her kindly though thrifty old master. “Maussuh lub me ’cause uh hab chillun so fas’,” she boasted. “I fetch’um uh fine nigguh eb’ry year Gawd sen’!”—meaning that the old gentleman had a pre-Rooseveltian objection to race suicide on the plantation.

Although old Bo’sun Smashum, the herdsman, who had raised Barney from a calf, would twist his tail in the barnyard and chevy him about with impunity, the bull was truculent toward outsiders and on more than one occasion disputed the highway with planters of the neighborhood, who were forced to turn back and drive a mile or so out of the way in the interest of safety; while negroes riding or driving oxen, on sighting Barney in the road half a mile away, would take to the woods or the fields and make a wide and respectful detour. The danger would be enhanced should the animal between the shafts of the primitive cart be one[Pg 55] of the “bull yellin’s” so much affected by the freedmen for combination purposes. The silly song, “Everybody works but father,” had not then been evolved from the near-brain of the writer of music hall lyrics, and the labors of a beast of burden were held not incompatible with the paternity of a bovine family. So these little creatures multiplied and continued to lead their double lives. Barney held in utter contempt even the authenticated bulls of the community, but he so terrorized the little harnessed scrubs that their owners could hardly avert a stampede when the great bull bellowed in the vicinity.

One hot Sunday afternoon three or four hundred negroes were holding services at the old log church near the Parker’s Ferry cross-roads. Too numerous for the building, they were using outdoor bush shelters covered with green boughs and with hewn saplings for seats. At the tail of a “distracted meetin’” that had been running for several days, while grass grew in their crops, they were in a state of exaltation, and the high, sweet voices of the women blended in harmony with the deep, rich basses of the men in the perfect rhythm characteristic of African music. Old time hymns and “sperrituals” alternated. At first, only two or three voices followed the leader, then one by one the singers joined in major and minor keys, until at the last the entire congregation swelled the diapason that floated away on the summer wind. The little oxen and bulls, whose harness permitted the indulgence, lay down at their hitching posts, the less fortunate stood between the shafts and chewed their cuds, drowsing with half-closed eyes in the soft, warm air of the pineland, fragrant with the blossoming partridge peas.

The singers walked up and down the aisles of the open-air church, working up enthusiasm in camp meeting fashion.

“Sistuh Chizzum, won’t you meet me yonduh?” Sister Chisolm would, so she responded to the masculine invitation, “Oh yaas, Lawd!”

“Bredduh Hacklus, won’t you meet me yonduh?” And Brother Hercules, a wizened little member of Sister Chisolm’s “class,” shouted in acquiescent gallantry, “Oh yaas, Lawd!”

The meeting drew to a close, the last inspiring “sperritual,” of African suggestiveness, remained to be sung. Who should raise the tune? Simon Jenkins the “squerril” hunter, a devout old rascal, called to his brother-in-law, John Chisolm, “hice’um, Chizzum! You hice de chune.”

came the responses in bass and treble, then, as the refrain again swelled and died away, “Oh-h ’tell I git on de grazin’ groun’,” an ominous “mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, mmh! mmh! mnmh!” rolled through the woods. “Duh Baa’ney! Great Gawd, duh Baa’ney!” shrieked the panic-stricken women who scattered in every direction, while the men ran to release their hitched animals[Pg 57] as old Barney leisurely approached, routing sonorously. “Mek’ace, gal, mek’ace! Him duh walk sedate but ’e bex,” shouted a man to a leggy, dry-boned black girl who, although guiltless of shoes and stockings, had worn to the meeting an antiquated hoopskirt which now impeded her progress. “Hice’um, gal! Hice yo’ ’coat en’ run!” She “hiced” her petticoat and ran, but the crinoline billowed about her knees as she passed Dick Smashum on her way to the Savage plantation. Dick was duck-legged and as slow of speech as of foot, but discretion had urged him to get an early start and he was well out of the danger zone. Later, when Atalanta’s mother overtook him and asked, “You see my gal? Weh ’e gone?” he replied. “Uh yiz see one sump’nurruh duh run like de debble, gwine Sabbidge. ’E pass me duh paat’, en’ ’e binnuh trabble so swif’ uh yent ruckuhnize um ’zackly, but ’e stan’ sukkuh two blacksnake duh ’tretch out een one bu’dcage.”

None knew how he achieved his devilmaycare nickname—the only name he had, but everybody around Pocotaligo knew that he came by his thirst through patient industry, and that he loved his work. No round-paunched monk of the Middle Ages, no Falstaff of the English taverns, ever absorbed dusky Tuscan wine or Sherris Sack with more appreciative avidity than Billybedam soaked up the “Fus’ X” corn sold on the sly by Yemassee blind tigers and bootleggers, for Billybedam had acquired his “liquorish mouth” during the days, the glorious, honorable days, of the State Dispensary, when, under the operation of that “Great Moral Institution,” certain sons of “Grand old South Carolina” had shown the world that the Caucasian was not “played out,” but could, upon occasion, graft like any freedman of the good old days of Reconstruction!

So the bibulousness of Billybedam became a byword all about “de Yamassee,” where “de Po’ Trial” Railway—significant name—crosses the Atlantic Coast Line, and, not infrequently, the tempers of passengers bound for Beaufort and Port Royal.

Perhaps it was the frequent pouring of libations—his gods were all in his gullet—that enabled Billybedam to crook his elbow so expertly, but this facility, and a marvelous twist of the wrist, contributed to his success as a fisherman, and the greater part of what he ate and drank and wore, came from the brown waters of the Salkehatchie, whose deep and narrow[Pg 59] current flowed between wooded banks a mile or so away. With rod and line he fished the stream by day, and many a string of bream and redbreast perch was sold at the station to buy the precious whiskey, while the narrow-mouthed “blue cats,” caught on his set lines over night, were traded among the negroes in exchange for his scanty food and shelter, for Billybedam was a bachelor and a vagabond, unattached and unaffiliated, and called no roof his own.

Sometimes in the spring when the sturgeon were running, the fisherman would get the big-game fever, and, armed with a “grain” which he threw as the whaler throws a harpoon, stationed himself on some log that jutted out over the water, or in the fork of a low, overhanging tree, and took toll from the passing thousands. During the sturgeon run, when, too, mulberries and blackberries were plentiful, the negroes grew fat and “swonguh” and became more than usually irresponsible.

The heavy, sensuous Southern spring was in the air. The bayous or “backwaters,” which irrigated the inland swamp ricefields, were dotted with the sweet white pond lilies, or aflame with the yellow lotus, while over the broad leaves of lily and lotus, purple gallinules tripped daintily. Every log that floated and every stump that rose above the water carried a string or a cluster of terrapins, their glistening backs reflecting the sunshine. The sloping trunks of the willows that fringed the banks were festooned with water snakes, basking in the grateful warmth. Here and there on tussock or muddy flat, rough-backed alligators lay dozing. Blue flags flaunted along the marges. Tall white cranes stalked slowly about the shallows, pausing[Pg 60] now and then with spear-like bill poised, watching, waiting.

Billybedam was full of the magic of the spring-time, but it was not altogether a satisfying fullness, and as he pushed the shallow flat-bottomed skiff off from shore, he laid down the paddle long enough to eat a hunk of coarse corn bread and swallow a nip from his “Fus’ X” flask. And then, thoroughly satisfied with the world, he dipped his blade and, with alternate strokes to right and left, pushed the clumsy snub-nosed bateau across the backwater to a famous “drop,” a deep pool just below a gap in the dam where the dark waters flowed slowly through from an upper reservoir. This was Billybedam’s favorite preserve whenever high water in the Salkehatchie forced the river fishermen to seek their living elsewhere.

Today, however, he made an unpropitious start. After his earthworm bait had been repeatedly stripped from his hook by the troublesome silver fish, whose small mouths enabled them to nibble it away piecemeal without getting hooked, his cork bobbed furiously, and he jerked quickly, only to bring swinging over the boat one of the malodorous little black turtles commonly called “limus cootuh” by the low-country negroes. This unwelcome catch he disengaged from the hook and threw as far away from him as possible. “You good fuh nutt’n’ nigguh! Yunnuh t’ink me come spang f’um Macfuss’nbil fuh ketch limus cootuh, enty? Who eenwite you fuh eat ’long fish? You ebbuh see nigguh eat ’long buckruh? De debble!” Running his cork a foot or two higher up the line, he fished at a deeper level and soon began to haul in fine perch, which he strung on the willow withes he had provided. At the[Pg 61] end of two hours he had several strings of marketable fish, and, as the sun had set, he paddled to shore, threw away his now empty flask, tied his boat to a snag, and started for Yemassee to convert his catch into cash.

An hour later, with silver jingling in his pocket, he encountered in the dusk, Miss Maria Wineglass, a much sought-after ornament of colored society. Miss Wineglass was, in a manner of speaking, a peripatetic paradox. Altho’ dour-looking and glum, she was noted for her spirits (80 proof); bootless and bare-legged, she was McPhersonville’s most daring and accomplished bootlegger, and so circumspect and resourceful that she seldom met the law face to face.

When her course crossed that of Billybedam, she was traveling an unfrequented path on the outskirts of the settlement, and, with little need for caution, she walked rapidly, giving out as she moved a faint, hollow sound like the subdued tones of a xylophone. She hailed the bibulous one as a regular and valued customer.

“Yuh him,” and Miss Wineglass fumbled under her skirt and, from a marvelously durable and comprehensive pair of bloomers made of two cottonseed meal sacks sewed together at the top, produced a gourd holding about three half-pints, and passed it over. The gourd was bottle-shaped and cob-stoppered and[Pg 62] ingeniously laced about with hickory bark, as flasks of Chianti are wrapped with flags. The knocking together of half a dozen of these gourds, tied around her waist and suspended within her bloomers, had produced the xylophone music. The money paid, they parted.

Billybedam went his ways. Whatever the nature of the nepenthe the “Fus’ X” extracted from the calabash, it so ’whelmed his wits that oblivion lurked in the bottom of the gourd and overcame him. He fell among thieves, who stripped him of a new shirt he wore and left him, in his trousers only, by the roadside, where a local constable found him next morning and haled him before the magistrate for being inadequately clothed on the public highway.

“Cap’n, uh yent hab nutt’n’ fuh say. Uh gone fish duh backwatuh, en’ een de fus’ gwinin’ off, uh did’n’ hab no luck, ’cause silbuhfish tek me bait en’ uh nubbuh ketch’um, en’ one limus cootuh grab de hook en’ uh ketch him en’ t’row’um’way, en’ den uh ketch ’nuf fish, en’ uh gone Yamassee en’ sell’um, en’ uh binnuh walk duh paat’, en’ uh meet one gal duh walk duh paat’, name ’Riah Wineglass, en’ uh yeddy’um befo’ uh shum, ’cause ’e mek one soun’ w’en ’e walk sukkuh cow foot crack w’en him duh run, en’ w’en uh yiz shum close, ’e frock duh bunch out all roun’um sukkuh cootuh ’tring out ’puntop’uh log, en’ uh ax’um, ’gal, wuh you got fuh fifty cent?’ en’ ’e say ’e yent got nutt’n’ fuh fifty cent but ’e hab ’nuf fuh seb’nty fi’ cent, en’ I tell’um ’lemme shum,’ en’ ’e hice ’e frock, en’ him hab one t’ing onduhneet’ him frock, dem call’um bloomuh, uh nubbuh see shishuh debble’ub’uh t’ing befo’ sence uh bawn! ’E[Pg 63] hol’ ’bout t’ree-fo’ bushel, en’ ’e mek outuh grano sack, en’ britchiz duh ’e farruh en’ frock duh ’e murruh, en’ ’e stan’ sukkuh alltwo. Den de gal graff een da’ t’ing wunnuh call’um so, en’ ’e full’uh de pyo’ killybash ’long Fus’ X, en’ ’e ketch’out one en’ gimme, en’ uh gone off en’ drink’um, en’ fus’ t’ing uh know uh yent know nutt’n’, ’tell de counstubble fin’ me dis mawnin’, en’ las’ night w’en uh bin een one strance, some dem Macfussn’nbil nigguh’ t’ief one new shu’t off me back, en’,” said Billybedam, “uh tengk Gawd uh did’n’ bin hab on uh new britchiz!”

Ever since the days of Solomon, the courts and tribunals of the law in all lands have sought short cuts to justice, but one of the straightest and strangest in the history of jurisprudence was achieved by one Daniel W. Robinson, colored, sometime Magistrate or Trial Justice of the sovereign State of South Carolina, for the Bailiwick of Jacksonboro, in lower Colleton County.

Under the trying days of Reconstruction in South Carolina, the white men and boys living in the so-called “black belt,” comprising the coastal counties of the State, were constantly seeking to lure the black voters into the fold of Democracy, with but indifferent success, for the wary freedman, under the secret instructions given him by the leaders of his own race and the white-skinned spoilers, native and alien, who controlled his political activities for their own profit, was hard to wean away from the idols set up for him within “the awful circle” of the Republican fold.

These poor, deluded negroes, absolutely dependent upon their former masters, the landholders, for food, for clothing, for shelter, for remunerative work—often for free medicines and medical treatment in communities where there were no doctors and no drug stores—though making profuse lip service for benefits received, forgot them all on election day when, under the influence of the knaves who manipulated them, they turned away from their best friends and, hurdled at the polls like sheep, voted blindly the ballots put into their hands by the corruptionists.

At one of these elections the Republican ballot was headed with the national flag in colors, swathed around the ample loins and spreading hips of the figure of Liberty, with the legend “Union Republican ticket.” One of these flamboyant affairs was secured from the printer a day or two before the election and the Democratic tickets were also printed in red ink with a rooster at the top, in the hope that some of the negroes might accept and vote them for Republican ballots. One of these rooster ballots was offered an old darkey at the polls by a Democratic negro worker, but the wary old fellow had been rehearsed in his lesson too well, and he rejected it indignantly, saying: “No, man! uh yent want da’ t’ing! Gimme da’ ticket fuh wote wuh hab de gal wid de Balmuhral sku’t wrop roun’um!” And he got it.

Then came ’76 and the “Straight-Out” campaign. Every white man and boy who could raise two or three dollars to buy a few yards of flannel, sported a red shirt, usually put together by the loving hands of some member of his family, but, occasionally, fearfully and wonderfully made by a sweetheart or feminine acquaintance—some perhaps “a little more than kin,” but all “less than kind.” The boys, however, upon whom had been wished the needlework activities of their lady friends, wore them jauntily nevertheless, absolutely indifferent to the want of co-ordination of “seam and gusset and band.”

As the campaign progressed and enthusiasm increased, an occasional courageous black, taking his life in his hands and braving the hatred and ostracism of his fellows, even of his church and his family, would boldly put on a red shirt and ride with the whites[Pg 66] to political meetings or rallies. One of these, old Clitus Wilson, a life-long Democrat, who, as his master’s body servant, fought with him in the battle of Gettysburg, flaunted his red shirt bravely and defiantly. Another was Paul Jenkins, a thrifty, property-owning negro, whose courageous work in the first Hampton campaign was remembered by the whites, who elected him county commissioner soon after the Democrats came into power. Paul, a wiry, coal-black negro, was once beset by several members of the Grant family, “Free-Issue” mulatto Republicans, and cruelly beaten. In the courts of radicalism there was no redress for a negro Democrat, but Paul bided his time and, meeting one of the Grants alone, retaliated so vigorously that the mulatto was laid up for a week. The victim went before Trial Justice Robinson, over the river at Jacksonboro, and swore out a warrant, charging Paul with aggravated assault and battery.

Paul, summoned to appear on the following Saturday, came in great trouble to a stripling planter of the neighborhood who willingly accompanied him to see that the Democrat got justice, and to go on his bond in case he should be sent up to a higher court.

On Saturday morning the deep and swift Edisto, lacking a ferry, was crossed in a shallow bateau, the saddle-horses, held by their bridles, swimming alongside, and the accused and his protector soon appeared before the august Court, sitting in a small shanty, facing an imposing layout of writing materials and a copy of the statutes. The young planter told the Court that he had come over with Paul to look after his interests and see that he got justice. The Court responded graciously that he was “glad to welcome the[Pg 67] distinguished counsel from across the river” and took pleasure in extending to him the courtesies of his Court.

A jury was asked for and Justice Robinson, calling up some of the idle negroes who hung about his office, selected five elderly darkeys, all of them as black as crows. To these five jurors the magistrate added “the distinguished counsel from across the river,” whom he graciously requested to consent to serve as foreman. In the interest of justice the request was complied with.

Grant, the aggrieved, appeared as prosecuting witness, “tore a passion to tatters” in describing the sudden and furious onslaught made upon him by the black Democrat, and rantingly demanded justice. Paul simply told the story of the attack made upon him by the Grant family and admitted his retaliation, which he held was justifiable, and the jury withdrew to a vacant room nearby which was indicated as the place of deliberation.

The foreman was given a primitive split white-oak chair with a rawhide seat, while his five dusky associates ranged themselves like roosting buzzards upon a teetering bench, whose supports, two short boards sawed into the semblance of legs at the bottom, were placed so close together that the utmost skill was required on the part of the sitters to maintain their equilibrium, for if the central section rose, both end men had to sit tight until they could rise simultaneously, else the laggard would be in jeopardy.

And now the jurors were ready for the case. Paul, having beaten his man fairly and in righteous retaliation, was entitled to an acquittal and to this end the[Pg 68] foreman directed his efforts. As a preliminary, Paul was called to the shanty window, provided with sixty cents, and despatched to Arnold’s store for a quart of corn whiskey. Upon his return with the pallid pop-skull, there was an excited shifting of five seats on the shaky bench and five pairs of eagerly expectant eyes rested their kindly regard upon the messenger of Bacchus as he withdrew, leaving his fate in their hands.

The lone and crafty Caucasian, playing Iago to five Othellos, picked out a gorilla-like old codger on the near end of the bench as the dominant personality among them, and extending the flask told him to take a drink and serve his fellows. Hacklus Manigo jumped up with such alacrity, and was followed so quickly by the negroes who sat next him, that the near end of the bench, relieved of their combined weight, flew up, and the two remaining jurors tumbled ignominiously and indignantly to the floor. The grumbling of the fallen and the derisive guffawing of the risen, ceased suddenly, however, as eight saucered and fascinated eyes fastened upon old Manigo’s Adam’s apple which moved up and down his neck in perfect unison with the “glug, glug,” of the liquid flowing so easily down his throat. The drinker’s ocular and auricular demonstration of hydraulics was too much for his associates, who cried out in indignant protest. “Tek’care, man! We’own dey een da’ t’ing!” “Cap’n, please, suh, mek’um tek ’e mout’ off da’ bottle. ’E gwine drink eb’ry Gawd’ drap!”

Manigo, having absorbed almost one-fourth of the contents of the flask, gave it into the nearest of the eager hands held out to receive it, drew his coat sleeve[Pg 69] with a great swipe across his wet and glistening mouth, gave a grateful grunt, “umh, da’ t’ing good! Tengky, Boss, tengky, suh!” accompanied by an elaborate scrape of the foot and a low obeisance, and took his seat in the center of the bench, where he was soon flanked by the four, whose watchful eyes, each upon the other, had not permitted their attainment of Manigo’s state of exaltation.

“Now, Manigo, and you boys,” said Iago. “This is a plain story. Three or four yellow men double-team a black man and beat him up. He doesn’t take them to court but waits his chance, and when he catches one of these yellow men away from his gang, why the black man beats him to pay him back for what the yellow man helped to do to him. Now, that’s what Paul did to this free-issue yellow fellow Grant. Paul is black like all of you. Do you want to send him to jail for laying hands on a mulatto, just because mulattoes think themselves better than you blacks?”

“Great Gawd, no, suh!” shouted Manigo, springing up. Turning half way round out of respect to the foreman, he alternately jumped in the air and squatted like a gigantic frog, while he whirled his arms and harangued his fellow blacks, cutting his eye around now and then for a nod of approval from Iago. “De debble! Punkin-skin’ nigguh fuh beat black nigguh en’ black nigguh ent fuh beat’um back, enty? Oonuh ebbuh yeddy ’bout shishuh t’ing sence you bawn? Me fuh ’low yalluh nigguh fuh knock me en’ me yent fuh knock’um back! No, man! Uh knock’um ef uh dead!”

“Yaas, man, knock’um, knock’um!” came the cries of approval as old Hacklus, having put up his yellow man of straw, leaped about as he proceeded to bowl him over.

“Uh yent fuh wait ’tell ’e knock me fus’. Uh gwine knock’um befo’ ’e hice ’e han’! Uh knock’um een ’e yeye, uh kick’um on ’e shin, alltwo one time. Den uh butt’um een ’e belly. Uh double’um up ’cause ’e too swonguh, ’e too ’laagin’! Cap’n, who dis yalluh nigguh nyuse to blonx to een slabery time?” he asked the foreman.

“Great Gawd! Cap’n, all dese’yuh mans blonx to quality! All uh we yuh nyuse to blonx to Baa’nwell, eeduhso Heywu’d en’ Wandross. All duh juntlemun’ nigguh. Nigguh stan’ sukkuh ’e maussuh. Ef ’e blonx to juntlemun, him gwine mannusubble, ef ’e blonx to po’buckruh, him ent nutt’n’, ’cause uh po’buckruh nigguh ent wut, but ef ’e blonx to ’eself, ’e blonx to nigguh, en’ da’ yalluh t’ing wuh blonx to nigguh tek ’t’oruhty ’puntop ’eself fuh knock nigguh wuh blonx to juntlemun, en bex w’en de nigguh knock’um back! No, suh, ’e mus’ be fool! Leh we tu’n Bredduh Paul loose!”

“Tengk Gawd, suh!” ejaculated old Hacklus whose mouth was now as cottony as a stump-tailed water moccasin’s, as he lifted the flask to his lips, “me t’roat dry. Uh binnuh talk.”

“’E gwine dreen’um dry!” came the protests, but[Pg 71] Manigo had swallowed the lion’s share before he passed the flask to the next man. “Boss, we fuh pit da’ yalluh Grant een jail, enty?” and he was much disappointed when told it couldn’t be done.

The jury returned to the Court room with their verdict of acquittal, and received the thanks of the Court, who assured them all, “and especially the distinguished foreman,” of his appreciation of the expedition with which they had dispatched the business of the Court. As Paul and his protector mounted their horses for the homeward ride, Daniel stood bare-headed at the Court room door, and expressed the hope that he might again welcome to his temple of justice “the distinguished counsel from across the river.”

For many years after the war, Sam Dickerson, a former slave of the Horlbeck family, ranted around the courts of the lower counties of South Carolina in the practice of the legal profession, which he had acquired in a jack-leg sort of way soon after his emancipation. Tall, black, pompous, and as voluble as an overshot water-wheel, he cut his grotesque antics in higher and lower courts to the intense amusement of blacks as well as of whites. He habitually carried with him a bag of tawdry and greasy law books, which he hauled out and spread upon tables, wherever the space was available, to impress jurors and court-room spectators with his importance. With monkey-like imitativeness he copied the court-room gestures and mannerisms of prominent lawyers of the white race, and he had memorized certain passages from the statutes and the law blanks, which he spouted whenever opportunity offered. Upon one occasion Dickerson was defending in a magistrate’s court a negro accused of larceny. The word written on the indictment pleased him and he mouthed and slobbered over it as one mouths the pit of a clingstone peach. “Dis man bin chaa’ge’, yo’ onnuh, wid laa’ceny! He bin chaa’ge’ wid laa’ceny! W’at am laa’ceny, yo’ onnuh?”

“Of co’se uh does, yo’ onnuh. Laa’ceny is t’ief, en’ t’ief is steal, en’ uh man w’ich steal is uh man w’ich enter anodduh man’ house een de dead ub night en’ did mos’ feloniously steal, tek, carry away en’ appropriate to he own use de whole or uh paa’t dereof uh de[Pg 73] juntlemun’ proputty. But de chaa’ge, yo’ onnuh, am laa’ceny!”

Dickerson was so well known about the magistrates’ courts of the City of Charleston that many prominent white citizens were attracted to the trials when it was known that this simian-like advocate was going to participate in the proceedings, and it was quite the thing to take Northern visitors or the captains of vessels in port, to the court room to see the black perform, and sometimes the magistrate, or the opposing counsel, would be given a hint to stir him up for the entertainment of the visitors.

In a trial before a Charleston magistrate, the black lawyer once sought to have a bad case continued because of “the absence of a material witness,” that threadbare plea so frequently urged in our courts. The magistrate, inclined to bait him, insisted that the material witness be produced in court forthwith.

“Yo’ onnuh, I hope you will not insis’ upun de material witness bein’ produce’ een dis co’t.”

“Yo’ onnuh, de material witness am a female en’ she cannot cunweenyuntly be produce’ een dis co’t.”

“Why can’t a female witness be produced in court? What is the matter with the witness?”

“Yo’ onnuh, I hope you will not compel me to state w’at is de matter wid de material witness w’y she cannot be produce’ een dis co’t.”

“Unless you can give me good reasons why the material witness should not be brought to court, I will insist upon going on with the case,” said the court.

“Yo’ onnuh, I appeal to you as a juntlemun ub delicacy not to fo’ce me to tell de co’t w’y de material witness cannot be produce’ een co’t.”

But the appeal to the magistrate’s delicacy of mind was of no avail and he peremptorily ordered the case to proceed.

“Well, yo’ onnuh, my delicacy will not permit me to state een de English langwidge w’at is de reason w’y de material witness cannot be produce’ een co’t.”—just then a laugh from a gentleman of French extraction in the audience, caused him to turn his head, and he proceeded. “Yaas, suh, you kin laugh, but you cannot fo’ce me to use de English langwidge, en’ I will haffuh fall back on my French.” Then, wheeling around and facing the magistrate, “de reason, yo’ onnuh, w’y de material witness cannot be produce’ een co’t, is ’cause de material witness is”—just then a negro woman entered the room, and, hurrying up to Dickerson pulled him by the sleeve and whispered in his ear. Turning dramatically, he shouted, “may it please yo’ onnuh, I hab jus’ hear from de material witness en’ I kin now resume de English langwidge. De reason w’y de material witness cannot be produce’ een dis co’t, is ’cause de material witness hab two twin!”

On a certain summer day, twenty or thirty negroes from the Toogoodoo section, assembled at the office of the trial justice at Adams Run station to settle a legal matter. The dispute to be adjusted involved the ownership of a brindled ox, to which claims, apparently equally strong, were set up by two black ladies from “Down on de Salt.” One, Bina Youngblood, the “lawfully lady” of Scipio Youngblood, the other the lone, though not lorn, Clara Jenkins, for the moment unaffiliated. Scipio, the “sea-lawyer” of the Swinton plantation, undertook to plead his wife’s cause before the magistrate, while Clara, having money in her[Pg 75] purse, because, perhaps, she had just then no man to support, had “done git de buckruh fuh write uh letter town, fuh tell Sam Dickuhsin fuh come fuh rupezunt me een de co’t.” At 9 o’clock Sam arrived from Charleston on “de shoofly strain,” as the negroes call the local which stops at all way stations. The ox, having caused mutual wool-pulling on the part of both claimants, had been put in the custody of the magistrate’s constable, and, tied to the picket fence surrounding a corn patch near the station, was chewing his cud complacently, viewing with drowsy eyes the human turmoil about him. Clara laid excited hands upon the Charleston advocate and pulled him into the presence of the ox, which she introduced. “Dish’yuh duh him, Mistuh Dickuhsin. Dish’yuh duh de oxin wuh me en’ Mis’ Nyungblood agguhnize ’bout. Uh buy dis oxin f’um Bredduh Izick Puhshay wuh lib tuh Slann’ Ilun’ en’ Buh Izick him buy’um f’um de Jew wuh hab uh sto’ to Wadmuhlaw, en’ ’e buy’um f’um de Jew ’cause de oxin gone een de maa’sh fuh eat, en’ ’e bog een de maa’sh, en’ de Jew stan’ ’puntop de bluff en’ ’e look ’puntop de oxin, en’ ’e ’f’aid ’e gwine drowndid, en’ ’e shake alltwo ’e han’ ’bout de oxin, en’ Buh Izick binnuh stan’up close’um, en’ de Jew try fuh sell’um de oxin, ’cause ’e t’ink de oxin gwine dead een de maa’sh, en’ Buh Izick tell’um him willin’ fuh g’em fibe dolluh’ fuh de oxin, en’ him will tek’um out de maa’sh ’eself, eb’nso ef ’e dead, en’ de Jew tell’um no, ’e yent fuh sell him oxin fuh no fibe dolluh’ ’cause him kin sell ’e meat fuh mo’n fibe dolluh’ eb’nso ef ’e done dead, but ’e say ’e willin’ fuh tek ten dolluh’ fuhr’um weh ’e stan’. Buh Izick tell’um him will nebbuh git’um out ef ’e dead, ’cause him well acquaintun wid uh quicksan’[Pg 76] dey een de maa’sh puhzackly weh de oxin duh bog’up een de maa’sh, en’ ’e say suh de quicksan’ gwine swalluhr’um up, en’ den de Jew ent fuh git nutt’n’. W’en de Jew yeddy ’bout de quicksan’, ’e dat ’f’aid him gwine loss ’e oxin, ’e sell’um tuh Buh Izick fuh de fibe dolluh’, en’ soon ez ’e buy’um en’ ’e done pit de money een de Jew’ han’, Buh Izick know berry well suh no quicksan’ dey een de maa’sh, en’ e’ gone weh de oxin duh stan’up een de mud, en’ ketch’um by ’e tail en’ twis’um two’t’ree time, en’ de oxin walk out de maa’sh jis’ ez good ez you en’ me, en’ Buh Izick git’um een de flat en’ fetch’um ’cross, en’ ’e nebbuh stop ’tell ’e git’um spang home weh ’e lib. Uh bin to Buh Izick house de berry day w’en him fetch de oxin home, en’ uh yent hab nutt’n’ fuh plow, en’ uh buy de oxin f’um Buh Izick fuh fifteen dolluh’, en’ pay’um ten dolluh’, en’ owe’um de odduh res’ uh de money.

“W’en de Jew fin’out how Buh Izick obuhreach’um, ’e dat bex ’e yent able fuh nyam ’e bittle, en’ ’e study all day ’bout how him kin git ’e oxin ’gen. ’E h’aa’t hebby ’bout de oxin, en’ ’e jaw drap eb’ry time ’e t’ink ’pun Buh Izick, ’cause him t’ink suh nigguh ent fuh smaa’t ’nuf fuh cheat no Jew. Nex’ day ’nuf nigguh f’um Swintun en’ Toale gone Wadmuhlaw full dig Irish tettuh, en’ dem gone tuh de Jew’ sto’ fuh buy gunjuh en’ nickynack en’ t’ing. Mis’ Nyungblood en’ ’e juntlemun alltwo gone to de sto’, en’ de Jew yeddy’um duh talk ’bout one brinly oxin wuh buy een dem nigguhhouse yaa’d, wuh come f’um Wadmuhlaw Ilun’, en’ de Jew tell’um yaas, duh him oxin, en’ ’e tell’um de oxin sell fuh true, but all de money ent done pay, en’ ’e sen’ ansuh fuh tell me wuh got de oxin fuh sen’um ten dolluh’ mo’ fuh de oxin, ’scusin’ him gwine[Pg 77] tek’um ’way en’ sell’um ’gen. Buh Scipio en’ ’e lady alltwo fetch de Jew’ metsidge jis’ ez ’e come out ’e mout’, but uh nebbuh bodduh ’bout’um, ’cause uh know uh hab witness fuh de money uh done pay Buh Izick, en’ uh look tuh Buh Izick fuh puhteck me, but de nex’ week Mis’ Nyungblood gone Wadmuhlaw ’gen, en’ de Jew ’suade him fuh buy de oxin fuh fifteen dolluh’, en’ him pay’um t’ree dolluh’ on de oxin, en’ de Jew g’em uh paper fuh tek de oxin wehrebbuh ’e kin fin’um. W’en ’e git home, de ’ooman walk een my yaa’d wid de Jew’ papuh een ’e han’, en’ e’ walk swonguh, en’, please Gawd, ’e gone to de oxin weh ’e duh bite grass een de fench cawnuh, en’ ’e tek’um by ’e bridle en’ staa’t fuh lead’um out de yaa’d. Bubbuh, uh yent got no man ’bout de house fuh puhteck me, but uh got dese ten finger ’puntop alltwo me han’ fuh puhteck meself, en’ w’en uh see de ’ooman ’long de oxin, blood full’ alltwo me yeye! Uh peaceubble ’tell uh bex, but w’en uh bex, uh ready fuh dead, en’ uh light ’puntop’uh da’ ’ooman same lukkuh fu’lhawk light ’puntop’uh chickin! Me en’ him en’ de oxin, alltwo tanglety’up een de du’t ’tell dem man een de nigguhhouse yaa’d haffuh suffuhrate we. Nex’ day me’ en’ de ’ooman hitch ’gen, w’en him come een de yaa’d fuh onhitch de oxin de two-time, en’ uh ’cratch’ him face en’ him ’cratch’ my’own, en’ attuh dat, de trial jestuss yeddy ’bout’um en’ sen’ ’e counstubble fuh tek’way de oxin, en’ lef’ one metsidge fuh alltwo uh we fuh come Adam’ Run deepo fuh try de case, en’ uh glad dem fuh try’um teday, teday, ’cause me en’ da’ ’ooman en’ da’ oxin ent fuh lib tuhgedduh ’puntop no Swintun plantesshun!”

“Come eento co’t,” yelled the constable, and Clara and her counsel went within.

The two principals and their partisans, glowering at one another, ranged themselves on opposite sides of the little room, and the proceedings were opened. Bina came to the witness stand with a slowly healing gridiron of scratches covering her face, tokens of the efficiency of Clara’s finger nails, which courtesies she had handsomely reciprocated.

“Uh gone Wadmuhlaw fuh dig Irish tettuh, en’ w’en middleday come, me en’ all dem todduh man en’ ’ooman gone to de Jew fuh buy bittle fuh eat, en’ him yeddy suh we come f’um Swintun place, en’ him yeddy we duh talk ’bout one brinly oxin wuh come f’um Wadmuhlaw, wuh one uh we ’ooman buy f’um Izick Puhshay, en’ de Jew say suh de oxin duh him’own, en’ nex’ time me en’ my juntlemun gone Wadmuhlaw, de Jew say suh de oxin ent pay fuh, en’ him fuh sell’um ’gen, en’ w’en ’e say dat, uh buy’um en’ pay t’ree dolluh’ exwance on’um en’ de Jew gimme uh papuh fuh tek de oxin wehrebbuh uh fin’um, en’ w’en uh gone home uh tek de papuh en’ gone een de ’ooman’ yaa’d en’ tek de oxin out de fench cawnuh en’ staa’t fuh gone, en’ ’fo’ uh kin git out de yaa’d, da’ debble’ub’uh blacksnake ub uh ’ooman tek uh exwantidge w’en uh yent binnuh study ’bout’um, en’ him git een de fus’ lick, en’ ’e yent sattify fuh ’cratch me eyeball’ en’ fight deestunt lukkuh lady fuh fight, but him haffuh bite me een de same time, en’ ’e teet’ shaa’p ez ottuh’ teet’, en’ de ’ooman mek ’e fang’ fuh meet een me yez, but me Jedus help me fuh obuht’row’um, en’ befo’ dem man suffuhrate we, uh done spile ’e face ’tell ’e maamy yent fuh know’um! Uh gone t’ru’um sukkuh bulltongue plow gone t’ru blackberry wine! You shum stan’ dey? Duh me mek ’e mout’ fuh[Pg 79] twis’up oagly same lukkuh him binnuh chaw green possimmun!”

With a curtsy to the court and a scornful glance at her opponent, Bina retired, and after Clara had repeated word for word the story previously related to her attorney—for some negroes have the faculty of memorizing and repeating a romantic story over and over again, omitting none of the mendacious minutiæ—Scipio, a stout, self-conscious black, rose to match his plantation wit with that of the experienced advocate.

Old Sam rose impressively. “Do my distinguish’ fr’en’ frum Toogoodoo allude to de annimel dat is now een de custody ub dis honuhrubble co’t ez cow?”

“Yaas, uh call’um cow! Cow duh ’e name! Mekso me yent fuh call’um cow! Uh call’um cow, uh dunkyuh ef e’ duh bull! Enty roostuh en’ hen alltwo is fowl? Uh call’um cow, yaas! Wuh de debble town nigguh’ know ’bout annimel?”

“Kin de ‘town nigguh’ eenfawm de distinguish’ counsel,” observed Sam, sarcastically, “dat he is berry well acquaintun wid uh sutt’n annimel dat eenhabit de jungle ub Aff’iky, but, ontell teday, he hab always obserb dis annimel fuh hab tail. Puhhaps de specie’ dat roam t’ru de fores’ ub Toogoodoo is bawn bidout tail!”

“Great King! ’E fuh call me monkey!” protested Scipio, as the audience exploded with laughter, for however resentful they may be of such characterization by the whites, in their lighter moments, the coast negroes, at least, delight in the exchange among themselves of “monkey,” “’ranguhtang,” “crow,” “buzzut,”[Pg 80] “blacksnake,” “nigguh” and like terms of opprobrious endearment. “Da’ ’ranguhtang f’um town fuh call me monkey! Him gran’daddy ’self duh monkey!”

The magistrate put a stop to these amenities between counsel, but Scipio’s verbal machine gun was jammed and, too full for utterance, he took his seat, muttering wrathfully as Sam rose triumphant.

“Ef it please de co’t,” said Sam, “I repeah een dis tribunul fuh rupezunt dis defenseless female ub de Aff’ikin race f’um de paa’simony ub uh membuh ub de tribe dat tek Juhruzelum f’um de Christ’un t’ree t’ous’n’ yeah’ ago!”

“I am sattisfy’, yo’ onnuh, dat I kin repeal to yo’ onnuh’ sense ub jestuss fuh gib dis po’ ’ooman de puhtekshun to w’ich de po’ en’ weak am eentitle’ f’um de rich en’ de strong, ’cause, yo’ onnuh, een de langwidge ub uh distinguish’ membuh ub de Chaa’lstun baa’, w’enebbuh we enter de sacrid premussis ub uh co’t ub law, we all seddown onduhneet’ de eagle ub jestuss as de chicken seddown onduhneet’ de hen!

“Now, yo’ onnuh, what am de fack? Dish’yuh tenduh female, yo’ onnuh, bidout de puhtekshun ub uh man fuh gyaa’d’um f’um de human race, is t’rowed on his back fuh puhteck ’eself, lukkuh de wil’cat t’row ’eself ’pun ’e back onduhneet’ de harricane tree fuh refen’ ’eself ’genst de pack ub houn’ by whom she is attacktid.”

“Yo’ onnuh, dis tenduh female buy de ox een queschun f’um Izick Puhshay, uh respected citizen ub de Newnited State’, en’ she hab witness fuh proobe dat de[Pg 81] money wuz to him een han’ pay, en’ to ’stablish his ’t’oruhty obuh de ox. De afo’sed Izick Puhshay buy de ox f’um de Jew, de paa’ty ub de fus’ paa’t, residin’ een de premussis afo’sed ’pun de Ilun’ ub Wadmuhlaw, een de State ub Sous Cuhlina. De Jew’ ox hab fall eento de pit, yo’ onnuh, en’ ’less ’e is fuh perish, de ox is sell to Izick Puhshay, dis respected citizen ub de Newnited State’ afo’sed, who by his ability twis’ de tail ub de ox en’ mek’um fuh ’bandun he puhsishun een de maa’sh, en’ betake himself to de high groun’. W’en de membuh ub de tribe ub Juhruzelum see dat de ability ub de Aff’ikin race sabe de life ub de ox, he feel disapp’int’ wid ’eself, en’ he seek to agen ubtain de proputty dat he hab loss, en’ ’e sell de ’denticul ox de two time, to de paa’ty ub de secon’ paa’t.

“Deyfo’, yo’ onnuh, I mek uh plea fuh dis tenduh female ub de human race, alldo’ his skin is black, dat jestuss be done, en’ dat his ox shall not be tek away.”

His plea was effective, for Clara returned joyfully to Toogoodoo with the restored ox tied behind the cart in which she had come, while Bina nursed her wrath to keep it warm until she could return to Wadmalaw to seek to recover her three dollars “exwance” from “de membuh ub de tribe ub Juhruzelum.”

As boys, a few years after the war, we knew him as a mighty squirrel hunter, and the negroes in the neighborhood knew him as a mighty slippery old scoundrel, whose smoothness had earned him the sobriquet of Okra—at once a tribute and a reproach—for the skill acquired in slaughtering “de buckruh’ cow en’ t’ing’” in the swamps, was sometimes used to lift a shoat from some nearby colored brother or sister when Simon did not care to hunt far afield, and, however commendable one’s prowess in preying upon “de buckruh,” who, for purposes of spoliation, stood in the same relation to the newly freed slaves that the esteemed Egyptians did to the children of Israel, it was regarded in dusky circles as somewhat unethical to steal from one’s own color.

Although always suspected, old Okra was never caught. When he killed a cow or other large game, the hide, and the head with its telltale ear-marks, were carefully buried in the woods, and part of the meat distributed among his cronies, insuring not only their protective silence, but a full crop of elaborate alibis for Simon, should suspicion ripen into accusation. “Nigguh haffuh stan’ by we colluh,” being the motto on all the plantations round about.

The squirrel hunter was as lean and hungry-looking as Cassius, with a shifty eye and a face deeply pock-marked. His footfall was stealthy and noiseless and he could walk the woods from dawn to dusk without tiring.

For several years following the war, many low-country negroes carried condemned army muskets which[Pg 83] they bought for a dollar or two—long, heavy muzzle-loaders, straight of stock and hard of trigger. Although rifled, their proud owners rammed down and shot out of their grooved barrels anything and everything but ball. Shot of uniform size was not only held unnecessary, but really undesirable, an assortment of sizes running from No. 8 to No. 2, the latter called “high duckshot,” being regarded as a mixed dose seriously jeoparding the safety of rabbit or “squerril” at a distance of “two tas’”—two tasks (½ an acre).

Most of the new-fledged negro sportsmen were content to hunt the little cat squirrels that were plentiful in the wooded swamps and the oak and hickory knolls, but Simon was ambitious and habitually hunted the beautiful fox squirrels, grays and blacks, wary creatures, rarely met with and found only among tall pines—sometimes in the long leaf palustris of the ridges, but oftener in the great “loblollies” skirting the bays, the height of the trees and the Spanish moss that clustered thick about their towering tops, making them safe retreats, once reached. One of these big squirrels would sometimes be surprised on or near the ground, offering a shot before he got far up the tall trunks which he always ascended rapidly with a great clatter of claws on the bark, cunningly keeping on the off side from the hunter, but never slackening speed till a fork or one of the higher branches was reached, upon which he would flatten out and keep absolutely still. Even a boy then knew it was wasting precious powder and shot to attempt to make him break sanctuary, but not so old Okra. He had implicit faith and infinite pride in the shooting powers of his old “muskick,”—“Ole Betsey, him cya’ shot fuh sowl,” and he would crack away as[Pg 84] long as his ammunition lasted, at a gray or black spot at the tip-top of some forest giant; often indeed, at a dead squirrel, for these “foxes” have an exceedingly inconsiderate habit of digging their claws so deeply into the bark that they hang on after death and are hard to dislodge. Often the boy hunter roaming the woods, day-dreaming of the buck or big gobbler that was always about to spring up just ahead of him, to fall gloriously to his little single barrel, would hear at intervals the heavy “duhbaw!” of Simon’s ordnance and know that the indefatigable old sinner was, like most of us, reaching up after the unattainable.

Curiosity to learn how he was faring would sometimes overcome caution, for Simon always begged for powder, and his ingratiating “Mass—— so freehan’,” seldom failed to coax from the flask part of the boy’s scanty store, but woe to the scanty store if Simon was permitted to “po’rum.” “Berry well den, suh, you po’rum,” and into the deeply cupped palm of the avaricious hand he held out, the precious powder would trickle. Simon never stinted his gun, and as long as the donor would pour, the recipient had no scruples about drams running into ounces. Whatever you poured into his hand went into the gun, and when she responded in recalcitrance to a double charge, sending her owner staggering back among the gallberry bushes, he would grin proudly and remark, “Him duh tell we tengky fuh wuh we g’em. Betsey him hab uh hebby belly fuh powder.”

One crisp winter’s day, Simon and his half-grown son, “Boyzie,” were encountered on a high pineland plateau dotted with a chain of shallow, sedgy ponds. Suddenly, from the marge of a pond a hundred yards[Pg 85] away, the plume-like tail of a big gray fox squirrel was seen waving jerkily over the ground as he ran for the timber. The party gave chase and succeeded in putting him up in a clump of tall long-leaf saplings before he could reach the big trees. Simon’s eyes shone like brown pebbles through the sunlit waters of a shallow brook. His slouch was gone and he was all alertness, apprehension.

“Duhbaw!” boomed Betsey, and Simon reeled from the recoil as the load cut the top from a sapling down which the squirrel raced to the ground and scampered off for a big pine not far away, rushing up the trunk in long spirals. “Watch’um, Boyzie! Don’ tu’n yo’ yeye loose off’um ’tell I git Betsey load’,” and Simon hurriedly rammed down his charge with many furtive glances at the watching sentinel to see that he didn’t “tu’n ’e yeye loose.” Extracting from a greasy rag a huge copper cap of the grandfather’s hat pattern, he fitted the nipple and cocked his musket, as strenuous an operation as pulling the trigger, for at half-cock Betsey’s hammer leaned back like the head of a strutting gobbler, while at the full, the cup yawned toward the heavens like the crater of a miniature Mauna Loa. Circling the pine he tried to locate the squirrel now lying flat in a crotch near the crown of the long-leaf, his long tail hanging down while his body was securely hidden. Boyzie pointed out the drooping tail. “Dey him, pa, dey him, but ’e too fudduh. You cyan’ reach’um.”

“Who? Dat squerril? Watch’um!” The piece was raised, two sinewy fingers clutched the trigger with a[Pg 86] jerk that would have disconcerted any aim, and the hammer, describing a parabola, fell upon the cap which exploded with a report like a parlor rifle, but Betsey’s muzzle remained glum and silent.

“’S’mattuh, Betsey? You got ’ooman name en’ you ent got ’ooman mout’? You cyan’ talk? De debble!” Another cap was fitted, another hopeful aim taken and another futile “paow!” echoed among the pines. Simon, now having only two caps left, accepted the suggestion that priming might help. He also accepted the powder which he poured with a liberal hand down the capacious nipple and rammed home with a lightwood splinter.

“Now watch’um come down.” Another careful sight at the tantalizing tail up aloft, another “popped” cap with a little blue smoke from the priming, and a sorely puzzled squirrel hunter.

“Witch mus’ be pit bad mout’ ’puntop Betsey. I ’spec’ ’e done cunjuh.”

“Bettuh try’um,” said doubting youth, and he did. When the shot was drawn and the screw of the long iron ramrod clicked against the breech of the musket, old Okra’s face was a study. “Yaas, ef I did’n’ bin haffuh watch Boyzie duh watch de squerril, I wouldn’t bin fuhgit fuh load’um.” Consoling himself with this shifting of responsibility, he loaded deliberately and fired, bringing down, with a lot of pine needles, half the squirrel’s tail, which he stuck in the cord which bound his old hat with the remark, “Well, ennyhow I git all wuh I shoot at. Ef man kin git all wuh ’e try fuh git, him oughtuh tengkful!”

Lucy Jones, of Pon Pon, square and stout and widowed, had in her youth been as frequently husbanded as the Wife of Bath. One by one, however, through death, incompatibility of temperament, or indifference, she had lost these affiliations, and now, a “settled woman,” Lucy lacked the masterful ways and the loving club of a man about the house, for it is axiomatic among the Gullah ladies of the Carolina coast that love and physical chastisement are inseparable. “Ef man ent lick you, ’e yent lub you.” So, yearning for the touch of a vanished hoe handle or axe helve, Lucy languished. There was no longer satisfaction in “cawnhom’ny” or “tu’n flour.” There was no savor in “poke” greens or lamb’s-quarter. Fat bacon, while greasing her mouth, no longer anointed her soul. Her cabin was snug and comfortable, her bed was wide, and covered with a patchwork quilt that would have made Joseph’s coat look like a drab jacket of butternut jeans. This quilt, slowly fabricated of all the bits of bright cloth—silk, cotton and wool—that she had begged from “de buckruh” during a period of several years, she had stitched together with painstaking fingers and exalted soul, absolutely confident that with its completion would come a husband to share its chromatic glories. “All de time uh binnuh mek dat quilt uh bin agguhnize een me min’ duh study ’pun wuh kinduh husbun’ uh gwine git w’en ’e done finish. Sometime’ uh t’ink uh gwine git uh nyung nigguh, en’ den uh ’membuh suh dese’yuh nyung nigguh ent wut. Dem too lub fuh t’row bone. En’ den, ’nodduh[Pg 88] time uh study en’ uh t’ink uh’ll git uh settle’ man, but uh know berry well uh haffuh git some kind’uh man ’cause uh lonesome tummuch, en’ uh keep on sew de quilt ’tell ’e done, en’ uh pit’um on de bed, en’ dat night w’en uh gone’sleep onduhneet’ de quilt, uh hab one dream, en’ one sperrit come to me een de dream en’ tell me suh me fuh marry Isaac Middletun.”

So the notion got into her head. Isaac was tall, as Lucy was short; Isaac was thin, as Lucy was stout, and Isaac was wary, as Lucy was predaceous. Himself an elderly widower, he was living alone when Lucy delicately intimated to him her desire to change the Welsh name of Jones for the aristocratic English patronymic of Middleton. Middleton, acknowledging the compliment, politely declined the offer, preferring to keep his lonely cabin to himself. “Uh tell’um wuh de sperrit say,” she said, “en’ uh tell’um de sperrit say him fuh come fuh marry me dat same night. Uh hab fait’ een de sperrit’ wu’d, en’ uh scour’ out de house en’ uh mek de bed, en’ uh pit de tea by de fiah, en’ still yet Middletun ent come. Uh nebbuh know shishuh eegnunt nigguh. W’en uh fin’ suh ’e yent come, uh gone deepo fuh fin’um, en’ uh tell’um ’gen wuh de sperrit say. Uh tell’um ’bout de quilt en’ de tea en’ t’ing’, en’ uh tell’um nemmine’ ’bout him house, cause myself hab house fuh alltwo uh we fuh lib een, but Middletun ent haa’kee to wuh uh tell’um ’bout de sperrit. ’E say suh de sperrit hab bidness fuh talk ’long nyung ’ooman ef de sperrit fuh send wife fuh him. Uh tell’um uh nyung ’ooman cyan’ specify fuh wife fuh settle’ man lukkuh Middletun, ’cause dem lub fuh dress tummuch, but seem lukkuh uh cyan’ git Middletun’ min’ straight.” So she “took her foot in her hand” and went home, dejected[Pg 89] but not hopeless, for she determined to stick to the trail, as the hound to the slot, until she ran the wily quarry to earth, to wit, cabin, for she hankered after him with an intense hankering.

“Lucy Middletun,” “Mis’ Middletun,” how it filled the mouth and the ear, and exalted the spirit with satisfaction! Ever since emancipation the negroes have laid great store by their “titles,” prefaced by “Mistuh” or “Mis’.” Very dear to their hearts was the evolution of “Cuffee,” “Cudjo” and “Sancho” of slavery, into “Mistuh Scott,” “Mistuh Hawlback” and “Mistuh Middletun,” of freedom, and, in the twinkling of an eye, “Dinah” and “Bina” and “Bella,” the grubs, were transformed into “Mis’ Wineglass,” “Mis’ Chizzum” and “Mis’ Manigo,” the butterflies. So, as Lucy mused and spun the spider web of fancy in which she hoped to entrap the wary and unappreciative Isaac, her mind crossed the stormy seas of Endeavor, and, resting in the snug harbor of Achievement, she thought of the deed as done, and imagined herself as going to work on week days, to church on Sundays, and to class meetings in the evenings, carrying, as appurtenant to her person, the longed-for “title” of Isaac, and as she thought upon the occasions when on public road or by-path she should “pass the time of day” in the ceremonial salutations so dear to her kind, she was filled to the jowls with ecstasy and her eardrums vibrated with the melody of “Middleton.”

“Mawnin’, Mis’ Wineglass, uh tengk Gawd fuh life, but you know uh yent name Mis’ Jones now. Me duh Mis’ Middletun.”

“No, ma’am, ’e yent dead, ma’am, but him hab anodduh lady, en’ me hab Isaac Middletun. You know dat same Mistuh Middletun lib close Adam’ Run deepo? Well, she duh my juntlemun now, en’ me duh Mis’ Middletun.”

And always as Lucy sat in the sunshine before the cabin door and smoked her short clay pipe, or in the loneliness of night lay pondering and ponderable under the quilt that looked like a county map of Texas, constantly she projected thought waves towards Adams Run station, near which abode the recalcitrant Middleton. Along this main-traveled roadway of the Atlantic Coast Line, many trains passed by day and by night. The shrill shriek of the local freight, as it took the siding at the distant station, reminded her that Middleton’s ears were filled with the same sound. The hoarse warning of the Florida Limited at the curve, as it rushed southward filled with Northern tourists, who,—viewing from observation cars the fruit-laden thickets of gallberry bushes covering the damp, flat pinelands—marveled at the prodigality of the Southern climate that ripened huckleberries in midwinter, every whistle that blew along the busy line reminded Lucy of the railroad, and the railroad reminded her of the station, and the station reminded her of Middleton. Theoretically, a member of the gentler sex has only to wish herself upon a man and the man is as good as wived, and the dogma that “a woman has only to make up her mind to marry a man and she gets him,” is probably as old as the Creation, for Adam, like the gentleman he was, accepted philosophically and uncomplainingly—even gallantly—the spouse which kind Heaven had[Pg 91] wished upon him. But much thought had brought Lucy to the conclusion that in her chase of a husband she was after all a dachshund, while the elusive Middleton was a fox. His defenses having proved impenetrable by direct attack, she had tried sapping and mining without success, even the “sperrit” bomb projected Middletonwards had fizzled at the fuse, and her cabin and its encircling yard and garden were still, alas! “no man’s land!”

In her desperation Lucy decided to conjure! Like old Lorenzo in “La Mascotte,” she believed in “signs, omens, dreams, predictions,” and also in the potency of the dried frog, the blacksnake skin and the kerosene-soaked red flannel rag, as charms to pull a bashful wooer up to the scratch, to put a “spell,” resulting in sickness or death, upon an enemy, or for any other purpose suggested by the mind of the one preparing the charm, for, a sort of aftermath of voodooism, “cunjuhs” are still believed in by many of these superstitious people.

Lucy bethought her of old Simon, not an authenticated witch-doctor, for he demanded no fixed fees, but a wily old sinner, a sort of amateur in black magic, who gave advice free of charge, although his services were always rewarded with gifts of eggs, or sweet potatoes, or clean rice. As snake skins and dried frogs were component parts of almost all old Simon’s “charms,” the boys of the community frequently brought him those they killed or found dead by the roadside. These, at his convenience, old Simon skinned and salted, or rubbed with ashes and smoked and dried and put away, for use when occasion should require. The low-country negroes seldom pass a dead frog lying[Pg 92] on its back, believing that if so exposed for any length of time, rain will inevitably follow, and those so found, if not turned over to prevent the floods from Heaven, were taken to old Simon and added to his store.

So in the dusk of the early night and the dark of the moon, for Lucy did not wish the black sisterhood to know her business, she locked her cabin door, put a shawl over her head and slipped away to Simon.

The weather was cold and Simon’s door was shut. She rapped faintly and furtively, and a fierce bark challenged from within. Simon hobbled to the door and opened it, a black cur growling at his knee. Kicking the dog away, he bade Lucy enter.

“Tengk Gawd fuh life, Unk’ Simun. Uh come yuh fuh ax you fuh gimme uh cunjuh fuh t’row uh spell ’puntop Isaac Middletun wuh lib Adam’ Run deepo, fuh mek’um haa’kee to de sperrit’ wu’d, wuh tell’um fuh hab me fuh wife, ’cause uh done tell’um two time wuh de sperrit hab fuh say, but him ent study ’bout no sperrit, en’ ’e suck ’e teet’ at me, en’ him say suh him fuh marry nyung ’ooman ’cause him ent hab no appetite fuh marry settle’ ’ooman, en’ uh done tell’um suh nyung ’ooman cyan’ specify fuh settle’ man, but Middletun dat eegnunt en’ haa’d-head’, uh cyan’ git’um fuh do nutt’n’, en’ please suh fuh mek one hebby cunjuh, ’cause Middletun stubbunt sukkuh oxin en’ mule alltwo, en’ w’en you gimme de cunjuh, tell me wuh fuh do ’long’um en’ weh uh mus’ pit’um fuh t’row de spell ’puntop’uh Middletun, en’ uh fetch t’ree aig’ en’ some yalluh yam tettuh fuh you fuh eat.” And she took these gifts out of her apron and presented them to the weaver of spells.

Simon was a man of few words. Going to an old cupboard where he kept his store of raw materials, he fumbled about and at last drew forth the dried skin of a “copper-belly” moccasin, about three feet long. This he wound about a smoke-dried toad, to which had been added two rusty horseshoe nails. Around them all a dirty strip of red flannel, well soaked in kerosene, was tied, and the charm was ready. Wrapping it in a piece of brown paper he gave it to Lucy who, tremulous with happiness and excitement, tied it in a corner of her apron.

“Berry well den, you fuh go Middletun’ house middlenight tenight. You fuh tek dis cunjuh en’ pit’um ’puntop de do’step to Middletun’ house, en’ you fuh walk easy so him ent fuh yeddy you. Onduhstan’?”

For awhile she dozed before her fire, and then, an hour before midnight, with that uncanny instinct which guides those who live close to nature, she roused herself, and with her precious charm, set out hot-foot for the station. As she hurried through the dark a raccoon padded noiselessly across the path. Farther on, a grey fox trotted fearlessly in front of her for a few yards then sprang into the bushes and disappeared. The terrifying shriek and wild laugh of a barred owl just overhead, as she passed along a dark aisle in the forest, made her heart stand still for an instant, but the thought of Middleton warmed its cockles again and she kept on her way. At last she reached Middleton’s[Pg 94] cabin and, thanking her stars that he kept no dog, she cautiously lifted the latch of his yard gate and tiptoed up to the steps where, with a silent prayer for success, she deposited the precious “cunjuh” and quietly slipped away.

Just at the end of the “dog watch” of the mariners, just before the “day clean” of the negroes—the hour known to all night workers, when, with the imminence of the dawn, somewhat of the weight of the world seems lifted from their shoulders—Middleton rose from his cornshuck couch and opening his cabin door looked forth, as is the custom of the early-rising negroes, to scan the sky and appraise the promise of the coming day. A gibbous moon of dusky gold, new-risen, hung low in the East. Diana had been banting for ten days and altho’ her waist was waning, she yet shed sufficient light to open the eyes and engage the throats of all the roosters round about, and from the yards of lonely woodland cabin, and plantation quarters, their voices, shrill and clear, deep and raucous, came to Middleton’s ears as they saluted the fools’ gold of the moonlight in the belief that they were heralding the dawn.

“Fowl’ mus’ be t’ink day’ clean,” commented Middleton, and as he opened the door wider to get a better outlook, his bare toe came into contact with the gelid snakeskin and he sprang back in fear. Striking a match, he lit a lightwood splinter and discovered the “cunjuh” mysteriously placed at his very threshold. He scratched his puzzled head. “Eh, eh! wuh dis t’ing? Me nebbuh do nutt’n’ to nobody. Uh wonduh who duh try fuh t’row spell ’puntop me! Tengk Gawd, uh nebbuh ’tep obuhr’um,” secure in the belief that as he had not stepped over it, no harm could come to him.[Pg 95] So, picking it up fearlessly, he put it away in a chink in the clay chimney until he should find use for the dread instrument which Providence had placed in his hands. All day he pondered, for, having no enemies, there was none to whom he wished harm. At last, as evening fell, dark thoughts came with the dusk, and a sinister purpose slid into his soul, which he lost no time in putting into execution. Venus was the evening star but she told him nothing, for there was no love in his heart and his mind held only the definite purpose to rid himself once and for all of the vexing importunities of the husband-hunter.

“Uh gwine tek dis t’ing to da’ ’ooman’ house en’ t’row one spell ’puntop’um fuh mek’um pit ’e min’ ’puntop some dem todduh man en’ lemme ’lone,” and walking briskly to Lucy’s house, where she slept unsuspiciously beneath the unalluring quilt, he carefully placed the charm in the middle of the top step and went his ways under the starlit heavens.

All through the autumn, when golden-rod and sumac flaunted the colors of Spain from every neglected fence corner, and the ripening sun burned from the blue through the haze that hung over the earth, when the crows, uttering their care-free harvest note, flew over the tawny fields of corn, and negroes with nimble fingers pulled the reluctant locks from the half-opened Sea Island cotton bolls, when squirrels chattered and barked contentedly among the hickories as they commenced to gather their winter’s store, and wild pigs nosed about for acorns among the rustling leaves in the oak groves—all through these September and October days, the boy had pestered old Abram, the most successful ’coon hunter on Pon Pon, to organize a torchlight hunt and take him along. Abram White, or “’Bram,” as he was commonly called, was a slow-talking, slow-thinking, slow-moving old darkey; so deliberate that the mental effort involved in answering the simplest question would furrow his brow like an old-fashioned washboard. He had been allowed to clear up a piece of rich land on Cotton Hill, far removed from the “quarters” of the other negroes, and this field he held rent-free in return for the labor of bringing it under cultivation. The task occupied old ’Bram for several years. First building a substantial cabin for his smart wife, Delia, he proceeded to “ring” the forest trees and, leaving them to die, slowly grubbed up the smaller trees and undergrowth, planting in the little cleared plots patches of corn, peas and sweet potatoes, increasing his field bit by bit each year. He was[Pg 97] employed regularly as night watchman for the plantation and, armed with his long “muskick”—a condemned army weapon—walked his beat about barn and stables from dark till dawn, returning from each round to drowse near the big fire which he invariably made in an open spot, summer as well as winter, for the coast negroes are true fire-worshipers and their love for the flames that leap and the embers that glow is as great as their skill in fire-making. Abram owned the best ’coon dog in the community, a black mongrel of medium size with a blaze in the face and a white ring around his neck. Devoted as he was to Delia, Abram’s love for “Ring” was almost as great, and his pride in the dog’s accomplishments and reliability was infinite. The abandoned rice field now overgrown, near old Abram’s new-ground, was full of raccoons and ’possums and the old hunter often got permission to put on a substitute watchman for part of the night, while he foraged the woods with almost invariable success, and all through the winter the jambs of his wide-throated clay chimney were hung with the smoked flesh of his spoils, while their pelts—ring-tailed and rat-tailed—adorned the outer walls of his log cabin.

The veteran ’coon dog will rarely follow any other animal than raccoon or ’possum—the lawful prey of his negro master—ignoring the frequently crossed trails of deer or fox. Puppies and undisciplined dogs often break away and run rabbits, of course, but they are always caught and thrashed and the occasional lapse is held derogatory to the dog’s master. Both objects of the chase are nocturnal feeders, sleeping most of the day in hollow trees or logs. Sometimes the hollow is high up in the fork of some forest giant,[Pg 98] completely hidden by the lianas that run from the ground to the topmost branches. A dog will occasionally bark at a tree whence the ’coon has descended, or one from which the quarry has crossed on a limb or vine to another tree, and whenever the hunter finds that his dog has “treed” at a vacant tree, the poor animal is held to have “lied” and is given a severe whipping, so seasoned dogs make few mistakes and old Abram’s Ring was always true.

At last, as October drew to a close and the first white frost nipped the potato vines, the boy’s importunities bore fruit in a promise from Abram to take him on the first clear night in the dark of the moon, the condition being that the boy should furnish travel rations. The night appointed proved fine and frosty, with a sharp tang in the air, and an hour or two after dark the hunt assembled. Besides his single-barreled muzzle-loader, the boy “packed” a knapsack filled with smoked herrings and hardtack from the plantation commissary. Abram had his musket, and Tom Ford and Joe Smashum, two young negroes, their axes. All three carried bundles of “fat” lightwood for torches strapped to their backs. Sike, a half-grown black boy, carried himself. All the negroes were bare-footed, the horny soles of their feet having become so toughened as to make them indifferent to briars and snags. Ring wagged his tail expectantly and, like his master, looked contemptuously upon the two young curs that followed Joe.

And now they started single file, the boy in front, then old ’Bram, the torch-bearers last, throwing a flood of light ahead of them, the dogs at heel close to their respective masters. So, down the broad avenue of live-oaks, the great trees heavily bearded with the[Pg 99] gray Spanish moss, assuming fantastic shapes in the flare of the torches, on across the old King’s Highway, past the Big Spring and over a low causeway that spanned an old rice field. Here the party hesitated between two “drives” that seemed equally promising, one to the right across the “half moon” dam to a thickly wooded island in the big savanna, the other with a slant to the left through a grove of big beeches toward the “Blue House” back water. While old Abram scratched his head for a decision which “the stubborn glebe” was slow to yield, Ring, who had been nosing about, dashed suddenly among the undergrowth of saw-palmettoes that covered the ground under the beeches and, giving tongue on a hot trail, ended his master’s cogitations. The other dogs followed the veteran in full cry, and in a few minutes Ring’s slow and measured barking apprised his master that he had “treed.” The negroes shouted encouragingly, “speak, Ring!” “Speak to’um, boy!” as the party pushed through the thicket and found Ring sitting before a loblolly pine, one of a group of three which grew close together with their upper limbs almost touching.

There are three methods of getting a raccoon out of a tree. By “shining” his eyes, which is done by holding the torch behind one, and shooting him; by cutting down the tree and trusting to the dogs to capture him before he gets away; or by climbing the tree and shaking him down or making him jump off. As Tom Ford was a noted climber and the tree was not too large for him to “hug,” it was decided to climb, after the “shining” method had been resorted to without success. Tom cut a stick about six feet long which he tied around his neck and dragged up after him. This[Pg 100] was to be used to poke the quarry off the limb in case he came to close quarters. He threw off his jacket and cap and commenced swarming up the trunk which stretched full forty feet without a limb, lifting himself with his powerful ape-like arms and the cupped hollows of his bare, horny feet, with which he gripped the trunk. In a few minutes he reached the first limb and the excitement below him increased, both hunters and dogs looking earnestly upward as the climber stood on the limb and looked above and around him, trying to locate the quarry.

Tom again hugged the tree, whose narrowed trunk now gave him a better hold, and went up ten or twelve feet to the next limb. Just as he pulled himself over it and got to his feet, there was a great rattling of claws on the bark of a long outstretching limb a few feet over his head, and, silhouetted against the patches of starlight that broke the leafage above him, he could make out the cunning ’coon running along the limb to its very end where it touched a far-reaching bough from the second tree of the group. Tom yelled, with the hope that he might frighten the animal into missing its step and falling, but the sure-footed creature passed safely and disappeared among the dark needles that veiled his sanctuary.

“Look out, Unk’ Ebbrum, look out! ’E done cross to de todduh tree,” Tom called, as he began to slide toward the earth. The group on the ground flared torches and looked anxiously at the new retreat, but no shining eyes were visible, and the futility of further pursuit of this particular ’coon was realized, as he[Pg 101] had demonstrated that he could cross too readily from one to another of the three sister pines. The short chase had lasted only a few minutes and the hunt took up its equipment and returned to the Caw Caw Swamp Road, Abram, after much pondering, having decided to exploit the “Tombs” drive, a noted hunting ground. Half a mile farther and the party turned to the right and in a few minutes passed near “the Tombs,” one of the Colonial burying grounds found occasionally in the low-country forests.

The solitary negro will seldom pass one of these graveyards at night, and even with companions and torches the ’coon-hunters walked more rapidly until “the Tombs” was passed. As they entered an old field with several large persimmon trees full of ripening fruit, to Abram’s experienced eye a presage of ’possums, sure enough, in a moment, one of Joe’s curs, with a shrill yelp, struck a hot trail and off they went across the big field, followed rapidly by men and boys. The dogs overtook the quarry at the edge of the clearing and treed at a young oak, near whose top the torches revealed a big ’possum about thirty feet from the ground. As the tree was easy, Sike, the fourteen-year-old novice, was given the place of honor as climber, and up he went, full of the pride that goeth before a fall. Sike was short and fat, and spread-eagled himself like a great black frog as he laboriously worked his way upward. The going was heavy, and having his hands or his arms full, he did not take the precaution to look above him until he had almost put his hand on the animal. A sudden snarl from the hunted, and a frightened yell from the hunter, who lost his hold and fell six or eight feet toward the[Pg 102] ground, clutching wildly at the branches on the way down, fortunately landing on one strong enough to bear his weight. He did not linger in the tree but slid to the ground as quickly as possible, where he was received with shouts of laughter. “Haw, Buck! ef oonuh ’f’aid ’possum, how you gwine t’row down rokkoon?” But Sike said nothing, while Joe went up the tree and threw down the ’possum, which rolled into a ball as soon as he touched the ground, and, after having been mouthed over by the dogs, was tied up in a sack and given to Sike to carry.

And now into the big swamp that stretched from the Tombs to Long Life Spring, a noted water-hole that never failed in even the worst drought. Ring gave tongue querulously once or twice on a cold trail. “Rokkoon,” Abram laconically remarked, and, as a shrill outcry from Joe’s nondescripts rang through the woods in another direction, “rabbit,” he added contemptuously. The younger negroes soon caught and thrashed the rabbit-chasers and, as Ring had now developed his trail and was giving tongue more freely, the other dogs were hied away to join him and soon added their voices to his. The cry skirted the swamp and in a few minutes their barking indicated that they had treed a quarter of a mile away. The ’coon had taken refuge in a big rosemary, whose smooth bark and thick trunk presented difficulties to a climber, and Abram decided to cut it down. Tom and Joe on opposite sides plied their axes vigorously. How many magnificent forest trees have been sacrificed since the war by the wasteful negro hunters who have no compunction about cutting down a ten dollar tree, belonging to some one else, to capture a “two-bit” raccoon! And[Pg 103] the negro who would grunt grievously if had to fell three or four big pines for a day’s work, will throw an equal number as a pastime, in an hour or two at night! Soon the tree began to crack, and the dogs were seized, to prevent them from rushing under the falling trunk in their eagerness to be on hand when the ’coon should jump out of the thick branches at the top. They were released as the tree crashed to earth. Although they quickly surrounded the top, the wary ’coon had already made a getaway, but the cry followed hot-foot and forced him up a white oak a hundred yards distant. The tree, of moderate size, was thickly branched and no glimpse of the ’coon could be discerned through the heavy leafage. Tom tied a long stick over his shoulder and was soon on the first big limb which he proceeded to explore, “cooning” it out, while the torch-bearers held their lights under the end of the limb, and thus the second and third limbs were explored, but no dark form appeared against the light, and Tom climbed to a fork thirty feet from the ground. He paused for a moment and looked about him, then yelled “Great Gawd, Unk’ Ebbrum, duh two rokkoon!”

“Nigguh eye yent fuh shine,” Abram replied, but he was spared the embarrassment of having to distinguish between Tom’s eyes and the raccoons’, for one of the animals, a half grown individual, broke sanctuary, and, dashing past Tom, slid down the tree to a lower limb, from whose extremity he sprang to the ground,[Pg 104] unhappily for him, only a few feet distant from the watching Ring, who was on him before he could get started. There was a furious scuffle for a few minutes but the veteran dog soon choked the ’coon to death.

Tom now commenced crawling out on the limb after the big raccoon, who growled menacingly and backed as the negro neared him. At last the limb began to sag under Tom’s weight and the ’coon at the very end, eight or ten feet beyond him, teetered uneasily, as the torches flared beneath him and the dogs yelped expectantly. The long stick was now brought into play and Tom straddled the bough while he tried to pry off the quarry, but in his zeal he overreached himself and slid too far. The bough buckled under him like a whip and he lost his balance, but while regaining his hold with monkey-like agility he clutched so frantically at the raccoon’s end of the limb as to dislodge its occupant, who fell in the very teeth of the dogs. In the fierce fight that ensued, the raccoon slit the ears of the younger dogs and mauled them severely before Ring could get the throat-hold he wanted. Once secured, however, he soon choked the ’coon to death. As midnight approached, it was decided to eat supper and go home.

A lot of dry wood was gathered and a big fire made in a little glade. The younger negroes sat around the flames waiting for the coals upon which to broil the smoked herrings. Old ’Bram stretched out on the ground with the soles of his bare feet toward, and almost in, the fire, and, true to the traditions of a night watchman, he soon fell asleep. The flames crackled. Tom and Joe and the solemn Sike blinked at the light and nodded, the dogs licked their wounds and whimpered[Pg 105] at the sharper twinges of pain. Suddenly old Abram grunted and “sniffed the tainted gale.”

“Eh, eh! Uh smell foot duh bu’n! Somebody’ foot mus’ be duh bu’n! Uh wunduh who’ foot duh bu’n?” Then, as he sat up and saw the curling smoke rising from the thick horny sole of one of his own feet, “Great Gawd, duh my’own! Duh my foot duh bu’n! Tom, oonuh binnuh seddown duh fiah duh look ’puntop my foot duh bu’n, hukkuh you nubbuh tell me?”

“Me shum duh bu’n fuh true, Unk’ Ebbrum, but oonuh binnuh sleep en’ uh t’awt ’e would bex you fuh wake.”

“Oonuh had no bidness fuh t’awt nutt’n’! You seddown duh fiah en’ look ’puntop my foot duh bu’n en’ nubbuh tell me. Joe, oonuh binnuh seddown duh fiah duh look ’puntop my foot duh bu’n, hukkuh you nubbuh tell me?”

“Unk’ ’Bram, I shum duh smoke, but uh nebbuh t’ink ’e bu’n bad ’nuf fuh hot you.”

“Co’se ’e didn’ bu’n bad ’nuf fuh hot me, but ef uh yent bin had sense ’nuf fuh smell’um en’ know suh somebody’ foot duh bu’n, ’e might uh bu’n off, en’ you seddown duh fiah en’ look ’puntop my foot duh bu’n en’ nubbuh tell me. Sike, oonuh binnuh seddown duh fiah duh look ’puntop my foot duh bu’n, hukkuh you nubbuh tell me?”

“Meself binnuh sleep. Enty uh smell somebody’ foot duh bu’n en’ mek me fuh wake? Oonuh boy’ grow up sence freedum, oonuh ent wut!”

The herrings were broiled and eaten with the hardtack, the spoils were slung around the shoulders of the hunters, the fire beaten out, the torches relit, and a[Pg 106] short cut taken for home. As old Abram relieved his substitute at the watchfire in the barnyard, his voice rumbled through his beard like the muttering of slow and distant thunder, “Uh done tell Mas’ Rafe suh dese’yuh nigguh’ grow’ up sence freedum, dem ent wut! Dem good fuh nutt’n’ debble’ub’uh no’count boy, dem seddown duh fiah duh look ’puntop my foot duh bu’n en’ dem nubbuh tell me suh my foot duh bu’n. Dem nubbuh tell me!”

Sabey, a queer, misshapen mulatto, almost an albino, with green eyes and yellow wool lighting and thatching a shrewd and twisted, though good-natured, monkey face, lived, a few years after the war, on Pon Pon. His wife, Bess, a good-looking black girl, was devoted to him as a good husband and a first-rate provider. When twitted by the other negro women with her husband’s lack of personal pulchritude, she was always ready with a retort.

“Sabey oagly en’ him look lukkuh monkey fuh true, but him iz uh good puhwiduh en’ no odduh man haffuh come een him house fuh feed him wife, en’ Stepney nebbuh come een needuh.”

Sabey lived in a cabin at the edge of the woods, far away from the other plantation settlements, seldom mixing with the other negroes, who rather feared him, having a vague sort of belief in his ability to throw spells. When not hunting, he worked, but he was usually hunting in winter, and hunting successfully, for although his piece was one of the condemned army muskets carried by so many low-country negroes after Freedom, he was a good shot and possessed infinite patience and considerable woodcraft. Energetic, too, his twisted legs carried him for miles through the forests and along the backwaters and abandoned ricefields where, creeping on all-fours and worming his way through cane-brakes and briars, he frequently surprised summer ducks, and occasionally mallard and teal, feeding on the grass seeds along the margins, or[Pg 108] the rich acorns from the live-oaks whose far-flung boughs stretched over the canals, and Sabey was an economist and seldom wasted shot on a single bird. On frosty mornings when he peeped over the embankments and saw green-wing teal strung upon a floating log basking in the first rays of the wintry sun, he would maneuver and crawl around, regardless of bogs or briars, until he got into a position where he could line them up, when, after his old “muskick” had spoken, he would sometimes gather up a dozen or more, which he sold to “de buckruh” on the plantations, or at the railway station; but it was as a turkey hunter that Sabey achieved distinction in the community.

Wild turkeys were very plentiful in the low-country soon after the war, and in the winter season flocks sometimes came up in the live-oak avenues and tangled gardens of the war-ruined plantations, making a boy’s heart thump against his ribs as he watched them picking up the acorns just out of gunshot of his little single-barrel. In roaming the woods, Sabey knew every dogwood knoll between the Stackyard and Beaver Dam, and when, in midwinter or later, he saw where the turkeys had “scratched” among the leaf mould for the glossy red berries that form their favorite wild food, he scattered handfuls of peas or rough rice about and returned a day or two later to see if the turkeys had taken the bait. If the scattered grain was untouched, he would offer temptation elsewhere until the wary birds had overcome suspicion and established relations with the rich man-grown food placed before them. The bait once taken, Sabey returned at two or three-day intervals and spread the feast anew, which after a while came to be to the turkeys as their daily[Pg 109] bread. Then, behind some hurricane tree or old log nearby, the hunter prepared the “blind”—usually a pit three or four feet deep, camouflaged with boughs or great pieces of pine bark, with a gun opening toward an open space where, in a shallow trench, grain was scattered. From the scratching ground under the dogwoods, a trail would be laid to the trench, which was visited and replenished day after day until the greedy birds had become fearless and came regularly to their breakfast table. Then “one fine day,” just at dawn, Sabey would shamble off to the forest and creep within his blind, where he almost held his breath in “watchful waiting” for the coming of his quarry.

Nothing save Sir Walter’s conception of the mutability of the feminine mind, is quite so uncertain as the hour of the coming of wild turkeys to a blind. Sometimes at daylight, as they fly from their roosts on the topmost limbs of the great pines, they go at once to the bait. The next day, perhaps, they may roam the woods for hours and not reach the blind until noon, and on yet other days the fickle creatures resist temptation altogether, so “it is well understood” that whoso would shoot turkeys at a blind must have abundant patience and a certain complacent attitude toward his own society.

Who can tell what thoughts moved through Sabey’s brain cells as he sat “steadfast, ummovable” through the waiting hours. Did the tips of Aurora’s rosy fingers mean anything to him as she lifted the somber curtains of the night and ushered in the radiant God of day? Did the harsh yet homey “chauw, chauw” of the brown thrasher—the first winter bird to awaken in copse or forest—take his thoughts to the lonely cabin[Pg 110] where Bess dreamed of the Sunday calico or the new shoes that would follow Sabey’s successful shot? Did the last hoot of the barred owl as, his night hunting over, he slipped away on muffled wing to the thick woods to drowse his days away, tell him anything of the human prototypes of all birds of prey? They, too, the selfish and the predatory, clutter up the by-ways of the world, closing their eyes to the light of service and the pulsing of humanity about them till, with the falling shadows, their eyes open and they prowl in quest of the unwary!

But whatever Sabey’s musings, he crept morning after morning into his blind and waited patiently as the hours slipped by, for the game that never came. Perhaps the wary birds had sensed danger at the blind—perhaps they had found a more convenient food supply elsewhere—but late every morning for a week Sabey had returned home weary and empty-handed, but, with a true sportsman’s spirit, determined to try again. Sunday intervened. A strong superstition in the negro’s mind, that to fire a gun on Sunday is to “hab sin,” kept him out of the woods, and he shambled off to church, but four o’clock the next morning, an hour before dawn, found him at the tryst which, through thought-waves, he believed he had made with the flock of turkeys.

They kept the tryst. The dawn came up slowly and silently, bringing in one of those rare windless, low-country winter days, when all the air is pale blue and gold and the forests are green and purple and brown. The first rays of the sun touched with pallid flame the topmost boughs of the tall pines and glanced from the myriad glistening needles that hung motionless in the[Pg 111] chilly air. As the sun climbed yet higher, its sensuous warmth drank up the white frost that lay like a crystal blanket upon the open spaces and the light vapors that hung over the dark places in the forest, and, as the warmer and softer air fell about Sabey, he drowsed at his post.

The outdoor negroes of the coast need neither watch nor clock to tell the time of day. From “middlenight” or “fus’ fowl crow,” on through the procession of the hours to “dayclean,” “sun’up,” “one,” “two,” “t’ree hour attuh sun’up,” to “middleday,” and then on, as the sun slants downward, through “t’ree hour,” “two hour,” “one hour to sundown,” and “fus’ daa’k,” he makes a close approximation. So, as Phœbus shot with flat trajectory across the Southern sky, Sabey, snuggled down among the dry pine needles with which he had nearly filled his trench, dozed and listened and dozed, and waking, muttered “middleday,” and dozed again.

A slight rustling of dead leaves like the whisper of gently falling rain, and ten beautiful gobblers entered the little glade and going straight to the trench, began picking up the grain greedily. The sunlight flashed from their gleaming breasts as from planished bronze. Their iridescent plumage showed all the tints of glorified autumn leaves, and, as they stooped to feed, their long beards touched the ground. A braver sight to a hunter’s eye than bear or buck or any other game that roams the Southern forests!

Sabey slowly opened his eyes and stiffened like a setter at the point. His long musket, already aligned to rake the trench, rested securely in a forked stick driven into the ground. As a sibilant whistle came[Pg 112] from his twisted lips, ten heads uprose like the armed men from the mythical dragon’s teeth, and came in line with the leveled gun. At a warning “putt” from their suspicious leader, they stood on tiptoe for a breakaway, but Sabey pulled his clumsy trigger, and following the heavy roar, he clambered out of the blind and ran forward to find seven great birds fluttering on the ground, while the others ran at race-horse speed for thirty or forty feet (your turkey, like your condor and your aeroplane, must take wing from a running start) and, rising on a long slant with a great beating of the air, topped the pines a quarter of a mile away and sailed off beyond “the Cypress.” The big birds, shot in the head, soon lay still and Sabey’s simian face wrinkled with satisfaction. “Tengk Gawd, uh git oonuh at las’,” he chuckled. “One, two, t’ree, fo’, fibe, six, seb’n,” he slowly counted—“t’ree git’way.” And then he scratched his head. Sabey was undersized, “him leetle but ’e ole,” the negroes observed, and could he pack far more than his weight in turkeys to the “big house” a mile away? It seemed a task too great for his strength, but his spirit was high, and, as he thought of the wildcats and gray foxes that abounded in these forests so seldom entered by hunter or woodman, he shook his head, pulled out a formidable-looking clasp knife and began to peel the bark from a young hickory. “No,” he said to himself, “uh yent fuh lef’ none. Uh tote’um all ef ’e tek me ’tell sundown fuh git Pon Pon. All wuh Mas’ Rafe ent buy, uh gwine tek deepo. No fox, needuhso wil’cat, nebbuh git ’e teet’ een dem tuckrey!” and he quickly removed the outer bark from the long strips he had skinned from the sapling and scraped and twisted the tough inner fibre into serviceable[Pg 113] thongs. This strong hickory bark is the common cordage of the plantation negroes and serves for girths, bridles and harness for horse and ox, and is also plaited into the long whips used by herdsmen and bird-minders, the “pop” of whose lash or “cracker” is as far-sounding as the report of a rifle. Sabey tied six of the birds in pairs by their long necks, distributing them as comfortably as he could about his ungainly person—one pair over each shoulder, while the other, hanging forward, supported by the back of his neck, was balanced by the seventh bird hung at his back, suspended from the barrel of his musket. Thus laden like a pack donkey, he threaded the thick woods, avoiding as best he could the tangled vines and dangerous stump holes, and came at last to the open clearing of “Cotton Hill.” Here he laid down his burden and rested, “fuh ketch me secun’ win’.” Half an hour later he took up his load and, mindful of the fact that he had been poaching, avoided the direct way through the fields to the settlement and, skirting the old ricefield, traversed with furtive eye the negro burying ground where, shaded by giant live-oaks, seven generations of slaves and freedmen slept under the thick mould. For many of the far-scattered family negroes still bring their dead to rest in these hallowed places on the old plantations. Apart from the sentiment, it gives them standing among the low-caste darkeys who had belonged to “po’ buckruh” and whose forbears slept in no ancestral graveyards. Passing behind the “Echo Oak,” Sabey reached the big road and, a quarter of a mile beyond, tramped boldly up the great avenue to sell “Mas’ Rafe” his own game. He made a dramatic entrance into the yard, his deformed body completely covered by the[Pg 114] splendid birds, their black beards hanging from their burnished breasts and their feet nearly touching the ground. The hounds, which had run out with bristling backs and open mouths at the unwonted sight, wagged their tails and whimpered as they caught the familiar scent of the game.

“No, Sabey. Beaver Dam is more than two miles off, and I heard a gun in the Stackyard.”

“Yaas, suh, but duh Beabuh Dam uh shoot’um. Uh mek uh bline’ on da’ po’ buckruh’ groun’, ’cause him all-time duh mek bline’ ’puntop’uh yo’ groun’, en’ uh shoot him tuckrey fuh pay’um back, en’ uh ’spec’ da’ gun you yeddy shoot duh da’ po’ buckruh wuh bin attuh da’ gang uh tuckrey wuh use een dem dogwood t’icket. Meself been yeddy uh gun shoot Stackyaa’d w’en uh bin Beabuh Dam.” “Mas’ Rafe” passed his hand admiringly over the glossy breast of the largest bird while deftly feeling his crop. “What did you bait these turkeys with?”

“Uh bait’um wid cawn, ’cause uh nebbuh mek no peas las’yeah, needuhso no rice.”

“Eh, eh, Mas’ Rafe! You see me wid bag? You t’ink suh me t’ief yo’ rice? Wuh nyuse me hab fuh[Pg 115] rice? Me en’ Bess alltwo lub fuh eat cawn hom’ny tummuch.”

“Who? Me! Mas’ Rafe, you hu’t me feelin’s fuh talk ’bout bait dese tuckrey wid rice! Weh me fuh git rice? Dese tuckrey nebbuh see uh rice sence dem bawn!”

“Dem got rice een dem craw? Mas’ Rafe, dem tuckrey mus’be bin spang Willtown dis mawnin’ fuh use een Baa’nwell’ ricefiel’, en’ full dem craw, en’ attuh dat dem come six mile to de bline’ weh uh kill’um.”

“But it is only five miles from Willtown to Beaver Dam, Sabey, and six miles to the Stackyard, where you didn’t kill the turkeys!”

Completely cornered, Sabey grinned. “Mas’ Rafe, you sho’ hab uh good onduhstan’ fuh know nigguh! Nigguh ent fuh fool you! No, suh!”

And then the former slaveholder bought the game shot on his own land and baited with his own grain, from the freedman who had stolen both, which is not infrequently the way of former slave-holders in dealing with former slaves.

Crook-legged, pumpkin-colored, yellow-wooled, green-eyed Sabey—the mightiest turkey hunter on Pon Pon—sat in the midsummer sunshine at his cabin door and talked, partly to himself and partly to his black wife, Bess, who busied herself within. A protracted drought was over the land, and Sabey’s summer harvest was at hand. Hunting turkeys and ducks in the winter, he was equally successful in his summer quest for the much-esteemed fresh water terrapins which abounded in the backwaters and the sluggish lily-covered canals that intersected the abandoned inland ricefields. They found a ready market on the plantations or at the railway station, whence they were shipped to Charleston, to appear on the tables of her discriminating gourmets in the form of highly spiced soups and stews. These big terrapins were frequently offered for sale by negroes who surprised the slow creatures while crossing the road or path on their way from one canal or pond to another, or trapped them in some shallow water hole. A few negroes even hunted them occasionally, the only equipment necessary being an empty crocus bag and a pair of legs—naked or trousered—with bare feet attached. Sneaking as close as possible to the floating log on which the terrapins sunned themselves, the hunter crept up until they became alarmed and slid off into the water, when he jumped in after them, and if the water was not more than three or four feet deep he could usually locate them by feeling about on the bottom near the log with his bare feet, when he would bob his head and his[Pg 117] hands under, and the prize would go into the sack hung about his neck. But Sabey followed successfully, not only the ordinary methods of capture, but during dry spells adopted the hazardous expedient of going down into the alligator holes after them. As Prairie dogs, owls and rattlesnakes live together in the same burrows on the Western plains, terrapins are always found in alligator holes with their hosts in dry spells when the water is low, and he who would secure them must either get the alligator out first, or go down into the hole with him—one a difficult, the other a dangerous, adventure.

In the cruel midsummer droughts that sometimes occurred in the low-country, even the wet savannas and backwaters were parched to desert dryness. The muddy bottoms, ordinarily covered with water, even the shallower canals and ditches, sun-baked and cracked open, were abandoned by the life that sometime swam or waded in the waters now receded. Only the deeper places held water, and these roiled with the teeming fish and eels and terrapins that cluttered up the muddy pools. Crane and heron—greater and lesser—flew squawking overhead, or stalked along the marges taking heavy toll of their helpless prey, while in the mud round about countless tracks of otter, mink and raccoon showed that, like lions at the African water holes, these lesser creatures, too, held nightly carnival at the water. Now came the human spoilers—negroes with “jampots” or “churnpots”—cylindrical contrivances about fifteen inches in diameter by thirty inches in height, made of canes tied together with hickory bark thongs, and looking like tall, bottomless waste-baskets. Wading in the shallow waters, the fisherman holds his jampot by the upper rim with both[Pg 118] hands, churning the water in front of him. Apprised by splash or flutter that a fish has been trapped, he reaches one hand into the cage, withdraws his catch, which he bestows in a bag hung about his neck, and “churns” again. When conditions were favorable for this form of fishing, the negroes, in the years immediately following the war, caught not only the coarse mudfish and “cats” which they so affect, but destroyed also countless thousands of trout and bream and other fine food fish. In Sabey’s time, almost every other negro in the well-watered districts owned a jampot, and the making of this was an important side line of the old plantation chair and basket-makers, but, synchronously perhaps with the destruction of the fish, the art, or the practice, of “churning” passed away, and it is seldom heard of now.

Now that a “hebby dry drought” was on, Sabey licked his chaps in pleasant anticipation. No rain was in prospect. The roaring of alligators is regarded by low-country weather sharps as a sign of coming rain, but, although the old bulls had bellowed lustily at dawn on several consecutive mornings, the sun still blazed from a cloudless sky and the heat waves danced and shimmered in the breathless air, giving point to the saw that in a drought all signs fail, which was once strikingly illustrated by an old-time plantation driver, whose master, needing rain, drew comfort from the persistent bellowing of the alligators. “Did you hear those ’gators this morning, Scipio? That should bring rain.”

“Berry well, suh. Enty you know, Maussuh, suh Dry Drought duh him own maussuh, en’ him ent ’f’aid alligettuh? En’, Maussuh, Dry Drought him haa’d-head’ ez de berry Satan! Nobody ent fuh mek’um fuh do nutt’n’! All dem todduh kinduh wedduh dem berry ’f’aid alligettuh. W’en alligettuh belluh fuh rain, dem big Bloodynoun frog dem jine’um, ‘come’yuh rain, come’yuh’ rain, come’yuh rain!’ Den dem po’ leely frog een de tree, dem hab shishuh mo’nful woice, dem biggin fuh cry. Bimeby, rain come. But Dry Drought, him ent stan’ so. W’en Dry Drought come, bullfrog know suh alligettuh cyan’ mek’um fuh wedduh, en’ you yeddy’um holluh ‘’e yent fuh rain, ’e yent fuh rain, ’e yent fuh rain!’ Alligettuh bex. ’E holluh ’gen. Dry Drought suck ’e teet’ at’um. ’Scuse me fuh cuss, Maussuh, but Dry Drought him ent care uh dam ’bout alligettuh, uh dunkyuh ef’ ’e holluh ’tell ’e belly bus’!”

So, as the unterrified “Dry Drought” burned about him, Sabey prepared to start his campaign. The waters, long drying up, were now low enough. Many alligators had been forced to move, and the smaller ones were frequently encountered in the road—sometimes even on the high pineland plateaus—as they traveled toward the river or adventured in search of deeper canals or water holes. They always showed fight, too, swelling up like pouter pigeons, standing high off the ground, and hissing like geese, while they watched for a chance to lash out with dangerous tail. But, with the conservatism of age and wealth, the big old fellows seldom moved from their favorite pools on which opened their subterranean holes or burrows, excavated with their forefeet, like those of other burrowing creatures. Here in the deep pools were fish at hand, and nearby were the pig paths[Pg 120] along which unwary shoats, going to the water, or nosing about in the soft earth for succulent roots, would often come in reach of the sweeping tail, and add to the variety of the big ’gator’s fare. In these deep underground holes, the ugly creatures hibernated from autumn to spring, until, with the earliest warm sunshine, first the nose and eyes would appear cautiously above the water which covered the entrance to the hole, and, growing bolder day by day, as the weather became warmer, next the head, and, at last the entire body would be exposed, lying on the muddy bank, or on a tussock among the rushes. Here, perhaps, he would be descried by some adventurous boy, who, sighting carefully despite his palpitating heart, would shatter the ’gator’s skull with a rifle bullet or reach his heart by a well-aimed charge of buckshot behind the shoulder; but, barring the boy, the days of the big ’gators were long in the land, for they became more wary with advancing years and seldom fell to the negroes’ firearms.

While the drought was yet young, the heaviest alligator in the community had been located by Sabey at the “Half Moon” dam, and now the deep pool into which his hole opened contained all the water that was left in the great savanna. The yawning mouth of the big ’gator hole, ordinarily covered with water, now disclosed a parched throat wide enough to have taken in a barrel. From day to day during the pendency of the drought, Sabey had sneaked up to the pool hoping to surprise the ’gator out of his hole and by a lucky shot get him out of the way and clear the path to the terrapins, but he had not been fortunate enough to see him, although he knew he was there by the tracks and[Pg 121] the impress of his great body in the baked mud that lay between the pool and the entrance to his hole. Even had Sabey found him, he could have slain him only with a close shot in the unprotected region just under the arm, for the negro seldom shoots anything larger than number two shot, which would have glanced harmlessly off the tough scales with which the ’gator was almost completely armored.

Forced to oust the householder, in order to get at his unbidden guests, the terrapin hunter was now turned ’gator hunter. Although almost invariably hunting alone, pulling the smaller ’gators out of their holes with an iron hook and killing them with his axe, the master of the Half Moon pool was too ugly a customer to be so easily disposed of, and, after pondering long, Sabey determined to organize a ’gator hunt for the following day and call to his aid some of the plantation negroes.

On Saturday morning a dozen negroes, men and boys, met Sabey at the Half Moon. They were making holiday and laughed and chaffed in high spirits. A few carried jampots, intending to churn the waters for their favorite mudfish. Others, directed by Sabey, had brought strong plow lines which they had borrowed without leave from “de buckruh’,” and three or four were provided with axes. Besides his musket, Sabey carried on his shoulder a stout seven-foot hickory staff, at one end of which the village blacksmith had attached an iron ring, while at the other he had riveted a strong iron shaft shaped somewhat like a medieval pike—a spear-like point with which to prod and stir up his ’gatorship, and a sharp, though heavy, hook with which to drag him out of his retreat.[Pg 122] Although Sabey was the master craftsman of them all in this form of adventure, the two or three old darkeys in the bunch could not refrain from giving advice. “Git een de hole, Sabey, git een de hole,” said old Cato Giles, the plantation foreman. “Tek de plow line en’ tie’um to ’e foot, den we mans kin drag’um out.”

“Duh me gwine een de hole, enty? Hukkuh uh gwine git at da’ alligettuh’ foot bedout git at ’e head fus’? Me fuh pit my head een ’e mout’ w’ile uh duh tie ’e foot, enty? No, suh!”

Cutting a long, supple pole from a nearby thicket, Sabey ran it down the hole in order to determine its underground course and locate its occupant. He knelt at the opening and ran his sapling down carefully, listening for the scraping of the far end against the rough scales of the alligator. The hole, which slanted downward at an angle of 45 degrees, proved to be almost straight, and, when twelve feet of the pole had been shoved in, Sabey heard the grating sound he had been listening for, and knew what work was before him. Withdrawing the pole, he first made fast a double plow line to the ring end of his staff, while he tied another line around one of his ankles and prepared to go down into the hole. “Tek off yo’ shu’t, man,” advised old Cato. “Ef da’ ’gatuh bite you ’e gwine spile’um, en’ no use fuh t’row’way uh shu’t.”

“Yaas, man,” another said, “tek’um off. You kin slip een da’ hole bettuh bedout’um.”

So Sabey cast off shirt and hat, and, with a warning to his companions to pull him out quickly if he should call, went down on his hands and knees and crawled head-foremost into the hole, pushing his billhook before him. Wriggling like a snake, he dragged himself[Pg 123] slowly and cautiously downward, and, about the time he had gone down far enough to leave only his toes sticking out of the mouth of the hole, the sharp point of his staff rattled against the ’gator’s skull as he lay head on toward the entrance. The strong, musky smell of the great saurian would have suffocated one less tough than Sabey, but he paid no attention to it, and prodded with his staff until he had maneuvered the sharp point of his hook under the ’gator’s throat when, with a quick upward jerk, he fastened it in the creature’s lower jaw, and, as a hissing sigh met him in the face, he shouted and kicked his heels at the same time as a signal that he wished to come up. They pulled so lustily that his crooked leg was almost jerked out of its socket, and his head came out, grumbling and scolding, “Oonuh t’ink me duh alligettuh ’long fo’ foot, enty? Wuh me fuh do fuh foot attuh oonuh pull off dem wuh uh got? Oonuh mus’be fool! Oonuh nebbuh pull nigguh outuh alligettuh hole befo’?”

But they were now too excited to quarrel, and, seizing the double plow lines, they began, under Sabey’s direction, to pull slowly on the ’gator. Had Sabey hooked him in a less sensitive part, they could not have budged him. He was too well braced for hanging back, but his throat was comparatively tender, and inch by inch he began to come up, while the negroes shouted and chanted with delight, their excitement increasing as the line shortened and the quarry neared the mouth of the hole, till at last the ugly snout was pushed forward, and then the head, full two feet long, appeared as the fore feet followed, and the ’gator reared up. Frightened, the negroes retreated to the very end of the line. Meanwhile, Sabey had seized his musket[Pg 124] and executed a flank movement, and realizing that, as the ’gator’s tail was still underground, there was little danger in a close approach, crept up and, firing when the muzzle of his gun almost touched the ’gator’s side, tore a great hole just behind the shoulder. The negroes shouted with joy, for they realized that the wound was mortal. But ’gators take a long time to die, and they kept pulling, and he kept crawling, until his entire length of nine feet had been drawn out of the hole. Sabey was wary, and insisted on their retaining hold of the staff, which was still hooked in the ’gator’s throat, and he warned his companions of the danger in approaching within reach of the treacherous tail, but after awhile, as the great creature slowly bled to death, several of the younger negroes walked too near, and, while appraising with gastronomic appreciation the great tail, which many of the negroes eat with avidity, it lashed out suddenly. A feeble effort, but with force enough to send the frightened negroes on both sides of him sprawling and rubbing their bruised legs which the ’gator’s sweep, delivered with full force, could have broken like pipe stems.

And now that the Dragon that guarded the treasure had been haled from the dungeon and put hors de combat, Sabey tied a couple of empty sacks, each to a plow line, and essayed a second nose dive into the pit of promise. There is always danger of getting jammed or stuck in exploring a ’gator hole, but Sabey was experienced and cautious, and the hole was large, so down he went, taking the sacks with him, and soon reached the bottom, which had widened into a considerable cavity eighteen feet from the mouth. His exploring hands, feeling in front of him, found a small[Pg 125] pool of water literally alive with terrapins. Having ample room to turn around, Sabey lost no time in filling one of his sacks with terrapins, which, at a jerk of the line, was hauled up out of his way. The second sack held all that remained, and, when this had followed the first, he turned, and, facing upward, decided to go head-foremost, preferring to crawl out like a self-respecting caterpillar, under his own steam, rather than be hauled up by the heels like a slaughtered shoat. But, fearing suffocation in the close quarters underground, he had admonished the men above, who managed the rope attached to his foot, to pull him up quickly at the first jerk, and, as he turned upward, his free leg became entangled with the tied one. In kicking loose, he gave the line a jerk, to which his friends responded so suddenly that they hauled his legs up under him, trussing him into the semblance of a bronze statuette of a squatting Buddha. Sabey yelled with pain and anger, for the hole, while large enough for a man to pass extended, was too close for him doubled up, and Sabey was stuck in the barrel. His muffled cries reached his friends, but they thought them calls for more speed, and the harder they pulled, the tighter they jammed the unhappy wretch.

It was old Cato who noticed that they had not budged him an inch. “’Top, oonuh man, ’top!” he shouted. “’Ee yent duh moobe. Slack de rope.”

As they stopped pulling, Sabey hauled in the slack, released his legs, and, hauling on the rope hand over[Pg 126] hand, was soon at the mouth of the hole, where he lay for several minutes to fill up with fresh air. When, recovered sufficiently to get mad, he rose on all-fours like an alligator, he presented a fearful sight. His yellow wool, his face, and his copper-colored arms and torso were smeared and streaked with black mud, his ragged trousers, water-soaked and muddy, clung to his crooked legs, and he looked like a composite of iguana and ape.

Though ordinarily a taciturn negro, Sabey, under the spur of anger, galloped through his vocabulary of invective at top speed. “Oonuh good fuh nutt’n’ debble’ub’uh no’count nigguh! Oonuh ent wut! Uh tell oonuh ’sponsubble fuh haul de rope w’en uh pull’um ’long me han’, uh nebbuh tell oonuh fuh haul’um w’en uh kick’um ’long me foot! Oonuh ent know de diff’unce ’twix’ man’ han’ en’ ’e foot? Ef man tell oonuh fuh tek uh cucklebuhr outuh mule yez, oonuh gwine saa’ch fuhr’um een ’e tail, enty? Oonuh mus’be tek me fuh annimel!”

“Ef you ent wash off dem mud en’ t’ing ’fo’ you gone home, Bess gwine tek you fuh cootuh, eeduhso fuh ’ranguhtang, en’ him ent gwi’ leh you fuh gone een him house,” they chaffed.

Sabey washed in the muddy pool, resumed his shirt, tied the two sacks of terrapins together, hung them over the gun barrel at his back, and prepared to shake the mud of the Half Moon off his feet. “W’en uh done sell dese yuh yalluh-belly cootuh en’ gone een me house wid alltwo me han’ full’up wid money, Bess gwine lub me tummuch, ef uh yiz look lukkuh ’ranguhtang. Monkey hab fo’ han’, en’ de mo’res’ han’ man hab, de mo’ ’ooman lub’um! Oonuh black Aff’ikin Guinea nigguh![Pg 127] Oonuh kin nyam da’ alligettuh, en’ w’en oonuh yiz nyam’um, oonuh duh cannibel!”

For many years old John, as country coachman for the late Governor Aiken, periodically drove a pair of switch-tailed mules to the Governor’s carriage, making round trips between Jehossee Island and Adams Run station, whenever his employer came from Charleston to visit the great rice plantation. John was a trim and finicky old darkey, with quite a manner, and, in his old beaver hat and long-tailed coat, made a notable figure among the darkeys usually loafing about the station.

Low-country negroes never miss a train. Journeying by rail, they take no chances, but invariably reach the station several hours ahead of train time, where, chattering and gossiping, the waiting time passes quickly and pleasantly.

Among these groups old John, with his long-handled whip of plaited buckskin, correctly looped, and carried coachman fashion, moved and exchanged pleasantries. He, too, was always ahead of time, and his docile mules, switching their long, untrimmed tails about, and hitched to the only closed carriage in the community, were always objects of interest to the station idlers.

“Uncle John, mekso oonuh ent shabe dem mule tail?” inquired one of a group that squatted upon the platform.

“Ahnhn, uh t’awt so. Gal, you ebbuh see blackbu’d’ ’puntop’uh rice rick? You is shum, enty? Berry well;[Pg 129] dem muskittuh’ een Johossee maa’sh stan’ same fashi’n. W’en dem light ’puntop’uh mule, dem kibbuhr’um ’tell oonuh cyan’ see dem haa’ness! One time, jis’ attuh daa’k, uh binnuh dribe comin’ een late f’um Adam’ Run, en’ w’en uh ’trike de causeway, all ub uh sudd’nt uh nebbuh yeddy no mule’ foot duh trot ’puntop’uh de groun’! De cyaaridge duh moobe, but uh yent yeddy no soun’ f’um de mule’ foot. Uh say tuh mese’f, eh, eh, duh warruh dish’yuh? Uh look ’gen, en’, uh ’cla’ tuh goodness, de muskittuh’ dat t’ick ’puntop de mule’ belly, dem hice’um up off de groun’, en’ duh flew t’ru de ellyment duh cya’um ’long! Dem wing’ duh sing sukkuh bee duh swawm, en’ de mule’ duh trot wid all fo’ dem foot, but ’e nebbuh tetch no groun’! Uh nebbuh do nutt’n ’tell uh cross de bridge, ’cause de bridge mek out’uh pole, en’ dem berry slip’ry duh night time, en’ uh glad de mule’ ent haffuh pit dem foot ’puntop’um, but attuh uh done cross de bridge, uh tek me lash en’ uh cut de mule’ two’t’ree time onduhneet’ dem belly, en’, uh ’cla’ tuh my Mastuh, t’ree peck uh muskittuh’ drap ’puntop de groun’ en’ uh yeddy de mule’ foot duh trot ’gen een de road! So, attuh dat, uh nebbuh shabe de Gub’nuh’ cyaaridge mule’ tail no mo’, en’ now you shum stan’ dey, dem kin lick muskittuh’, fly en’ t’ing’ same lukkuh hawss.”

So old John, coachman and raconteur, a faithful and respected servant, lived his days, which were long, and when at last he was gathered to his fathers, his funeral was the talk of the colored countryside, and his grave, ornately decorated with broken bits of old blue china and the stone bottles in which Bass’ ale had once been imported, was much admired by those whose sad occasions brought them to the plantation[Pg 130] God’s-Acre under the spreading live-oaks.

“Yaas, tittie, ’e fine fuh true. You see da’ blue chaney, enty? Dat chaney bin ’e Missis’ pitchuh ’tell de pitchuh’ mout’ done bruk out. One time ’e missis sen’ one leely nigguh gal duh big spring wid ’e blue pitchuh fuh fetch watuh. De gal full’ de pitchuh en’ pit’um ’puntop ’e head duh walk duh paat’ comin’ fuh de house. De gal duh walk ca’less like, duh swing ’e han’, en’ ’e yeye high, en’ ’e nebbuh look ’puntop de paat’, en’ one limus cootuh binnuh cross ’e paat’, en’ him git to de paat’ same time de gal git dey, en’ de gal ’tump ’e toe ’puntop de cootuh, en’ de cootuh t’row’um down, en’ de pitchuh fall off de gal’ head en’ ’trike ’puntop’uh root, en’ de pitchuh’ mout’ bruk out en’ de gal gone back duh big spring en’ full’ de pitchuh ’gen, en’ pit’um ’puntop ’e head en’ gone big house duh paat’, but ’e dat ’f’aid suh limus cootuh gwine hit’um ’gen, ’e ’tep’ high, en’ w’en ’e ’tep’ high de watuh wuh ’e fetch f’um big spring ’plash’ out de pitchuh’ bruk mout’ en’ drap’ ’puntop de gal two eye’ en’ run down ’e face en’ gone een ’e mout’, en’ w’en de gal git duh big house, ’e missis look ’puntop all de watuh en’ t’ing’ dey ’puntop ’e face en’ ’e missis t’ink de gal cry tuh dat, en’ ’e missis sorry fuhr’um en’ ’e nebbuh lick’um nuh nutt’n’, en’ ’e gi’ de bruk mout’ pitchuh to de gal, en’ w’en de gal grow up, Buh John hab’um fuh wife, en’ da’ de way Buh John git de pitchuh, en’ attuh Buh John done dead, ’e wife wuh ’e lef’ tek hatchitch en’ bruk de pitchuh ’gen, en’ pit eb’ry Gawd piece ’puntop Buh John’ grabe, en’ da’ w’ymekso ’e stan’ so.”

“’E grabe look stylish fuh true, but uh know berry well w’en my juntlemun dead me yent fuh bruk no[Pg 131] pitchuh en’ t’ing fuh pit ’puntop him cawpse, ’cause da’ nigguh ent wut, ’e too lub fuh drink rum, en’ w’en ’e fetch’um home, him fuhrebbuh duh fall down en’ bruk de bottle wuh ’e fetch’um een, en’ uh hab all dem bruk bottle pile’ een de fench cawnuh fuh pit ’puntop him grabe w’en ’e dead. Two’t’ree time Joe seem lukkuh ’e kinduh spishus ’bout de bruk bottle, en’ ’e ax me wuffuh uh duh sabe’um, but uh tell’um uh sabe’um fuh beat’um up ’long pessle, fuh pizen buckruh’ dog, en’ dat sattify ’e mine’ en’ ’e lemme ’lone.”

“You sho’ hab uh good onduhstan’, tittie, ’cause man ent fuh know tummuch. Ef ’ooman tell’um de trute ’e nebbuh sattify. ’Ooman haffuh fool’um fuh mek’um easy een ’e mine’!”

“You duh talk trute, tittie, him lub you fuh fool’um. Fool’um duh de only t’ing him gwine b’leebe.”

“Yaas, man, meself hab uh good ecknowledge fuh fool’um. One time Paul, him duh my juntlemun, binnuh wu’k to de maa’l, duh dig rock, down to John Ilun’. Monday mawnin’, him git up soon, ’e gone deepo, ’e ketch de shoofly strain, en’ ’e gone! Uh nebbuh shum ’gen ’tell Sattyday night. Wuh me fuh do? Seddown een me house ’tell him come home en’ watch ’tettuh duh bile? No, suh! Uh lub fuh talk tummuch! Soon ez uh yeddy de strain blow, en’ uh sattify’ my juntlemun gone, uh tek me two foot en’ uh gone Paa’ker’ Ferry Cross Road’ weh da’ buckruh hab ’e big sto’. All dem boy’ wuh ent hab nutt’n’ fuh do, dey dey duh talk, en’ ’nuf ’ooman’ dey dey duh hol’ cumpuhshashun ’long de man en’ t’ing. W’en daa’k come, uh gone home. Uh cook, uh eat, uh leddown duh bed, uh sleep. Chuesday mawnin’, uh gone same fashi’n, en’ eb’ry Gawd’ day ’tell bimeby Sattyday come ’gen. Uh[Pg 132] clean de house, uh wash, uh sweep de yaa’d, en’ uh gone Cross Road’. Uh pass de time uh day ’long dem todduh nigguh’ ’tell uh yeddy de strain f’um town blow deepo, den uh gone home fuh wait ’tell Paul come. Befo’ uh lef’ de sto’, Sancho Frajuh binnuh drink rum en’ ’e t’row’way ’e money berry freehan’, en’ ’e buy ’bout two quawt’ uh candy, dese’yuh ’ticky kind’uh t’ing, dem hab ’ooman name, de buckruh call’um Carrie Mel, but eb’n so, ’e mek out’uh pinegum en’ muhlassis, en’ ef oonuh chaw’um ’e gwine hol’ yo’ jaw ’tell t’unduh roll. De buckruh hab’um een ’e sto’ sence las’ yeah en de t’ing haa’d ez uh i’un. Sancho gi’ eb’ry ’ooman two han’ful’. Uh wrop one de han’ful’ een uh papuh en’ drap’um een me ap’un pocket. Uh t’row de todduh han’ful een me mout’ en’ biggin fuh chaw. Uh chaw, en’ uh chaw, uh chaw, en’ uh chaw. De t’ing sweet’n’ me fuh true, but ’e ketch me jaw’ en’ ’e hol’um same lukkuh pinegum plastuh! De mo’ uh chaw’um de mo’ ’e swell. Time uh git tuh me house, de t’ing wrop roun’ eb’ry teet’ een me head lukkuh jackwine wrop roun’ tree. Alltwo me jaw’ stan’ same fashi’n ez mufflejaw fowl, en’ me mout’ swell’up same lukkuh Buh Quash’ mout’ stick out w’en ’e bex! W’en uh git tuh de do’, Paul dey dey duh wait fuh me! ’Fo’ him kin ax me no squeschun, uh smaa’t ’nuf fuh t’row me ap’un tuh me mout’ fuh hide’um, en’ uh kibbuhr’um up en’ biggin fuh moan. Uh moan, en’ uh moan. Paul ax me wuffuh uh mek shishuh hebby cumplain. Uh ’ca’cely kin able fuh talk, but uh tell’um uh binnuh walk roun’ de fench en’ uh walk ’puntop yalluh jacket nes’ en’ de t’ing ’ting me tuh dat. ’E ax me w’ich one de jaw ’e ’ting me ’pun. Uh p’int tuh me lef han’ jaw. ’E ax me ’smattuh mek alltwo de jaw’ swell. Uh tell’um gumbile[Pg 133] mek todduh one fuh swell. Den uh biggin fuh cry. Watuh stan’ een me two eye’. Uh baig’um fuh gone deepo en’ baig some dem buckruh’ fuh g’em some linniment fuh de mis’ry een alltwo me jaw’. Paul say suh him kin gone Cross Road’ en’ buy’um, but uh ’f’aid ef him gone Cross Road’, Sancho dem gwine tell’um suh me bin dey, en’ uh tell’um no, uh yent want’um fuh t’row’way him money ’cause uh lub’um tummuch, en’ uh mo’ redduh him fuh baig de buckruh’, den fuh buy’um out him own money. Dat mek’um sattify, en’ ’e gone deepo. Soon ez ’e gone, uh try fuh git da’ debble’ub’uh ’ceitful Carrie Mel out me mout’. De t’ing ’tick same lukkuh Buh Rabbit ’tick tuh Taar Baby. ’E won’ tu’n me loose! Den me bline’gawd tell me fuh greese’um. Uh gone duh house, uh mek fiah, uh pit one fat bakin een de pan, en’ w’en de meat done fry, uh tek’um een me mout’ en’ biggin fuh chaw. Bimeby de greese biggin fuh loose de Carrie Mel, en’ uh tek alltwo me han’ en’ uh pull’um out me mout’, en’ uh t’row’um ’way, en’ uh t’row’um fudduh!

“W’en Paul come back wid de buckruh linniment, uh duh hol’ me two jaw’ en’ uh dull moan. Him gimme de t’ing, uh rub’um, en’ attuhw’ile, w’en him done cook de bittle wuh ’e fetch f’um John Ilun’, uh call’um fuh look ’puntop me two jaw’ weh de swell’ done gone, en’ ’e dat sattify, ’e gimme de money wuh him bin fuh buy linniment duh Cross Road, en’ ’e nebbuh yeddy ’bout no Sancho!”

A brilliant tropical day in late August. A strong breeze from the river moved the glistening leaves and swayed the long pennons of gray Spanish moss that swung from every bough and twig of the great live-oaks, whose spreading arms stretched their protecting shade over the plateau upon which stood the Big House, crowning the highest point of Prospect Hill. A mile away swept the flowing tide of the broad and beautiful Edisto, whose shimmering waters, opposed by the summer wind, danced and sparkled in the sunlight. Upon the lower levels between the uplands and the river lay the great fields of early rice, now ready for the sickle. Intersecting the fields or “squares” at regular intervals, and contrasting with their green and gold opulence, shining silver-blue canals ran from river to headland. Far across the river on “the Island,” the eye rested upon an emerald expanse of June rice which would come to harvest six weeks later. From the ripening fields the “harvest flow” had been taken off, the squares dried, and on this Monday morning 100 hands had gathered by sunrise, for, by the mysterious grapevine telegraph through which negroes on one plantation hear almost instantaneously what is going forward on other plantations miles away, the news had gone about that rice-cutting was to commence at Prospect Hill, and the gregarious negroes, deserting the smaller settlements, flocked hither to the big plantation where, working in gangs, they could exchange quip and jest and gather the gossip of the countryside. Some of the best rice-cutters were the[Pg 135] sturdy young women, who, with skirts tied up above their knees and wearing men’s wool hats to mitigate the heat of the sun, kept pace with the best of their masculine associates. Cutting and tying by piece work, an active hand could readily complete his task, the allotment for a day’s work, an hour before noon, and some of those who had walked six or seven miles in the morning would knock off as soon as the task was finished and loaf around the quarters until sundown, while others, pushing their luck, held on until the evening, putting two days’ work into one. Armed with the saw-edged, sickle-like “rice hooks,” the cutters stretched across the squares, each seizing with her left hand as large a bundle of the heavy-headed stalks as she could conveniently grasp, which, with one stroke of her right arm, she quickly severed a few inches above the ground, laid the bundle on the stubble ready for those who tied into sheaves behind her, and, with a sweep of her left, gathered another handful for the embrace of the crescent-shaped blade. Down the steaming field moved a skirmish line of lusty black wenches, bare-armed, bare-footed and bare-legged, their skirts drawn above their knees by a cord about the waist, which took up the slack. Here and there among them worked men, and these, often physically inferior to the females of the species, were subjected to constant raillery and frequent challenges to equal the self-appointed tasks of the women.

Venus Chisolm and Diana Smashum, two strapping Amazons, were the most expert of the women rice-cutters, and excelled most of the men in efficiency. Scipio Jenkins, a smart young buck, was the special butt of the gang of which Diana and Venus were the[Pg 136] leaders. Scipio was unusually black, with the common combination of yellow eyes and blue gums, and upon this color scheme his tormentors lit like bee martins on a crow.

“Yaas, tittie, ’e stan’ so fuh true. Sat’d’y night da’ nigguh gone Cross Road’. ’E buy uh killybash full uh rum f’um de buckruh. ’E drink’um eb’ry Gawd’ drap. ’E nebbuh gi’ nobody none. ’E gone home. Sunday, ’e dead! ’E nebbuh know nutt’n’ ’tell Sunday night ’e maamy full’ uh piggin full uh watuh out de well en’ t’row’um ’puntop’uh Scipio, weh ’e duh leddown ’puntop de flo’, fuh mek’um fuh wake. De nigguh binnuh leddown ’puntop ’e back fuh sleep. ’E sleep’ haa’d. ’E groan’ en’ ’e groan! ’E groan’ en’ ’e groan’! ’E mout’ op’n roun’ same lukkuh snake hole. W’en de watuh full’ ’e mout’, ’e blow lukkuh de ’strucshun strain injine duh blow off steam w’en ’e duh load grabble! De t’ing ’trangle’um. ’E choke! ’E jump out ’e maamy’ do’ en’ ’e gone t’ru de briah-patch dat fas’ ’e lef’ half ’e britchiz ’puntop de briah! Bumbye, w’en ’e maamy gone duh ’ood fuh fine’um, please Gawd, de nigguh binnuh leddown flat ’puntop ’e belly een de du’t, duh swim! Da’ piggin full uh watuh hab shishuh cuntrady tas’e een ’e mout’, ’e mek’um t’ink suh him dey een de ribbuh! ’E ’tretch out all fo’ ’e han’ en’ ’e[Pg 137] foot. ’E ten finguh’ duh grabble een de du’t. Bumbye, w’en ’e han’ loos’n de du’t, ’e feel uh pinetree root. ’E graff’um een alltwo ’e han’! ’E holluh. ‘Tengk Gawd,’ ’e say, ‘uh done sabe! Uh yent fuh drowndid no mo!’ En’ da’ fool nigguh pull ’pun de pinetree root fuh hice ’eself out de ribbuh! Da’ rum do’um bad!”

Scipio swelled with wrath, but at first “too full for sound or foam,” bent to his task and, cutting savagely at the thickest stalks, under the impetus of anger, soon forged ahead of the others and led the line. Before he drew away, however, he projected this Parthian shot with a torpedo in its tail: “Benus en’ Diana, oonuh alltwo duh bodduh me, w’ymekso oonuh ent study ’bout Paul? Him duh alltwo oonuh sweeth’aa’t en’ t’ing. Diana t’ink suh Paul duh him’own ’cause ’e ge’m da’ catfish ’e ketch las’ Sat’d’y, en’ Benus t’ink suh him duh she’own, ’cause ’e buy gunjuh fuhr’um duh Cross Road’, but Paul nebbuh buy no frock fuh Diana, en’ ’e nebbuh buy none fuh Benus, but him buy’um fuh Minda, en’ ’e duh keep cump’ny ’long Minda, en’ him duh yalluh gal, en’ Paul nebbuh fuh study ’bout no black nigguh’ no mo’! Him duh fool oonuh alltwo!”

Two dusky faces quickly changed from smirking comedy to girding tragedy. Two stalwart forms stiffened in their tracks and stood astraddle like two Colossi of Rhodes. Two pairs of powerful arms akimboed, and two sets of sinewy fingers clutched the handles of their rice hooks!

“Hukkuh Paul happ’n fuh gi’ you catfish? You mus’be baig fuhr’um, enty?”

“Baig fuhr’um! Me fuh baig man fuh catfish! I iz uh lady, uh wan’ you fuh know, en’ ef you haffuh baig’um[Pg 138] fuh gunjuh, me yent haffuh baig’um fuh catfish!”

“Wuh you got fuh do wid wuh Paul gi’ me? Him duh yo’ juntlemun, enty?”

“Ef ’e yent my’own, uh know berry well suh him ent fuh blonx to no black nigguh lukkuh you!”

“Him duh nigguh fuh true, but dis ricefiel’ full uh ’e chillun, en’ ’e gran’chillun alltwo, en’ uh ’spec’ you duh one uh ’e gran’!”

A shriek of laughter from Scipio filled Diana’s cup of anger to overflowing, and, with a savage rice-cutting swing, she sideswiped Venus with her saw-edged sickle, and cut her acquaintance below, and behind, the belt. Bustles were not then worn, but the victim was saved from a most inconvenient wound by the folds of her looped-up skirt, which, like a furled sail, hung just abaft the beam, and she received only a scratch. Starting at the scratch, however, Diana was twenty feet away and going strong when Venus, yelling with pain, turned and gave chase. Screams of laughter mingled with shouts of excitement, as Diana tripped and fell on the stubble, and Venus, too close to check her speed, stumbled over her prostrate assailant and came a cropper, the rice hook flying out of her hand as she fell. Diana’s weapon, having been taken from her by one of the men, the two ladies were on equal terms with nature’s weapons, and, both being on all-fours, literally and figuratively, they soon fastened their “ten commandments” in each other’s wool. They fought viciously and silently, and not until, collapsed from exhaustion, they had been separated by the men, did they again become vocal. Venus’ gingham skirt[Pg 139] had suffered a cruel rent. As she reached behind her and felt the yawning gap in her sartorial hinterland, and realized the ignominy that had been put upon her by this “most unkindest cut of all,” she shrieked in anger. “Uh gwine tek you Trial Jestuss! You fuh gone Adam’ Run fuh dis t’ing wuh you done do!” and she flung wrathfully out of the field. Out of the babel of voices that arose among the partisans of the two goddesses, the dominant note was abuse of Scipio, who had flung Paul, the apple, or rather the Guinea squash, of discord among them.

“Wuh you haffuh do ’long Paul’ name? Ef him iz buy gunjuh en’ frock en’ t’ing fuh t’ree ’ooman’, uh sho’ ’e mo’ bettuh den fuh nebbuh buy nutt’n’ fuh none!” showing the world-wide feminine appreciation of a free spender. “Wuh you ebbuh buy fuh ’ooman? Eb’ry Sat’d’y night da’ buckruh’ sto’ duh Cross Road’ full up wid ’ooman, en’ you ebbuh buy uh tencent wut’ uh bakin fuh greese dem mout’? No, suh! You lub fuh talk sweetmout’ talk ’long’um, but you dat stingy you nebbuh buy uh candy, eeduhso uh sugar, fuh sweet’n dem mout’. Ent you know suh ’ooman lub uh freehan’ man?”

“Yaas, tittie! You talk trute! ’Ooman redduh hab ’e mout’ full’uh muhlassis den ’e yez full’uh sweetmout’ talk!”

“Him lub’um alltwo,” observed a sapient one. “Him mout’ en’ him yez alltwo fuh full one time!”

On the second Saturday thereafter, having been summoned by Big Jim Green, the negro constable, Venus and Diana, with their respective satellites, appeared before the Trial Justice at Adams Run station, where Diana, duly indicted, was charged in the[Pg 140] comprehensive phraseology of the Criminal Code with such a string of offenses against the peace and dignity of the State of South Carolina and the proper person of Venus Chisolm that her ears tingled and her eyes popped with amazement.

“Uh yent know wuh you call so, Jedge, but uh nebbuh do none uh dem t’ing wuh da’ papuh call dem name. Ef Jedus yeddy me, uh nebbuh do uh Gawd’ t’ing but cut da’ ’ooman, en’ uh nebbuh hab uh chance fuh cut’um good, ’cause ’e hab ’e frock tie’up ’roun’ ’e wais’, en’ w’en uh cut at ’e hanch en’ de rice hook ketch ’e frock weh ’e roll’up behine’um, dat sabe de ’ooman’ meat, en’ uh only able fuh ’cratch ’e skin, but uh ’cratch’um ’nuf fuh mek’um holluh same lukkuh hog’ holluh w’en oonuh cut dem yez fuh maa’k’um, en’ alldo’ uh yent puhzac’ly cut de ’ooman, uh try fuh cut’um, but uh cut ’e frock en’ uh only able fuh ’cratch’um, en’ ef uh yiz bin cut’um, duh Scipio mek’ me fuh do’um, ’cause him come duh ricefiel’ wid da’ bluegum mout’ uh him’own full’uh pizen talk fuh bex me nuh Benus, en’ uh always yeddy suh ef uh bluegum nigguh bite you ’e gwine pizen you same lukkuh moccasin, en’ same fashi’n de talk wuh come out da’ nigguh’ jaw pizen alltwo uh we en’ mek we fuh fight, but, Jedge, uh nebbuh cut Benus lukkuh da’ papuh say, ’cause ef uh had’uh cut’um fuh true, true! da’ ’ooman would’uh haffuh stan’up ’puntop’uh ’e two foot fuh t’ree week!”

“Received as information,” observed the magistrate, and he called Venus, who came up smiling. “You have heard Diana’s story. What have you to say?”

“’E cut me een da’ ten acre square wuh stan’ close to de baa’nyaa’d, suh.”

“Well, you have given the location in the ricefield, now, where on your person did Diana cut you with a rice hook?”

“’E cut me on me pussun, suh, en’, Jedge, de t’ing sweet’n’ me so bad, ef uh could’uh ketch da’ ’ooman ’fo’ uh ketch me foot en’ fall obuhr’um, da’ ’ooman would uh dead!”

As there was murderous intent in the sudden heat and passion of both Venus and Diana, the court imposed upon the defendant a fine only sufficient to rehabilitate the wardrobe of the prosecuting witness, who sailed out of court thoroughly satisfied with the new frock in prospect and the present enrichment of her vocabulary by the buckra word “pussun.”

The “Dower House,” which Abram Drayton had inherited from his father, old John, now resting under the great live-oaks of the plantation burying ground, was quite a pretentious affair, two stories high, with two chimneys and a leak. The stories were not very high, only six or seven feet in the clear, but it was sometimes convenient to be able to reach up and touch the ceiling, and, after all, it was a two-story house and, like all two-story houses among the negroes, added greatly to the prestige of the owner’s family. In the usual one-story negro cabin, the boarded-over “loft,” reached by ladder, is at once the sleeping room for the children, the granary for corn and peas, and the hay mow for whatever straw or fodder the householder possesses, but the Dower House had a real second story, attained by steps, narrow and teetering ’tis true, which the ascending biped usually “cooned” on all-fours, but they were steps, not rungs, and, however vigorously the negro expresses in hymns and spirituals his willingness, indeed anxiety, to “climb up Jacob’s ladder,” in the present life he prefers the creak of a board under his foot.

Under the law of primogeniture, arbitrarily established by old John for the disposition and control of his landed property, the “Two-Chimbly House” was bequeathed by word of mouth to his eldest son, and similarly settled upon his eldest grandson, and so on, as long as the line lasted, or until the shingles fell off, when dynastic difficulties would inevitably intervene. Perhaps he had heard of primogeniture and dower[Pg 143] houses while waiting at the table of his English-bred master in the old times, but however the idea came into his kinky head, once in, it stuck, and he determined that a Dower House he would leave, and a Dower House entailed. “Uh gwine tie de ’tail ’puntop da’ house fuh hol’um fas’! Uh tie’um fus’ ’puntop my boy, Ebbrum, en’ den ’e fuh tie ’puntop him boy, my gran’, en’ de ’tail ent fuh tek’off! De ’tail ent fuh tie ’puntop no ’ooman. ’Ooman ent fuh hab no house. Man fuh hab’um en’ him fuh hol’um, so him kin fetch de ’ooman to ’e han’!”

So, the “’tail” still tied to Abram, in due time he came into the Dower House, and here, in the woods on the road from Adams Run Station to Caw Caw Swamp, he lived and reared a family.

At the tail of the summer his wife partook “not wisely but too well” of watermelon and buttermilk, and through the unfortunate combination was forthwith translated from the bosom of Abram to that of Abraham. The widowed man resigned himself to the will of the Lord, and accepted his bereavement not the less philosophically that his crop was already made and partly gathered. “Ef de Lawd haffuh tek’um, uh glad ’E yent tek’um ’tell de crap done mek,” he reflected gratefully and reverently. In a week he had picked and sold the last of his cotton, and out of the proceeds outfitted his old mare with a new saddle, bridle and cloth, notwithstanding which, the ungrateful creature, with true feminine perversity, “gone en’ leddown en’ dead, jis’ ’cause uh yent feed’um fuh two’t’ree day. Uh nebbuh know da’ mare gwine hongry to dat! ’E hongry ’tell ’e dead, en’ now uh haffuh tek me two foot en’ walk!”

Abram, being now more than a “settled” man, jogged along in single harness uneventfully for several months. “Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing, nor so old as to dote on her for anything,” he now, in the autumn of his days, became somewhat critical in the matter of feminine needlework. His grown daughter esteemed herself a competent, almost a skilful, patcher of broken, frayed or frazzled raiment. She knew very well how to put crocus or burlap patches on the knees of the jeans or blue denim trousers affected by her sire, but though she could attach them in such fashion that they would hold, the edges always overlapped like the strakes of a clinker-built whale boat. But whatever these patches lacked in symmetrical attachment, they served well enough, for, as Abram advanced in years, he did not kneel so often as he sat. The seats of his trousers, however, yawned in pathetic neglect for, however acceptably his daughter repaired his broken knees, the half-soling of the seats was a much more serious matter, which she lacked the high spirit to undertake, and he carried about with him, whithersoever he went, gaping wounds in his sartorial equipment where, according to Hudibras, “a kick in that part more hurts honor than deep wounds before.” Not that anyone would ever have kicked him, for he was of a quiet and inoffensive disposition.

Most observers of humanity have noted with interest the close resemblance of certain types of the “wild (and tame) animals one has known.” The horse, the ass, the bulldog, the pug, sheep and goat, fox, raccoon and rat, the ’possum, grinning with pious hypocrisy, and the Berkshire pig with slanting eyes and champing jowls, are all marked likenesses frequently reproduced[Pg 145] in human faces, representing the stupid, the sly, the selfish, the grasping, the predaceous, the stubborn, the sensual, the combative, the treacherous—all of them to be avoided, or warily appraised, for the good of one’s soul—and of one’s pocket. Unhappily, those who have been blessed with so rich an experience as to have suffered both fools and knaves, seldom learn to read the buoys with which nature has wisely marked the dangerous reefs in her physiognomonic charts, until the keels of their craft grind upon the rocks! But Abram’s face was that of the mild-eyed, introspective ox. There was no militant personality in the neighborhood to “walk a mile out of his way to kick a sheep,” and, even had there been, to have kicked Abram would have been anatomically impossible, for the unsportsmanlike may shoot a sitting bird, but he cannot kick (offensively) a sitting man, and Abram was usually sitting! So, having held inviolate against the insulting toe the seats of his trousers, which he had lost only through the slow attrition of honest sloth, he retained his self-respect, though he was a peripatetic scandal whenever he went abroad upon his “peaceful occasions.” With praiseworthy propriety, he now came in late to church or prayer-meeting, and, a vigorous and devout “class leader,” coached his class from the bench, dreading the publicity of the sidelines. Then he sat discreetly at the close of the services until “de ’ooman en’ t’ing” had gained an offing and sailed away, when, as he showed a fairly presentable front, he would follow after them and engage in long distance conversation.

“Uh haffuh walk slow, tittie, ’cause dese debble’ub’uh britchiz bus’, en’ dem ent wut. Da’ gal uh my’own able fuh pit uh berry deestunt patch ’puntop de knee, but seem lukkuh him ent able fuh do nutt’n’ ’long de seat. Da’ w’ymekso dish’yuh britchiz do berry well fuh man fuh seddown een’um, but dem cyan’ specify fuh walk.”

“Wuh mekso you ent tek anodduh lady fuh wife? You got big house en’ ’nuf groun’ fuh mek crap, mekso you ent fuh hab ’ooman?”

“Uh hab house en’ groun,’ fuh true. Uh got uh two-chimbly house, but ’ooman shishuh onsaa’t’n t’ing, uh kinduh ’f’aid fuh tek anodduh chance. Ebbuh sence my lady nyam dem watuhmilyun en’ buttuhmilk en’ him Jedus tek’um, uh yent hab nutt’n’ fuh bodduh me. Uh kin seddown een de sunhot eenjurin’ de whole day en’ nebbuh yeddy no ’ooman’ woice duh call fuh tell me fuh git’up. Uh kin seddown tell uh fuh gone ’sleep.”

“Yaas, my Bredduh, you binnuh seddown, fuh true!” a church sister laughingly retorted. “Da’ de reas’n w’ymekso you shame’ fuh stan’up fuh lead yo’ class! Long seddown mek short stan’up, you know.”

“Go ’way, gal! ’Nuf man wuh hab wife een dem house, dem britchiz ent able fuh specify. Dem wife lazy tummuch fuh patch’um.” And so Abram, always backward in company, put on the best front he could for a while and, unlike Edward Bellamy, never looked behind him. At last the raillery told on him, however, and he made up his mind to take another plunge into the roiling waters of married life. Not the “uncertain sea of matrimony” beloved of poets, but just the black and sluggish current of the branch or run, in which,[Pg 147] among snags and cypress knees, swam the slimy catfish and the venomous moccasin. The hazard was not great, for, however forbidding they looked, the waters were shallow, and the low-country negro, stepping into matrimony, keeps at least one big toe on dry ground, and, if one steps in the wrong place, one can always step out again, and try elsewhere. So, with more than a toe-hold of mental reservation, Abram at last, like the storied frog, “would a wooing go”—and he went. “Uh gwine Cross Road’. Uh gwine Sat’d’y night w’en ’nuf ’ooman dey dey, en’ uh gwine saa’ch dem eb’ry Gawd’ one ’tell uh git one wuh kin specify. Uh yent wan’ no settle’ ’ooman, ’cause dem done hab ’nuf man fuh marri’d, en’ dem know tummuch. Dem too schemy! Seem lukkuh de mo’ husbun’ en’ t’ing dem fuh hab, de mo’ schemy dem git! Ef uh tek uh nyung gal fuh wife, wuh ent know nutt’n’, uh kin bruk’um fuh suit, same lukkuh oxin bruk fuh pull plow. Uh kin fetch’um onduhneet’ me han’!”

With these masterful masculine reflections, Abram went his ways to the Cross Roads, and having, like Poe’s Raven, acquired the sitting habit, down he sat near the store on a convenient log which offered at once rest for his weary bones and camouflage for his sartorial infirmities. For an hour or more he watched with an appraising eye the women coming and going, acknowledging the salutations of those who passed near him. At last, his approving regard rested upon what the ante-bellum advertisements would have called a “likely girl” who curtseyed as she came opposite him. “Come’yuh, gal,” he called. “Wuh you name?”

“No, suh, uh know how fuh patch ’ooman’ frock, but uh yent know nutt’n’ ’bout no britchiz ’cause none ent fuh dey een we house.”

“No, suh, uh yent hab no Pa. Uh yeddy ’bout’um but uh nebbuh shum. Grumma tell me suh one time uh bin hab Pa, but Ma run’um off en’ ’e ’f’aid fuh come back, en’ attuhw’ile w’en uh biggin fuh grow big, Ma sen’ me fuh lib ’long Grumma, ’cause ’e say suh uh tek attuh Pa ’tell eb’ry time ’e look ’puntop me ’e bex ’tell him haffuh lick me, en’ him say suh ’e yent hab time fuh fuhrebbuh duh lick me.”

“Yaas, suh, uh nebbuh shum, but eb’rybody say suh uh look luk’um en’ tek attuhr’um alltwo.”

“Berry well, uh gwine hab you fuh wife. You know who uh yiz, enty? Me duh Ebbrum Drayton, en’ uh lib todduh side Adam’ Run deepo, en’ uh hab uh two-chimbly house en’ ’e got two story, en’ uh bin hab uh mare, but him gone en’ dead. En’ w’en you gone home, tell yo’ Grumma uh gwine fuh shum Sunday night fuh tell’um uh gwine hab you fuh wife.”

“Yaas, suh. Well, good ebenin’, suh,” and, with another curtsy, she was gone.

But Abram’s plans they gang’d agley, for old John,[Pg 149] in putting the word-of-mouth entail on the Dower House, had tied the “’tail” so loosely that its terms and conditions were constantly subject to family discussion and interpretation, and Abram’s son now objected to his father’s marriage, believing that it would break the entail and deprive him of the right of succession to “de Two-Chimbly House.” “W’en Grumpa him tie de ’tail ’puntop de house, ’e say ’sponsubble suh ’e yent fuh tek off, en’ suh ’e yent fuh tie ’puntop no ’ooman. Pa ent know uh Gawd’ t’ing ’bout da’ gal him duh talk ’bout hab fuh wife. ’E nebbuh see ’e Ma, ’e nebbuh shum fight. Da’ gal’ Ma iz de debble! W’en da’ ’ooman fight da’ gal’ Pa, ’e run’um ’long hoe en’ hatchitch alltwo! Da’ nigguh run ’tell ’e cross Jacksinburruh. ’E nebbuh stop’ ’tell ’e gone spang Ti Ti! W’en ’e bog up to ’e crotch ’mong dem waa’ment’ en’ t’ing ’e git sattify een ’e mine’. No, suh! Pa ent study nutt’n’ ’cep’ hab wife fuh sweep ’e house en’ patch ’e britchiz. Bumbye, w’en da’ gal’ maamy’ sperrit git een’um en’ ’e bex fuh true! Ki! Da’ gal gwine tek de ’tail off Grumpa’ house en’ none uh we gwine shum ’gen! W’en Pa duh bog up to ’e crotch een Ti Ti, wuh saa’bis den fuh hab patch ’puntop ’e britchiz? No, suh!”

His daughter sought to comfort Abram, who, in the short space of 36 hours, had loved and wooed, and won and lost. “Nemmine’, Pa, you got yo’ Two-Chimbly House.”

For many years after freedom came to the negroes of the low-country, they were cruelly and ignobly cheated by the tradespeople who set up little Cross Roads stores in every community. Many of these were German corner-shopkeepers from the cities. Others were wandering Jews, whose predatory instincts took them wherever there were pickings to be had. Yet others, to their shame, were certain low-class South Carolinians that did not scruple to take advantage of the ignorant freedmen who, a wasteful and improvident people, whose needs had all been supplied under slavery, squandered the money they were unaccustomed to handling and unable to compute.

Imitative as monkeys, however, it is to the credit of their intelligence, if not of their morality, that they soon learned to retaliate, and many a brick and rusty plowshare was weighed in their bags of seed cotton and paid for by the tricky shopkeeper who, knowing that in many cases the cotton was stolen from the planter for whom the negro worked, and brought stealthily by night to the sophisticated merchant, did not scan his purchase too closely, and many an ancient nest egg, too, was sold to the shopkeeper as a new-laid “yaa’d aig” and shipped away to city customers.

The marks upon the brass beams of the counter-scales with which the negroes’ purchases were weighed, were so obscured and tarnished that they could not be deciphered, even by customers who could read, but the wily shopman knew exactly where to put his weight to give a twelve-ounce pound, which is what the negro[Pg 151] usually got. Always suspecting “de buckruh” of cheating him, and being unable to do even the smallest addition, the negro soon learned to protect himself, if not from short weights, at least from short change, and it was interesting to observe a shopper making her week’s purchases on Saturday nights at one of these neighborhood stores. The women, commonly more alert, and always more suspicious, than the men, were usually charged with the buying. If a customer had a dollar to spend, she would first price the various commodities under consideration.

The short-weight sugar wrapped up and handed out, the customer would draw it to her bosom and, leaning on the counter, put her protecting arms around it. The dollar, ceremonially unwrapped from a corner of her apron, would be handed over, and ninety-five cents in change returned, which she would count over carefully before proceeding with her next purchase.

When that was delivered, ten cents would be slowly taken from the little pile and paid over.

The flour and the salt would come within the encircling arms, fifteen cents be counted out, and all transactions suspended until the two cents change was returned to her.

Two or three samples of plug tobacco, the only sort in common use, would be offered for inspection, and perhaps the advice of a colored sister asked before deciding upon a selection.

By the time the dollar was expended, the clerk had walked a hundred yards or so, had used up lots of[Pg 153] brown paper and paper twine and had had his patience sorely tried, but he charged liberally for his time and trouble, and the poor darkey got far less than she paid for.

In the funny columns of Northern periodicals, and in the immemorial minstrel jokes and songs, the negro not only steals chickens, but eats them. The low-country negroes, however, while all of them keep chickens, seldom, if ever, eat them, the coarsest fat bacon being far more to the negro’s taste than the juiciest broiler. Then, too, eggs and chickens are currency in most negro communities and can always be converted into cash at the country store or at the back door of the nearest white family.

The country negroes on the coast still speak of “fo’punce” chickens and “seb’npunce” chickens, meaning the sizes that were sold for four pence and seven pence respectively before the Revolution, when British coinage was the currency of the country.

“Gal, ketch da’ seb’npunce chickin en’ dem t’ree fo’punce chickin’ en tek dese’yuh six aig’, en’ tek’um to de Cross Road’, en’ buy de six aig’ wut’uh tubackuh en’ de seb’npunce chickin wut’uh flour, en’ one de fo’punce chickin’ wut’uh sugar, en’ norruh one uh de fo’punce chickin’ wut’uh side meat, en’ de todduh fo’punce chickin wut’uh muhlassis, en’ tek dish’yuh bucket fuh fetch’um een, en’ don’ ’low de buckruh fuh cheat you, en’ tie de aig’ een yo’ hengkitchuh, en’ tie all fo’ de fowl’ foot so dem cyan’ git’way, en’ hol’um een yo’ ap’un, en’ don’ stay duh sto’ too long, en’ w’en you tek de chickin’ out de ap’un, hol’um by ’e two foot fuh mek ’e head heng down, so ’e wing’ kin ’pread out fuh mek’um look big so de buckruh t’ink suh de fo’punce[Pg 154] chickin’ duh seb’npunce chickin’, en’ w’en de buckruh po’ out de muhlassis, mek’um fuh po’rum ’tell de muhlassis stop run out de medjuh, ’cause ef you ent watch’um ’e sho’ fuh lef’ some een de quawt cup, en’ w’en you come back duh night’time, walk middle’uh de paat’, ’cause ’e rain’ teday en’ toadfrog does jump ’bout w’en de ground en’ t’ing wet, en’ moccasin does folluhr’um fuh ketch’um, en’ uh yent wan’ you fuh git ’structed by no snake duh paat’.”

The little girl leaned on the counter, slowly unrolled an old bandanna handkerchief, and spread the six eggs before her, carefully keeping the unhappy chickens concealed in her apron.

“You can get only half a plug for half a dozen eggs. Eggs are ten cents a dozen!”

“Yaas’suh, but Ma tell me fuh git’uh whole plug,” said the shrewd little trader. “Ma tell me fuh ax you ef you ent g’em uh whole plug uh tubackuh fuh de six aig’, please, suh, fuh gimme uh gunjuh—tengky, suh,” as the obliging clerk handed her a big scalloped molasses cake and short-cut the plug of tobacco enough to pay for it.

The tobacco trade consummated, the girl fumbled furtively in her apron, and, feeling about deftly, located and drew forth the “seb’npunce” chicken. That adolescent fowl, a rooster whose voice was changing, alternately peeped and squawked, as the seller with outstretched arm dangled him by the legs high over the counter, his outspread wings making him look a full size larger, but the shopkeeper was country-bred, and felt the rooster’s breastbone. “Fifteen cents,” he[Pg 155] said.

“Ma tell me fuh git twenty-fibe cent’ wut uh flour ’long dish’yuh one,” she fibbed.

“I’ll give you twenty cents’ worth,” he countered, and, as she nodded in acquiescence, jubilant at the thought of having outwitted him, he plunged his scoop into a barrel and weighed out twelve cents’ worth of flour. When this had been wrapped and delivered, the clerk, knowing by her expectant look that further commercial transactions were imminent, stood at attention, while the girl abstracted the first of the three “fo’punce” chickens from her apron and held the noisy fledgling, naked and unashamed, at arm’s length above the counter. “Ma tell me fuh git dis seb’npunce chickin wut uh side meat,” she ventured, craftily watching the face of the Caucasian whom she sought to overreach.

“Why, that’s a fo’punce chicken. He ain’t half the size of the other one.”

“Yaas’suh, alltwo come out de same nes’ en’ alltwo hatch out de same time. Da’ todduh one duh dish’yuh one bubbuh, en’ dish’yuh one duh da’ todduh one tittie. Him look big mo’nuh dish’yuh one ’cause him duh roostuh en’ him hab comb, en’ dish’yuh one duh pullet en’ him ent hab no comb, en’ de roostuh greedy mo’nuh de pullet, en’ him nyam de mor’is’ bittle, en’ dat mek ’e stan’ so,” she prevaricated unblushingly. These earnest asseverations had no effect on the purchaser, however, and, appraising the gallinaceous juveniles at ten cents each, he stood pat, and one by one they were withdrawn from the apron and exchanged for bacon, sugar and molasses. Upon the pouring of the latter commodity, however, Aryan and African again locked horns. The weather was warm, and as[Pg 156] even the thick “blackstrap” molasses flowed freely, the careless shopman very nearly gave his customer the full quart for which she had paid—an inadvertence which, it should be said in justice to his commercial acumen, he very seldom committed. Realizing too late that nearly all the molasses had run into the tin bucket out of the quart measure (false-bottomed as it was) he gave it a quick upward flirt to save what he could, and started back to the barrel, but was checked by the girl’s scream of protest. “Ma tell’ me fuh tell you ’sponsubble fuh mek you fuh po’rum out ’tell eb’ry drop done dreen een de bucket,” she cried excitedly, and, in shame-faced compliance, he let her hold the measure till the uttermost drop had been “dreened” out. With a sideswipe of a very questionable finger, she garnered the dulcet drops that clung to the curved lip of the cup and, sucking the sweetened digit greedily, she grinned with satisfaction. And now, with the packages carefully tied up in the bandanna in one hand, and the covered tin bucket in the other, she dropped a curtsy, for she was a polite little darkey, and went her ways homeward, sweetened in soul and saliva.

The night was dark, and the path traversed a small bay, where the sweetgums spread their limbs above the track, and their heavy foliage hid the stars and deepened the shadows along the way. Along the edge of the bay, in the sodden soil, grew lush water-grasses, and they were very sweet to a vagabond ox, as he cropped them, undisturbed by flies, in the cool night air. But the peaceful ox, playing truant, poor wretch, from his negro master, was full of tragedy, for the ox was white, and no solitary negro in the low-country,[Pg 157] where the forests are full of little negro graveyards, can bear the sight of anything white in the woods at night. The fear of ghosts is always with them, and a white cow, grazing in or near a graveyard, will often stampede a road full of worshipers returning from a prayer-meeting.

As she reached the shadowy places along the way, the child heard a rustling sound in the bushes that suggested snakes. She instinctively jumped to the other side of the path, at the same time looking over her shoulder in the direction of the sound. One glance was enough! The pallid ox loomed gigantic in her affrighted eyes, and, with a scream of terror, she fled homeward and was soon, wide-eyed and trembling, before her mother. Faithful to her trust, she had held on to bundle and tin bucket, but the molasses was spattered liberally over her bare legs and had soaked her homespun skirt and apron.

“Wuh ’smattuh, gal? You done t’row’way half de muhlassis! Wuh de debble mek you duh trimble?”

“Ma, w’en uh binnuh walk t’ru de branch, een da’ daa’k t’icket onduhneet’ dem gum tree, uh yeddy sump’nurruh duh shake de bush, en’ uh t’ink ’e duh snake, en’ uh jump en’ look ’roun’, en’ uh see uh sperrit, one big w’ite sump’n’ high mo’nuh dis house, en’ de t’ing groan’ at me, en’ uh dat ’f’aid’um, uh run’way, en’ ’e nebbuh ketch me, en’ uh mek de buckruh gimme twenty cent’ wut uh flour fuh de seb’npunce chickin, en’ ’e gimme uh gunjuh!”

“Tell yo’ bubbuh fuh git da’ hom’ny spoon en’ ’crape da’ muhlassis off yo’ two knee, en’ pit’um een da’ pan, en’ tek off yo’ ap’un, en’ you en’ yo’ bubbuh alltwo kin chaw’um, so de muhlassis ent fuh t’rowway.”

At the close of the war, thousands of disbanded negro troops, how many, only the Lord knows and the pension roll shows, swarmed over the Coast Counties comprising the South Carolina Black Belt. Swagger in their new-minted freedom, and resplendent in the light blue trousers and dark blue coats of the Federal uniform, with ridiculous little forage caps perched aslant upon the sides of their kinky heads, like chickens roosting on leaning poles, girdled with great brass-buckled U. S. Belts, and shouldering army muskets, full of insolence and of ribaldry, they took the highways and the by-ways for their own. Their former masters, however kindly they had been to them before and since freedom, were frequently spoken of behind their backs as “de rebel,” and the days of slavery were referred to as “rebel time” (times). Some of these soldiers had served for years, perhaps, others for months or weeks, few of them had smelt powder, all of them had smelt and fattened upon the bad—wickedly bad—bacon with which the loyal sutlers had supplied the invading army. (And, by the way, thousands of tierces of that same sutler’s bacon of the years ’64 and ’65 were still at large for full five years thereafter, supplied by the Charleston and Savannah factors to the low-country planters for their plantation commissaries.)

In addition to the disbanded troops, thousands of other negroes, who had never seen service, wore cheaply bought Federal uniforms and long, light blue overcoats, and sported caps and belts and condemned muskets,[Pg 159] so that the whole countryside was black and blue, and they were constantly drilling, while the women, peahens that they were, worked for them and admired the strutting of their lordly peacocks. Often at night, from the quarters of a distant plantation, instead of the peaceful “tap, tap-a-tap, tap-a-tap, tap-a-tap,” of the sticks which the negroes beat on the floor to mark time for their dancing and “shouting,” there would come the rattle of a snaredrum, and one knew that an awkward squad was being put through awkward evolutions in the compound or “nigguhhouse yaa’d” for the edification of the quarters.

It was a psychological study to watch one of these squads or companies drilling or parading on the public highway, when a white man of a former slave-holding family approached. Neither stern disciplinary eye, nor sharp command, could keep the lines straight until after “de buckruh” had passed. There were sure to be some members of the squad whose hereditary respect—stronger far than the fear of the drill master—would impel them to scrape a foot or pull wool, till the alignment was as wabbly as a swimming moccasin.

One August day in the early ’70s, Prince Manigo, captain of the Adams Run Company, ordered his command out for drill, inspection and maneuvers. Sixty-five men reported; these were of all ages from 17 to 70. Some of them belonged around the village, but most of them came from about Toogoodoo, “down on de Salt,” as the inland negroes designate the sea coast and the contiguous lands lying along the salt rivers and creeks.

The place of assembly indicated by Captain Manigo was about a mile south of the village on the way to Toogoodoo. Once a member of Col Thomas Wentworth[Pg 160] Higginson’s negro regiment, the “First South Carolina Volunteers,” organized at Beaufort in 1862, he had known picket duty about Port Royal Ferry during the war, and wished to familiarize his dusky outfit with service in the field. The road ran along the edge of a deep swamp, or bay. The growth on the rich lowlands was heavy, and beautiful magnolias, close-limbed and tall, as is their habit of growth in thick places, rose to a height of sometimes a hundred feet, the sunlight flashing from the curved backs of their dark and glossy leaves. Under these great trees, sweet bay, red bay, beech and maple grew in a tangle, and below these, tall canes and great sword ferns, with riotous vines of bamboo and wild grape, thickened into an almost impenetrable chaparral. In these woods, dimmed to a twilight darkness, Captain Manigo established his picket posts. Fifteen or twenty men were selected for this dangerous duty, for, at this season, the swamp was full of rattlesnakes and some of those picked for outpost duty objected. “Man, I cyan’ go een da’ t’icket. Snake dey dey tummuch.”

“Snake cyan’ see fuh bite now,” said another. “Ent you know suh rattlesnake’ hab skin ’puntop ’e yeye een Augus’ munt’? ’E bline’. ’E cyan’ see fuh bite.”

“Uh dunkyuh ef ’e yiz bline’, ef uh ’tep ’puntop’um ’e gwine bite me.”

“Go ’way, man, snake ent gwine bite you w’en you hab muskick een you han’ wid dat shaa’p bay’net en t’ing ’puntop’um.”

So all objections were overruled, and the posts established at intervals of a few hundred yards, the password “raccoon” was given to the corporals, and the captain and his inspectors, dismissing the remaining[Pg 161] members of the company for a rest period, prepared to test the line of outposts. Making a wide detour they sneaked through the woods almost noiselessly. The dead leaves, fallen during the preceding winter, had softened long ago and were rapidly settling into the thick mold that covered the damp earth. Sneaking up on the farthest sentinel from the rear, Prince was almost upon him before the startled negro challenged “Halt! Weh oonuh gwine? Gimme de passwu’d!”

Prince expostulated. “Raccoon” was the password he had given the corporals to pass on to their men, and having been selected as a word of singular appeal to the negroes, should have been one of the easiest to remember, so he repeated petulantly “Raccoon, raccoon, raccoon.”

“’E yent wut,” insisted the sentinel, as the long bayonet projected threateningly through the gum bushes. “Dat passwu’d cyan’ specify. Da’ longmout’ nigguh f’um Slann’ Ilun’, name Mingo, him dull de cawprul en’ him done tell me de wu’d two time, en’ ’scusin’ oonuh hab dat wu’d, oonuh yent fuh pass.”

As the corporal was several hundred yards away, Prince retired grumbling, and attempted the line at another point. He approached a wary old picket, a noted ’coon hunter, whose experienced ear detected even the soft footfalls of the inspectors, and he hailed them at a distance of 50 yards, in most unmilitary language. “Haw, buck! Oonuh try fuh sneak ’puntop me, enty? Uh binnuh hunt rokkoon en’ dem todduh waa’ment en’ t’ing ’fo’ you bawn! Come out, bubbuh! Uh yeddy you’ foot en’ uh see bush duh shake alltwo.[Pg 162] Come out de t’icket. Exwance en’ gimme de passwu’d!”

But they couldn’t give it; not at least intelligibly to the ear of old Cæsar. Prince spoke with only a slight taint of Gullah, and when he had given “raccoon” to his Toogoodoo corporals, who understood him only after several repetitions, he didn’t realize that they would pass it on as “rokkoon” and that as “rokkoon” the “open sesame” of the countersign must be given. Again, therefore, with his own password correctly pronounced, the Captain had reached an impasse, and as Cæsar truculently stuck out both his mouth and his bayonet, the Corporal of the guard was demanded.

“Cawprul uh de gyaa’d! Pos’ number t’ree!” he bellowed. “Mek’ace en’ come’yuh! T’ree mans dey yuh duh try fuh git t’ru bedout no passwu’d. Ef dem got’um dem cyan’ call ’e name. Uh dunkyuh ef one is de cap’n, oonuh done tell me ’sponsubble suh ’e yent fuh pass bedout ’e got de wu’d.”

“Yaas, man, da’ duh him! ’Rokkoon’ duh de passwu’d wuh Buh Prince gi’ we, but him ent call ’e name lukkuh we call’um, ’cause him bin Beefu’t rebel time ’long dem Nyankee en’ t’ing, en’ duh so dem call’um.”

“Uh dunkyuh how dem eegnunt Nyankee call rokkoon’ name, demself cyan’ pass dis t’icket ’scusin’ dem call’um lukkuh we call’um ’puntop Toogoodoo. En’ ’cause dis nigguh bin Beefu’t, him fuh ’spute ’long me en’ tell me how fuh call rokkoon’ name w’en uh binnuh[Pg 163] ketch rokkoon befo’ ’e daddy hab ’e maamy! Ef ’e cyan’ call rokkoon’ name, uh keep’um yuh ’tell t’unduh roll!”

“Rokkoon!” conceded the chapfallen captain, and he passed, somewhat chagrined at the outcome of his picketing experiment.

The outposts were recalled, the other negroes aroused from among the roadside bushes where they had been resting, and the full company assembled for drill. The outfit was heavily officered, and the captain allowed them to take turns at putting the men through their paces. At last they were turned over to Mingo Brown, a pompous corporal, so puffed up with “a little brief authority” that most of the negroes grinned in his face, and some openly guffawed, “eh, eh, Buh Mingo swonguh fuh sowl!” The men, a ragged line, were ranged on one side of the road, and, facing them on the other, Mingo drew a great cavalry sabre and began to cut such anthropoidal antics before high heaven, that three gentlemen, returning from a successful hunt, reined in their horses a few yards away and paused to see the fun.

“’Tenshun! ’Tan’up ’traight, oonuh man! Oonuh stan’ crookety sukkuh wurrum fench w’en dem staa’t fuh t’row off ’e riduh fuh tayre’um down fuh moobe cowpen!

“Shoulduh, aam! Pit oonuh muskick ’puntop oonuh shoulduh en’ hol’um ’traight. You mus’be t’ink dem duh hoe, enty? Fo’ man fuh stan’ side en’ side fuh mek one t’ickness. Faw-wud, maa’ch! ’Top! Weh de debble oonuh gwine? Uh done tu’n oonuh head fuh face Toogoodoo Bridge, en’, please Gawd, oonuh w’eel sukkuh mule hab cucklebuhr een ’e yez, ’en fuh gone[Pg 164] Adam’ Run billage!” Sure enough, as the execution of the command would have taken them over hunters and pack, they had reversed the order and started in the opposite direction.

“Fuh true, bubbuh, enty you see Mas’ Rafe en’ Mas’ Tom en’ dem duh paat’? Nigguh fuh maa’ch obuh buckruh, enty?”

“Buckruh, de debble! Enty de Freedmun Bruro mek we fuh free? Uh free tell uh fool! Prizzunt, aam!”

Some were shouldered, others ordered, a few “presented” with the butt of the piece against the waist and the bayonet sticking out at right angles to the body. “’Tenshun! Da’ man f’um Slann’ Ilun’ wuh duh ’tan’up close da’ ’tump fuh hol’ ’e gun een alltwo ’e han’. Him mus’be t’ink suh gun duh oshtuh rake! Groun’, aam!” And the whole perspiring line squatted and laid their pieces on the ground, rising just as the hunters gathered up their reins and rode along the line, while the hounds, with lofty tails, trotted after them, sniffing scornfully at the warriors’ legs as they passed.

“Mas’ Dick, you sho’ hab uh hebby buck,” as the great velveted horns of a fine buck tied behind the hunter’s saddle brushed against him. And all down the line, their hands being free, men touched their little monkey caps or tugged at their kinky forelocks and scraped their feet, in token of the kindly respect in which, spite of freedom and franchise, muskets and uniforms, and the poisonous propaganda of the Freedman’s Bureau, they yet held those known throughout[Pg 165] the countryside as having been kindly masters to their slaves, and just and liberal employers of the freedmen.

“Mas’ Rafe, please suh, gimme some tubackuh,” and the outstretched hand received a generous share of the contents of the donor’s pouch.

“Da’ duh my maussuh,” said the recipient proudly, filling his pipe as the hunters rode away.

“Cump’ny fawm two t’ickness’ een de rank,” shouted Mingo savagely. “Don’ look at de buckruh, look at yo’ officer!” and, turning to the smoker, he added: “Me yent hab no maussuh. Uh free ez uh buzzut!”

“Yaas, bubbuh. Buzzut free en’ buzzut black, but buzzut ent free ’nuf fuh light ’puntop nutt’n’ ’cep’n’ ’e dead, en’ nigguh ent free ’nuf fuh mek buckruh fuh bex!”

A few years after the war old John Harrison came into the coast country from somewhere beyond Caw Caw Swamp. He boasted a strain of Indian blood, and he showed it in his pigeon-toed walk and the red, coppery tint that stained his bronzed face. Six feet tall and powerfully built, he carried his fifty-odd years lightly, although his high, heavy shoulders were somewhat hunched from the heavy burdens to which they were accustomed for, a noted “pot hunter,” he thought nothing of “packing” a hundred and fifty-pound buck five or ten miles through the forest. During the close season for game he was not averse to working, and had quite a local reputation as a shingle-maker and rail-splitter. His speech was the ordinary “cracker” dialect of the low-country with a suggestion of the Gullah, but he clipped his words, and when excited, his sentences ran into a quick crescendo, almost unintelligible and defying reproduction in print.

When he came to Pon Pon he was allowed to clear a small field in a distant part of the plantation, a mile away from the “big house,” now only a beautiful ruin, with ivy, woodbine, and Lamarque roses clambering 50 feet in the air over the 200-year-old chimneys of English brick. On his “new ground,” old Harrison built a large and trim-looking log cabin, and here he took up residence with his motherless children, two small girls and a straight and strapping son of 18, who helped his father with his work, but not in the chase, for Harrison hunted alone, sometimes, with a single well-trained hound, disappearing for two or three days at a time, to return laden with venison or wild turkeys which were sold at the railway station.[Pg 167] His dog, like those of most of the “pot hunters” who follow the chase on foot, was trained to silence, and never gave tongue. A small bell was attached to his collar and he was seldom out of sight of his master, who could tell by the movement of his ears and tail when the animal had found a trail, and when the lifting of the ears and the more rapid wagging of the tail indicated the near approach to the myrtle thicket where the deer lay in his bed, both barrels of the muzzle-loader were cocked and Harrison usually got a shot as the deer “jumped.”

Ben Summers, a large black negro in late middle-age, was a “locus” preacher in the neighborhood and, a jackleg carpenter, worked as well as preached. Throughout his life he had been partial to wives, having been more or less affiliated with six or seven, whom he put away and took back again, with no more ceremony than his change of mind. Unruly and insubordinate as a slave, he became “swonguh” with freedom, and was more or less insolent, save to his former master’s family. He was regarded as a rascal by whites and blacks, and when a calf or a shoat was missed in the community, Ben was not infrequently suspected of having shared the meat, either as a participant in the slaughter, or as a welcomed guest at the banqueting board of the thief.

One of Ben’s wives had achieved a son by a former husband, before Ben took her over, and this stepson had acquired a wife, a husky, cornfed wench, an Amazon in strength and fierceness. Soon after her marriage, old Ben, a rough-talking, brutal fellow, who tyrannized over the women of his entourage, undertook to discipline this step-daughter-in-law with physical[Pg 168] chastisement. Cutting a hickory, he proceeded to manhandle her as he had been accustomed to use his wives. She accepted two or three blows, and then turned upon him so swiftly that he was swept off his feet and mauled almost into unconsciousness. After he had been patched up and rehabilitated, and the first bitterness of defeat had worn off, he really liked to tell the story, laying the unction to his soul that only his Christian spirit had stayed his hand and saved the life of the virago.

“Gin’ul, lemme tell you de trute, Gawd bin wid me dat day. You know, all me life uh bin uh strong man. Uh nebbuh hab no man fuh outdo me fuh wu’k, eeduhso fuh fight, en’ uh bin nyuse fuh lick ’ooman en’ t’ing all me life. W’en ’ooman ent sattify me wid ’e wu’k, eeduhso ’e mannus, uh lick’um fuh mek’um mannusubble. W’en my wife Sarah’ son John’ wife come een my house dat day, ’e sassy ’tell ’e mek me bex. Uh nebbuh tek sassy f’um no ’ooman, uh dunkyuh ef ’e big ez cow, en’ da’ gal big ’ooman fuh true. So uh cut one ’tick en’ uh graff’um by ’e sleebe en’ biggin fuh lick’um. Gin’ul, de ’ooman tu’n on me en’ box me same lukkuh him duh man. Blood bin een me yeye! Uh ’membuh de time w’en uh could’uh box’um en’ kick’um alltwo one time, en’ ef uh ebbuh leh de foot folluh de han’, uh would uh kill’um dead. But Gawd hol’ me han’ en’ me foot, alltwo, Gawd tell me fuh peaceubble, en’ spayre de ’ooman life. Gin’ul, me don’ want no ’ooman life ’pun me han’. Enty you know, suh, ef uh had uh kick dat ’ooman ’e would uh dead? Gawd tek’care uh ol’ Ben dat day. Da’ ’ooman t’ink suh him lick me, Gin’ul, but[Pg 169] enty you know suh him oughtuh tengk Gawd fuh sabe’um? Ef uh didn’ bin hab ’lij’un, da’ ’ooman’ cawpse would’uh gone Jacksinburruh een one oxin cyaa’t weh ’e come f’um. All de time ’e binnuh box me, uh bin study ’bout how da’ ’ooman’ cawpse would’uh look ef uh had uh hit’um like de time w’en uh nyuse to be uh Ben! En’ uh study ’pun him husbun’, my wife Sarah’ boy John, en’ uh study ’pun John’ maamy, en’ uh t’ink ’bout how dem will mo’n ef uh kill dis ’ooman, en’ wid Gawd’ help uh hab strengk ’nuf fuh hol’ me han’. Gin’ul, w’enebbuh uh look ’puntop de’ dead ’ooman een me mine’, uh tengk Gawd eb’ry day fuh hol’ me han’!”

Once a fine shoat strayed too near to Ben’s little field and soon found its way into the old man’s larder, where it was found by a search party in charge of old Harrison. An examination showed that the animal had been shot with duck shot, and shot of the same size having been found in the undischarged barrel of the negro’s double-barrel, Ben was arrested and sent to Walterboro jail and Harrison was summoned as a witness. Harrison was fond of a dram and looked forward to the approach of court week which would bring him a visit to the county seat with witness fees of 50 cents a day and mileage. Walterboro was 35 miles away, and five cents a mile both ways meant $3.50, which loomed large in the mind of the old hunter. On the Saturday night before the convening of court, he prepared a week’s rations of cornbread, bacon and baked sweet potatoes, and early Sunday morning filled a great knapsack, and, with his long gun on his shoulder, walked all the way to the county seat. On the following day the pig thief was duly arraigned, the jury organized, and old Harrison, loaded to the muzzle with[Pg 170] Walterboro whiskey, to which he had been treated by the youngsters who liked to hear him talk, came to the witness stand, a 20-pound knapsack of provisions around his shoulders and his long gun in his hand. His direct testimony was:

“Sunday mornin’ bin over t’ Cap’n Elliott’s, coz mostly Sunday mornin’ ef uh goes by th’ house Cap’n gennully gives me uh pow’ful drink, en’ uh allus likes me dram. W’en uh got through me dram, uh was walkin’ ’long by ol’ Ben’s house, en’ uh heerd uh gun shoot. Uh meet some boys and went to th’ house en’ fin’ th’ shoat en’ fin’ number two duck shot een ’im. Uh fin’ ol’ Ben’s gun in the corner, one barrel been fired, en’ uh drawed th’ load of t’other barrel en’ fin’ number two duck shot, same size ez een th’ shoat. Then uh told Cap’n, he give me ’nother dram, we ’rested ol’ Ben in th’ pulpit where he was preachin’ to a raft uh niggers, en’ we send him to Walterboro.”

Then came the cross-examination. The young lawyer for the defense baited old Harrison to the great amusement of the court room.

“What do you know about duck shot?” he was asked. “I don’t believe you know the size of a duck shot.”

“Uh don’t know de size uv uh duck shot! Course uh knows de size uv uh duck shot. Bin hunt’n’ all me life, bin shoot’n’ duck shot all me life.”

“If you know the size of a duck shot, take this pencil and let the jury see you draw one on the court house wall.”

Harrison rose with bleary eyes and a fatuous smile on his bronzed face. Unable to read or write, he held the pencil as a small boy holds a sizzling firecracker, but he was game and stepped up to the wall primed[Pg 171] with the confidence born of ignorance. Judge, jury and spectators craned their necks to see the performance. The draftsman stuck close to the wall and moved the pencil slowly and laboriously over the whitewashed surface. When at last he stepped back and turned around proudly to reveal his work, the court house exploded with laughter, from Judge Wallace on the bench, to the tipstaff at the door, for the tipsy old hunter’s outline of a duck shot was about eight inches long and five inches wide and bore a striking resemblance to the continent of Africa. He returned to the witness chair. Taking the shouts of merriment as tributes to the accuracy of his sketch, he looked scornfully at the young lawyer.

“Ain’t I tell ye uh know’d d’size uv uh duck shot? Bin shoot’n’ duck shot all me life. Course uh knows d’size uv uh duck shot!” And there was more laughter.

The negro was convicted, and sent to the penitentiary for two years, but was soon leased to a railroad contractor, and, becoming a “trusty” and a cook, had an easy time. When he returned to Pon Pon he resumed his place in the pulpit without the slightest loss of caste, and often referred to his sojourn in the Capital City, telling many stories to the members of his flock about “de time w’en uh bin penitenshus,” or “w’en uh bin Cuhlumbia.”

One Christmas morning old Harrison came to the house with the portentous information that he intended to marry the widow Pendarvis, was then on his way to her habitation seven or eight miles away, and would bring back his bride the same evening.

“Dat whut uh yaim t’do Cap’n. Uh knows hits pow’ful resky t’marry uh widder, coz dey allus knows[Pg 172] toomuch, but uh needs uh ’ooman to clean up en’ do about d’house, en’ look after d’children, en’ de widder Pendarvis is uh right peart creeter, en’ she ain’t got uh lazy bone een her, so uh reck’n uh’ll resk it. Den, she’s got a son, John Henry, ’bout d’age uh my William. John Henry he ain’t much account, but uh needs anuther han’ en’ uh reck’n uh kin make out wid John Henry, so uh yaims to tek d’widder.”

The old adventurer was fitted out with a white shirt and a handkerchief, a pocketful of Christmas candies and a couple of stiff snifters, and so, fortified, he started toward the widow, stepping high, gun on shoulder. “Uh allus totes m’gun. Y’never knows whut y’gwine t’see.”

So the widow Pendarvis was duly acquired and proved a faithful and useful spouse, but old Harrison soon reached the conclusion that he had been gold-bricked in John Henry. “He ain’t no manner uv account. Ain’t wuth d’powder’n shot it ud’take t’kill’im! W’en uh married d’widder, uh didn’ aim t’git much uv uh bargin in John Henry, he was jus’ kinder throw’d een fuh good measure like, but now uh wisht he mout uh bin throw’d out.”

A year or two later William Harrison was walking the woods one day, and from a shallow grave at the edge of a negro’s field, his dogs dug up the hide and head of a stolen cow which the thief had buried to hide the ear-marks and the brand. The negro was sent to jail to await trial and William was subpœnæd as the chief witness. Old Harrison protested. “’Taint uh bit uh use t’sen’ William t’Walterboro fuh fifty cents uh day, w’en ’e’s makin’ seventy-five cents uh day now. W’y don’t yuh take my stepson John Henry[Pg 173] Pendarvis fer uh witness? He ain’t a workin’ en’ he’ll be glad t’git d’fifty cents uh day.” It was explained to the old hunter that as John Henry had not found the telltale hide and head, and knew nothing about the case, he could not be accepted as proxy. “Don’t make uh bit uh diff’unce. William kin tell John Henry whut he found en’ John Henry kin go t’Walterboro en’ swear to it. John Henry he’s a noble liar, en’ he kin lie en’ stick to’t. Them Walterboro lawyers can’t shake him.”

After awhile, bad health came upon the former widow, and in taking palliatives to relieve her pain, she became addicted to opium and spent all she could scrape for the drug at the village store. At last the neighborhood doctor warned her husband, “Harrison, if you don’t look out, some day your wife will take an overdose of laudanum and go up the spout.”

“Well, Doctor, ’tain’t fuh me to go ag’in her! She’s bin’uh noble ’ooman in ’er time. She’s never had uh lazy bone een ’er body. She’s bin uh pow’ful hand to do about, en’ she’s bin as peart uh ’ooman as ever was wropped up in that much hide, but she’s gitt’n kinder poorly now, she ain’t whut she used to be, she ain’t much account now, she can’t scrub no mo’, she’s got de rheumatism in de jints, so, Doctor, if she aims to go, uh reck’n d’best thing to do is to let her take a pow’ful dost en’ let ’er go!” So—poor, tired soul—she went.

Twenty-five years ago, old Jane was the very efficient cook at the Pawley’s Island hotel. A widow woman of fifty-odd, her black countenance, with its aquiline nose and sharp chin, was shrewd and witchlike.

“Old maids” are seldom met with among the low-country negroes, most of the women achieving matrimony, or having matrimony thrust upon them, at an early age in communities where marrying and unmarrying are but the merest incidents in their social and economic lives—and they are largely socio-economic relations,—“Uh haffuh hab wife fuh cook fuh me en’ wash me clo’es, enty?” “Uh haffuh hab man fuh wu’k fuh me en’ min’ me, enty?”—“and so they were married.”

Often, however, in early life, less frequently in middle age, women are, for the moment, unmarried, or, as one might more correctly say, unaffiliated, and if one of these “unaffiliations” should last long enough to constitute more than a very brief intermission in the matrimonial program, one, if of the fiercer sex, incurs the odium supposedly attaching to “oldmaidenhood.”

Jane had in her time looked upon husbands in yellow and brown and black, and had almost run the chromatic scale in temperament as in pigmentation. The sharps had irritated, the flats had wearied her—the “naturals,” being neither too sharp nor too flat, were, like the small wee bear’s belongings, “just right,” and Jane, like Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, thanked the Lord for them while they lasted. “But pleasures are like poppies spread,” and, as in Georgetown colored circles husbands[Pg 175] don’t always “stay put,” one by one Jane’s poppies—perhaps she thought them snap-dragons—folded their petals and their tents, and, forsaking the dusky companionship of the old love, flitted away to present freedom and prospective enslavement to the new—for there’s always a new—“ef rokkoon only hab one tree fuh climb, dog ketch’um,” being an axiom among them. As Jane couldn’t trot in double harness, she single-footed successfully for several years—so successfully, indeed, that she developed a fine scorn for the opposite sex. “Dem ent wut,” she thought, and “dem ent wut,” she said, whenever men were mentioned. In her solitude she found solace in industry, and, working at odd jobs during the winter, supplemented her summer earnings at the hotel and soon acquired enough to buy “uh piece uh groun’” (the coast negroes never speak of land) and built thereon a comfortable cabin, near which, within a wattled clapboard fence, she enclosed a plot where she grew the easy-going squashes and beans in summer, and Georgia collards—the holly-hocks of the vegetable garden—in winter.

Jane’s domain was on the mainland in the flat pine woods thick sown with clumps of the dark green tropical-looking saw-palmettoes, and bordered the marsh-fringed inlet or tidal lagoon, beyond which, half a mile distant, lay the broad ocean beach, the rolling sand dunes and the dwarf live-oak and cedar scrub of “the Island.” Here, nestling among the thickets, and sheltered under the protecting shoulders of the hills, were the summer cottages of the Islanders, and here, too, just opposite Jane’s cottage, stood the hotel, where all through the summer days she fried whiting, boiled sheepshead, deviled crabs, and did sundry other things[Pg 176] to the sea-food that the fishermen constantly brought to her kitchen. Jane’s riparian rights permitted her a landing where, moored to a primitive little pier, she kept the flat-bottomed skiff in which morning and evening she crossed the unvexed waters that lay between her home and her work.

Esau, a trifling, ramshackle, youngish negro, made an easy living by fishing, crabbing and doing odd jobs about the Island community. He was venturesome, as most saltwater negroes are, and often in the early mornings ran his leaky skiff through the breakers at the mouth of the inlet, and rowing—or wafted, when the wind favored, by a rag of a sail—adventured out to sea five miles from the beach, dropped an anchor made of two condemned iron pots tied together, and fished upon the blackfish rocks in the broiling sun till noon, returning to shore to sell the good fish to the Islanders and, later, eat the culls and odds and ends himself. On other days, when the East wind warned him that the fish wouldn’t bite, he bogged about the little creeks and runs of the marsh, or along the edge of the lagoon, and caught crabs by the basketful, which usually found a ready market.

Bringing his fish often to the hotel, Esau was on pleasant conversational terms with old Jane, and she often handed him out toothsome bits of “buckruh bittle” that fell from the overflowing table. In return for these gastronomic courtesies, Esau would chop wood, split kindling, or do other manly things that chivalrous colored bucks not infrequently perform for the females outside of their own family circles.

One hot August morning, Esau gathered lines and bait as soon as it was broad daylight, and, slipping over[Pg 177] the shallow bar at the mouth of the lagoon, sculled lazily out to the “drop” on the rocks. It was a windless dawn, the sea was without a ripple, and the slow, heaving swells reflected the opalescent tints of the eastern sky. The tide was still on the ebb, and its impulse, augmenting his speed, soon brought him to the drop where he cast anchor, and the boat swung round, bow to land, while Esau, in the stern, sat with his back to the rising sun and threw out his lines. The fish bit well, and at the end of two or three hours the bottom of Esau’s boat was well covered with the shining catch, chiefly speckled sea trout, whiting and blackfish. The sun increased in warmth, and Esau nodded and dozed and then slept, although, with the turn of the tide, the prow of his boat now pointed seaward and the sunshine burned in his face. At last, at noon, when its beams fell vertically upon his kinky head, he awoke with a start as a big horse-mackerel leaped from the water so near him that he was drenched with its spray. He looked out upon a sea of molten silver. A great shark, as long as his boat, rose slowly from the depths to within a foot of the surface, and, lying motionless, regarded him with cold, expressionless eyes. Esau shuddered. “Great Gawd,” he muttered, “time fuh gone home!” and, as the sinister creature sank out of sight, he quickly hauled up anchor, shipped oars, and pulled lustily to shore. It was high tide when he reached the inlet, and he rode the long rollers over the bar, and soon ran the nose of his skiff ashore on the oyster shells of the landing. He strung his fish and set out to find a market, but the time lost while he slept had made him too late to supply the dinners of his usual customers, and, as his fish were now stale, he[Pg 178] had no recourse but to eat them himself, so he set about cleaning them, and an hour later, when Jane, having served the hotel dinner, was dining alone in the kitchen, Esau appeared and ingratiatingly asked the loan of a frying pan, “please, ma’am, en’ some greese fuh greese’um.” As neither fat nor fuel cost Jane anything, she graciously complied, in the handsome spirit that prompts so many of us to be generous at the expense of others. Esau rubbed the greasy bacon-rind over the broad, generous bottom of the hotel frying pan and, having lubricated it sufficiently, cast in his fish, and the horrible sound and the horrible smell of frying soon filled the ears and the nostrils of every one about the establishment. Esau fried and he fried until, having filled a large tray with fish, he hung up the frying pan, took down his appetite, and began to eat. Esau was an eater, and had no half-dealings with his art. Seizing a fish by the head and tail, he moved it laterally across his mouth as some traveling men maneuver green corn on the cob, or as the village darkey plays the mouth-organ, until, in the twinkling of an eye, only the bones remained in his greasy fingers; then he played another mouth-organ, until in a few minutes he was filled to the neck, and only ten or twelve fried trout remained, and these he cached with old Jane for future attention, and betook himself to the shade of a scrubby live-oak nearby to rest. He threw himself on the sand and slept for several hours like a gorged Anaconda. At last, toward sundown, the land breeze brought the mosquitoes from the mainland across the lagoon, and they swarmed over him. Thrashing about in his troubled sleep, some of the cockspurs that grow everywhere in the Island sands[Pg 179] worked their way through his thin homespun trousers and stung him into wakefulness. He arose grouchy and grumbling, and returned to the kitchen where Jane was already preparing supper. “Eh, eh, weh you bin, Esau?” she greeted him.

“Uh binnuh sleep, ma’am, en’ muskittuh’ en’ cockspuhr’ en’ t’ing wake me en’ mek me fuh git up.”

“Wuh you gwine do wid dese fish wuh you lef’, Esau? De buckruh sen’ wu’d suh dem fish duh bodduhr’um, en’ ’e tell me fuh t’row’um een de ribbuh.”

“Uh had bidness fuh eat all dem fish one time, den uh wouldn’ haffuh t’row’um ’way.” And Esau sidled over to the tray of fish, and, looking at them regretfully, pinched off nibbling bits with his fingers and carried them to his mouth.

“You bettuh t’row’way da’ t’ing, Esau,” admonished Jane as she bustled about her work.

“Yaas, ma’am, uh gwine t’row’um ’way bumbye. Uh yent duh eat’um, uh jis’ duh pinch’um.” And he went slowly out toward the lagoon with the tray under his arm, but, as he walked, he pinched the fish so assiduously that, by the time he came to the water, little save the bones remained.

Two hours later, Jane approached the mistress of the house with an anxious face. “Please, ma’am, fuh gimme some ginjuh en’ t’ing fuh gi’ Esau ’fo’ ’e dead. Da’ nigguh sho’ hab uh hebby appetite fuh eat bittle. ’E ketch all dem fish, en’ ’e couldn’ sell’um to de buckruh ’cause dem binnuh leddown all day een de sunhot, en’ him fry’um en’ nyam t’ree string by ’eself, en’ ’e lef’ one string ’tell aw’ile ago, en’ uh tell’um fuh t’row’way dat one, en’ ’e staa’t’ fuh t’row’um ’way, but de fish cry out fuh Esau en’ Esau yeddy de cry, en’ ’e[Pg 180] pinch de fish, en’ ’e keep on pinch’um, pinch ’um, ’tell ’e done nyam mos’ all de fish, en’ now de fish pinch him! Uh bin hab uh bottle uh hawss linniment fuh rub hawss, en’ uh t’row dat een’um, but de bottle didn’ bin mo’nuh half full, en’ uh ’f’aid de linniment ent ’nuf fuh do’um good, alldo’ ’e strangle Esau w’en him swalluhr’um, en’ mek’um fuh spit sukkuh crab spit. Now, ’e duh roll obuh en’ obuh ’pun de groun’ same lukkuh mule roll w’en ’e tu’n out duh Sunday, en’ oonuh kin yeddy’um groan sukkuh dem ’ooman groan to the sett’n’up, w’en dem husbun’ en’ t’ing dead. Ef you please, ma’am, kin gimme some linniment, uh sump’n’nurruh fuh g’em, uh dunkyuh ef ’tis kyarrysene, ’cause da’ nigguh gwine dead!”

“Missis, da’ t’ing too sca’ceful fuh t’row’um ’way ef da’ nigguh gwine dead. Ef you ent got de linniment, please, ma’am, gimme de ginjuh en’ de peppuhmint alltwo, so uh kin t’row’um een Esau.”

“Missis, enty da’ nigguh eat fo’ kinduh fish? Uh wan’ g’em meddisin fuh reach all de kinduh fish wuh ’e done eat. Uh yent want’um fuh dead on my han’, ’cause him ent hab no fambly, en’ ’e yent blonx to no suhciety fuh bury’um, en’ uh know berry well me yent fuh t’row’way money fuh buy shroud en’ cawpse en’ t’ing fuh no Esau, so please, ma’am, mek’ace en’ gimme de t’ing fuh t’row een’um en’ see ef uh kin sabe ’e life!”

A liberal dose of mixed ginger and peppermint was poured into a tin cup, the rim of which Jane forced[Pg 181] between Esau’s teeth, and drenched him so successfully that in a few minutes he was flopping over the ground like a fish just pulled out of the water. His spasms were soon over, however, and he lay in a state of semi-coma. Jane was delighted. “Missis, me en’ you done sabe Esau’ life. Da’ nigguh blonx to me en’ you, Missis, en’ uh gwine mek’um wu’k.”

Summer passed into early autumn. The days shortened. September suns burned fiercely upon the ripening corn, and through the lengthening nights heavy dews fell on the purple petticoat-grass and the golden-rod. Between sunset and dusk, summer ducks flew over from their feeding grounds to their roosts in the pineland ponds, and all through the night sounded the faint “tweet, tweet” of the ricebirds passing on to their winter quarters.

So Jane, in the late summer of her days, looked kindly upon the man she had saved, even though she did not value the salvage very highly, and Esau gradually got in the habit of hanging about her kitchen and submitting to the air of proprietorship which she assumed toward him, chopping wood and doing other little chores for her, as a matter of course.

At last, one Thursday evening toward the end of the month, Jane bashfully appeared before her mistress, holding a corner of her apron against a corner of her mouth, which widened almost from ear to ear.

“Missis, uh come fuh tell you, ma’am, uh gwine marri’d Esau. Da’ nigguh duh heng roun’ de kitchen ’tell ’e git een me way. Uh cyan’ tu’n roun’ bidout step ’puntop’um, so uh gwine tek’um fuh husbun’.”

The announcement caused quite a flutter among the ladies at the hotel, and, as Jane had fixed the following[Pg 182] Saturday evening for the wedding, they hastened to overhaul their wardrobes for suitable material with which to deck out the bride. An old dotted-swiss muslin, found hidden away, was contributed by its owner as something sweet and virginal with which to rig out the craft that had sailed the seven seas of matrimony. Another guest of the hotel contributed a pair of white stockings, and, as Jane desired a veil, a breadth of old mosquito-netting, stiffly starched and skilfully laundered, was added to the outfit. On Saturday night, an hour after supper time, Jane, under the convoy of Esau and accompanied by the “locus pastuh” (the local preacher of her church) appeared before the hotel company assembled on the piazza, and announced her readiness to wed. The mosquito-net veil had been artistically looped about her by some of the ladies, and the dotted-swiss enveloped her with its starched stiffness. The knot was soon tied, and Jane, carrying the bride cake in her arms and followed by her new husband, floated away like a smutty coal-carrying brig, under a new suit of sails.

On the following morning, Jane appeared in the kitchen earlier than usual. The lady of the house asked what she had done with her new husband. “Uh run’um off, missis. Uh yent want’um. Wuh me fuh do wid man! Enty uh hab proputty! Uh marri’d Esau fuh git husbun’, uh yent marry’um fuh git man! Nigguh’ wuh grow up sence freedum, dem ent wut! Uh marry’um, den uh t’row’um ’way!”

“Ki! Missis! Uh marry’um fuh shet dem todduh ’ooman’ mout’! You t’ink me wan’ dem gal’ fuh call me ole maid?”

All low-country negroes believe more or less in “sperrits,” “haants” and other mysterious appearances, but the “plat-eye,” peculiar to the Georgetown coast, is the weirdest and most fearsome that vexes the roaming negroes at night. Plat-eyes appear to old and young of both sexes, sometimes in the form of a small dog or other animal, while at other times they may float like wraiths along the marshes or unfrequented paths, or stoop like low-hung clouds and envelop the victim. Most frequently, however, the plat-eye appears in the form of some familiar animal which, glaring at the beholder with eyes of fire, springs upon him, frightening him into rigidity, and, just as he expects his vitals to be torn out, the apparition vanishes, and the trembling negro hurries on his way. The belief has been expressed that, in some instances, the negroes to whom plat-eyes appear have fallen asleep as they walked, and, dreaming of these terrors, awakened to find them gone. In whatsoever form they come, however, the negroes dread the visitations as Werewolves were feared in Europe not so long ago.

Now, old Jane, the cook at the Pawley’s Island summer hotel, the many-times widowed woman who, having saved the life of Esau, the fisherman, by drenching him with horse liniment after he had partaken too freely of the spoils of his lines, had wedded that same Esau to save herself the reproach of oldmaidenhood, and had chased him away the morning after her Marriage de Convenance, was a fervent and fearful believer in plat-eyes. Whenever and wherever she[Pg 184] went her ways at night, she was on the lookout for them, and the expectation of their momentary appearance kept her nerves in a pleasant state of jumpiness. A stray calf at the edge of the clearing, a raccoon ambling along a woodland path, a sudden rabbit bouncing up before her, the horned owl that lifted her wayward fowls from their runaway roost on the ridgepole of her cabin, even the ghostly sandcrabs that drifted along the beaches at night as lightly as wind-blown foam, were all potential plat-eyes!

Two weeks had passed since Jane, the self-made celibate, had ejected the transitory husband of her bosom from the “bed and board” to which, under colored custom, if not under State law, he was supposed to be entitled. Esau wandered about, following his usual vagrant occupations, but vaguely conscious of his rather indefinite status as a husband—responsibilities there were none. Jane, to whom the marriage had brought wifehood—in the abstract, and very real things in the dotted-swiss and the white stockings of her bridal outfit—being withal as free and untrammeled in her property and her person as she had been before the episode, felt herself the gainer, and, to do her justice, regarded Esau rather as a slaughtered innocent. In respect of one small matter, however, Esau, too, had gained something. During his tentative courtship, or rather while, without his knowledge, Jane had had him under consideration, he chopped wood and did other chores for her without specific contract for compensation, for Jane was then an unrelated and unconnected female of the species, and he willingly performed these gallantries for her; but once married, even though she had so speedily and unceremoniously[Pg 185] divorced, or put him away, she was yet his woman—in thought at least, his chattel—and, harking back to his African ancestry, he bethought him that women were but hewers of wood and drawers of water, the domestic slaves of the lordly males, and, before laying hand to axe or stooping to pick up chips or driftwood, he never failed to bargain and chaffer with the cook for what she should pay him—at the expense of the lady of the house.

“Esau, uh wish you please kin pick up some chip’ fuh me fuh staa’t me fiah.”

“Enty uh done marri’d you fuh wife? Wuffuh man haffuh chop wood fuh ’e own wife?”

“Uh marri’d you, fuh true, Esau, but enty uh done run you off, en’ now you stan’ same lukkuh all dem todduh man wuh uh nebbuh bin hab fuh husbun’?”

Esau scratched his head, the point being rather fine for his comprehension, but he grunted stubbornly, nevertheless.

“Man hab wife fuh cook ’e bittle fuhr’um, enty? Hukkuh ooman kin cook bittle bidout ’e chop wood, eeduhso pick up chip’ fuh mek fiah? No, ma’am! Wuh you gwine gimme fuh eat ef uh chop wood fuh you?” Therefore, whenever Esau chopped wood, the hotel kitchen paid the fee.

September burned and passed away. October came. Among the brown and purple trunks of the pines, the red-bronze foliage of blackgum and sourwood glowed like dull fires. Tripods rose above the breakers, and, from the vantage of their elevated tops, the Islanders fished with rod and reel for the beautiful channel bass[Pg 186] which came up with the rising tide. The long rollers crashed upon the strand and broke into lace-like spray that the sea-wind tossed into a thousand miniature rainbows. The plaintive cry of the sea-birds, the whisper of the wild-oats as their ripening seed panicles rustled in the wind, and the sharp tang in the air, brought to the spirit the poignant sadness of autumn—“Falling Leaf and Fading Tree,” and Tosti’s haunting melody.

On a certain night, Jane permitted Esau’s escort to a cottage two miles up the beach, whither she had undertaken an errand for her employer. The night was dark and overcast, and the air was heavy with a promise of coming rain. A fitful breeze picked up the loose sand above highwater mark into little whorls, sent them dancing about the upper beach, and set the clumps of wild-oats on the dunes above to shivering weirdly. The tide was at the flood, and the long dun rollers boomed sullenly on the beach and sucked at the sands as though loath to leave them.

As she got farther away from the comforting lights of the hotel and adventured into the creepy darkness that lay before her, Jane shuddered, and lifted the shawl from her shoulders over her bandanna-topped head as though to shut out from her apprehensive ears all fearsome sounds. Esau shuffled along beside her, but he, too, was uncomfortable, for he was a timid negro, and even the boldest are none too brave at night.

A sudden gust of wind lifted the foam cap from a breaking wave, blew it in their faces and whistled eerily through the wild-oats. A ghost crab sprang up at their very feet and scurried away, affrighted. Jane[Pg 187] clutched Esau’s arm. “Great Gawd!” she groaned, “duh plat-eye! Uh shum! uh shum!”

Before she could point to the flying crab, another pallid, spider-like creature drifted across her path and followed the first. Jane was poised for flight, but Esau stood firm and steadied her nerves, and in a few moments they moved on again, but with wide eyes and hesitant steps. At last they had covered half the distance, and a mile away, beyond the dark, a spot of yellow light marked their goal, which they might have reached but for the raccoons’ love for shell fish. At a low spot in the broad beach the tide had eaten out a narrow channel through which the waters rushed almost up to the sand-hills, bringing small fish and shrimp and clams far beyond the break of the rollers, and, at the entrance to this cut, facing the ocean, a big raccoon was fishing at the moment the negroes reached the tidal rivulet and paused to look for a crossing. Esau, with trousers rolled up to his knees, adventured first, and as Jane, “standing with reluctant feet,” on the marge, called to him to ask the depth, she unhappily cast her eyes seaward just as the four-footed fisherman, startled by the voices behind him, wheeled, and turned his round, green eyes full upon them. As their sinister light shone fearsomely against the dark background of the waves, Jane shrieked in agony. “Oh Jedus! de plat-eye! de plat-eye!” And, turning tail, she fled along the back track, screaming at every jump. Esau’s gallantry, and one look at the shining eyes, prompted him to follow Jane, which he did at top speed, while the wretched raccoon, frightened out[Pg 188] of his supper by the havoc he had unwittingly wrought, lost no time in attaining sanctuary among the scrub beyond the sand-hills.

On sped Jane. Her screaming-wind gave out after the first hundred yards, and, save for her labored breathing, she ran silently, Esau, a black shadow, close behind. In an incredibly short time, Jane and her runner-up reached the hotel, speechless with exhaustion and fright. When she had recovered her breath, Jane hurried to her mistress. “Missis, ma’am, uh nebbuh tek de ansuh wuh you sen’ to da’ juntlemun todduh side de Ilun’, ’cause uh nebbuh git dey, Missis; en’, ef Jedus yeddy me, uh nebbuh fuh gone to da’ place no mo’ duh night-time! Missis, dem plat-eye t’ick ’puntop da’ beach sukkuh fiddluh crab’ t’ick een de maa’sh w’en tide low! Uh binnuh walk ’long Esau, en’ one sumpn’nurruh come off de wabe’ top, en’ ’e float by me sukkuh cloud wuh hab uh sperrit een’um. Uh shet me yeye, en’ ’e gone. Den de win’ mek uh jump, en’ ’e biggin fuh shake dem grass en’ t’ing ’puntop de san’hill ’tell ’e mek me hair fuh rise! Same time uh see two w’ite sperrit run ’cross de paat’. Esau binnuh trimble ’tell uh graff’um by ’e sleebe fuh keep’um f’um run’way, but none de t’ing nebbuh hab uh chance fuh t’row dem eye ’puntop me ’tell uh git to de place weh de tide bruk t’ru de beach. W’en uh git dey, Missis, Esau roll up ’e britchiz fuh cross. Me duh wait ’tell him git ’cross befo’ uh staa’t’ fuh hice me ’coat fuh walk t’ru’um, en’, ef me Jedus didn’ tell me fuh t’row me yeye fuh look roun’, uh nebbuh would’uh bin yuh, but w’en uh look, uh see da’ t’ing’ two eye’ duh shine sukkuh lightship’ eye’ shine ’puntop’uh Rattlesnake shoal’! Missis, w’en uh fus’ look[Pg 189] ’puntop’um uh t’ink ’e duh lightship fuh true, but bumbye ’e shake ’e head en’ uh know suh ’e duh plat-eye, en’ ’e duh try fuh t’row uh spell ’puntop me fuh mek me fuh dead! Uh yent hab time fuh kneel down, but uh staa’t fuh pray een me h’aa’t, en’ uh baig Gawd, ef da’ plat-eye haffuh ketch nigguh, fuh mek’um fuh ketch Esau en’ lef me, ’cause, Missis, eb’rybody know’ suh Esau ent wut! But seem lukkuh Gawd nebbuh yeddy de pray’, ’cause me mout’ bin shet w’en uh mek’um, ’cause uh yent wan’ Esau fuh yeddy wuh uh say, en’ de plat-eye nebbuh tek ’e yeye off’uh my’own. ’E look en’ ’e look, en’ ’e yeye git mo’ bigguh en’ mo’ shiny, en’ w’en uh see suh him duh look ’puntop’uh me en’ ent duh study ’bout Esau, Missis, uh comin’ fuh home! Missis, you see dog run, you see hawss run, you see bu’d fly, en’ you see pawpus jump een de ribbuh, but you nebbuh see none dem t’ing trabble lukkuh me trabble w’en uh staa’t fuh run! W’en me ten toe’ dig een de du’t, ’e t’row de san’ mo’nuh half uh acre behin’ me! De win’ wuh uh mek t’row dem wil’oats en’ grass en’ t’ing flat ’pun de groun’, en’ all de time uh duh run uh yeddy Esau’ foot duh beat drum behin’ me, en’ w’en uh yeddy’um, uh tengkful, ’cause uh know da’ t’ing fuh ketch him fus’ ’fo’ ’e kin git me; en’, Missis, ef you ain’ hab no ’jeckshun, ma’am, uh gwine tek Esau fuh husbun’ ’gen, ’cause, attuh tenight, uh know suh me kin run fas’ mo’nuh him, en’ him will be uh nyuseful t’ing fuh tek ’long w’en uh duh walk duh paa’t duh night-time, ’cause, ef plat-eye mek alltwo uh we fuh run, him ’bleege fuh ketch Esau fus’, en’, alldo’ da’ nigguh ent wut, ’e hab shishuh slow foot, Missis, uh kin mek’um fuh sabe me life!”

Before the war, the low-country planters, migrating each summer to their mountain homes at Flat Rock, N. C., frequently bought horses and mules from the drovers as they passed along the Buncombe Road on their way South from the stock ranges of Kentucky and Tennessee. Sometimes beautiful ponies were brought from the Pink Beds, away back in the North Carolina mountains, others came from the nearer valleys of the French Broad, but most of the Seacoast planters supplied their needs from the Tennessee drovers as they moved down the main-traveled road.

From an old drover named Pickett, a mule was acquired to which the negroes gave the drover’s name. Although a young mule, and of the opposite sex, she was christened “Old Pickett,” and bore the name with distinction for nearly a quarter of a century. Long and low, and powerfully built, Old Pickett was a light bay in color, with the brown stripe down the back and the zebra legs which mule wranglers regard as evidence of toughness—and Old Pickett was tough.

Old Pickett came into the hands of the family late in October. A thin skin of ice had formed along the shores of the lakes. Flocks of blue-winged teal whistled through the air and splashed as they alighted on the clear waters. Chestnuts had fallen, and their green and brown burrs covered the ground under the far-spreading limbs of the big trees. Their little cousins, the chinquapins, had long been gathered and strung in necklaces, or roasted at the hearths of the glowing wood fires. The pheasant-shooting was nearly over,[Pg 191] and Westly-Richards and Greener were cleaned and oiled and slipped into their buckskin covers, in readiness for the campaign against deer and duck and turkey in the low-country. With the first days of November, as the branches of the great oaks cracked under the weight of the roosting wild pigeons, and the sloping sides of old Pinnacle and all the lesser peaks burned with the flame-like foliage of the hickory and the ruby fires of the oaks, the family started down the mountain for Greenville, the first stop in the ten-day journey to the sea. Carriages for the ladies and the elders, saddle horses for the younger men, and comfortable covered wagons for the house servants, the cavalcade moved out, Old Pickett and her companions tethered behind the wagons to take their turn at the pole later on.

Arrived at the big plantation, Old Pickett became familiar with the plow, the cart and the Gullah negro, and for twelve years led an uneventful life, buckling to the tough “joint grass” of the uplands in summer, and bogging pastern deep in winter as the slim plowshare slid through the sticky soil of the ricefields and turned the stubble into long greasy-looking furrows. While a willing worker, Old Pickett took her time and always “gang’d her ain gait.” She was nimble, too, with her heels, and the stable boys about the mule lot could always amuse themselves by throwing sticks or light clods of earth on Old Pickett’s hindquarters to make her “kick up,” when she came in to be unharnessed after her day’s work, and she was always ready to oblige. Wearing a blind bridle, she could not see behind her, but she was strong for the uplift, and[Pg 192] whatever touched her in the rear had to go up, whether stick, or clod or stable boy!

Then the war! In the dawn of an April morning, came the sound of the big guns in Charleston harbor thirty miles away, and, a few months later, from another direction, rolled the thunder of yet heavier and more distant guns, bombarding Port Royal, and still Old Pickett plowed and carted, and otherwise plodded in the ways of peace, but not for long. The questing eye of the Confederate Government looked approvingly on Old Pickett’s short legs, arched loins and well-sprung ribs, and, discerning an artillery mule, intimated a desire for ownership, but Old Pickett, compelling as she did the little negroes who walked behind and around her to become alert and watchful, was a plantation institution and could not be parted with permanently, but she was loaned to the Confederacy, and for a year or two hauled caissons and cannon and army wagons about the coast section wherever an attack was threatened by the invaders.

At last, the booming of cannon came nearer, an expedition having reached Willtown only seven miles away, and, as negroes from nearby plantations were “running away to the Yankees,” a farm was leased in the far away land of Abbeville, and thither, for safekeeping, went a number of slaves under Zedekiah Johnson, a kindly and reliable overseer. With this venture went Old Pickett, and here, until the end of the war, she faithfully followed the curved and crooked furrows that ran around the terraced hills, and stubbed her unshod hoofs against the flinty stones thick sown about the ruddy soil. In the up-country, women sometimes plowed, and Old Pickett, blinkered and forward-looking[Pg 193] as she was forced to be, submitted to the indignity of being “gee’d” and “haw’d” and chevied along by a bare-footed, sun-bonneted female of the species.

Freedom came. The low-country negroes whom it overtook in Abbeville, went their ways. The wagons and mules, all save old Pickett, were sold for the pitiful greenbacks that the profiteering few who had them, were willing to pay, and old Pickett came home. A low-country freedman, wishing to return to his habitat, kindly consented to ride her the two hundred miles, cannily exchanging his fore-knowledge of the road for the use of her four legs. And what a home-coming! The “big house” at the head of the wide live-oak avenue lay in ruins, sentineled by the tall, charred trunks of “Sherman’s laurels,” the two great magnolias that sometime stood in their glossy green liveries overhanging the hospitable hearths that once glowed within. Wildcats lurked in the briar thickets now upsprung from the fertile soil where once stood the great stables. The plantation quarters, whose streets formerly resounded with jest and laughter, at the touch of the vandal’s torch had flared into flame and vanished, and among their ashes Jimpson weed and other rank growths struggled.

In a rough stable, hastily improvised of blackgum logs, Old Pickett was introduced to strange, young Western mules, new to negro ways, but, from the time of her home-coming, she seemed to grow resentful toward all the world. While still performing her tasks faithfully, she would not be hurried, and no freedman was ever able to urge her into a trot, so, by example, if not by precept, the younger mules associated with her gradually acquired somewhat of trickiness[Pg 194] and of truculence. Old Pickett still respected the former slave-holding planters, and under one of these (she was a good saddle animal) she would still condescend to canter, but the small white boy of ten or eleven years, and the negroes of all ages, she held in utter contempt. Saddles and bridles were scarce after the war, and spurs were rare. “The Captain” had a single ante-bellum spur with which he urged recalcitrant horse or mule to such bursts of speed as a grass diet would warrant. When rallied by his hunting companions on his lack of the twin spur, he shrewdly observed that if he could make one side of his steed travel fast enough to suit him, the other could always be induced to go along, too. As this precious tool was never loaned, the small boy who aspired to equestrian exercise was forced to kick his steed in the ribs with his bare heel, to which was sometimes tied, with a piece of hickory bark, a forked stick shaped like a wishbone, usually an effective goad with which to tickle the equine flank, but Old Pickett was unresponsive. She was, in a manner of speaking, on all-fours with St. Paul. “None of these things move me,” she thought—and they didn’t. The ambitious boy who expressed a willingness to adventure a trip to the railway station, two miles away, for the mail, only for the chance to ride, was sometimes offered Old Pickett, just to chill his ardor. If he accepted the mount, he was given a plow bridle, a folded crocus bag upon which to sit, and was allotted a few hours in which to make the trip. A stout switch was permitted him, which he carried in his right-hand for style, rather than for any impression he hoped to make on Old Pickett’s tough hide. Fortunately, the kindly amenities of war had[Pg 195] left the great avenue without a gate, or he could not have passed, as no amount of urging could have brought Old Pickett within arm’s length of the latch, so the way was clear to the old King’s Highway. The boy had plenty of time to admire the scenery as Old Pickett walked sedately along between the willow-fringed canals that flanked the approach to the “Two Bridges.” In the summer, water snakes dropped quietly into their element from the overhanging branches upon which they had been sunning themselves, terrapins slid from their floating logs, and now and then a small alligator sank slowly downward, leaving only his eyes above the water. Just beyond, where the boughs of a grove of Spanish oaks stretched above the road, squirrels sometimes played, alighting among the smaller branches with a soft “swish” as they sprang from tree to tree. Then, on to Jupiter Hill, or “Town Hill,” as the negroes called it, because it lay in the direction of Charleston. Here, with a clay hole on one side and a Colonial milestone on the other—“31 M. to C Town” cut in its brown sandstone face—the roads forked, the right-hand leading to the Village, the left to the station. Although Old Pickett’s way always led to the station, she never failed to submit the selection of the road to argument, and invariably leaned to the right. Whether the memory of the brave, hopeful, early days of the Confederacy, when she had drawn artillery or army wagons along this road, urged her to tread again the once familiar paths, or whether she sought only to match her will and her wits against the boy’s, one may not know, but, as far as the boy was concerned, the discipline was wholesome, for loss of temper availed nothing against Old[Pg 196] Pickett. Her response to an application of the switch was to sidle up to the nearest tree or sapling, against which she would rub her rider’s bare legs, so she was seldom switched. Sometimes the boy would sit on her back ten or fifteen minutes without moving, while she drowsed and dreamed of the past, and then, when, perhaps, she had forgotten the dispute between them, he would get her started in the way she should go. At other times, however, when she could not be wheedled out of the Village road, her rider let her have her way, and, after going two or three hundred yards, would slowly turn her head into the pineland and, gradually sweeping around in a wide semi-circle to the left, would reenter the road to the station a quarter of a mile beyond. Arrived at his destination, the boy would be fortunate to find some idle negro around who would bring out the mail to him, for, once dismounted, he could not remount without assistance, Old Pickett invariably backing her ears, baring her teeth, and altogether turning toward him “an unforgiving eye and a damned disinheriting countenance.” To grown-ups Old Pickett was dangerous only at the rear, but to a dismounted boy she was loaded at both ends and—a revolver at that—she was so pivoted that head and tail could swap places with surprising facility. Old Pickett’s tracks on her way home, however, were the prints of peace. Like so many of the human race, she knew the way to the trough, and thither she was willing to be guided.

On Sundays, Old Pickett was turned into the big pasture with the other mules, for rest and recreation, but, while her companions galloped or trotted and played, she kept away from them, grazing alone until[Pg 197] satisfied, when, withdrawing to a far corner of the field, and resting her head upon the rider of the rail fence, she would gaze into space with retrospective eyes. Sometimes the Sunday outings would be in cornfields after harvest, where the slovenly freedmen usually left bunches of rank-growing sheep burrs, having a strong affinity for the manes and tails of horses and mules. Of these, Old Pickett acquired her share. The negro who plowed her extracted without difficulty those which lodged in her mane, but the taking of them out of her tail was an event in stableyard circles. Strongly tethered in her stall with a short halter, a stout bar was run into grooves behind her, so hampering her hindquarters that she could not extend herself. Thus helpless, she was ignominiously despoiled of the burrs that clung to her tail, even the small black boys participating in the spoliation, of which they did not fail to brag later to their companions at the quarters.

“You see dis sheep buhr, enty? Uh tek’um out’uh Ole Pickett’ tail,” said one, proudly pulling a burr out of the wool about his ears.

“No, you nebbuh! You duh Gawd fuh projick ’long Old Pickett’ tail? ’E yent come out’um!”

Besides the burrs acquired by her mane and tail, Old Pickett sometimes got them in her ears, and then a circus act was necessary to get the bridle over her head in the morning.

One summer afternoon, crook-legged, yellow Sabey[Pg 198] came up to the house to borrow a mule with which to drag from a distant backwater a large alligator he had just killed, offering to recompense the favor by bringing a portion of the creature’s oily flesh to be cooked for the always hungry hounds. As all the other farm animals were busy, Sabey was told that he might have Old Pickett, who grazed alone in a distant pasture. Not knowing Old Pickett intimately, the poor darkey scraped his foot gratefully, and taking a bridle from the rack, an ear of corn from the crib and a bundle of fodder from the stack, he set out as gaily and as full of faith as the small boy who, receiving from an elder his first handful of “fresh salt,” goes forth in quest of the elusive robin’s tail. Arrived at the pasture, Sabey shambled toward Old Pickett, holding the ear of corn and the blades coaxingly before him. The bridle was hidden from sight at his back, tied to a hickory bark suspender. As Sabey approached, though he looked like no Greek that ever walked, or fought, or ran, Old Pickett, appraising the provender as camouflage and fearing even the Gullah bearing gifts, raised her head and looked at him suspiciously, but, as Sabey slowed down his pace and called “coab, coab, coab” softly and appealingly, she let him come up to her and condescended to nibble at the outstretched handful of blades. The negro’s favorite method of catching a loose mule is to seize her firmly by the ear, and to this Old Pickett, without an earful of sheep burrs, might have submitted, but, as Sabey grabbed, the sharp burrs were pressed so painfully into the inner lining of her ear, that she wheeled as quick as a flash and, lashing out with heels that had lost none of their youthful vigor, would have lifted Sabey into the air had he not with[Pg 199] quick presence of mind thrown himself flat on the ground, so that she kicked over him. When the immediate danger had passed, Sabey rose to his feet and followed her about the pasture for two hours, in the vain effort to coax her again within reach, or to drive her into a fence corner, where he might, by getting a rail behind her, so pen her up that the bridle could be slipped over her head without danger. But Old Pickett could neither be led nor driven, and, just as the sun was setting, Sabey returned alone to the house.

“Mas’ Rafe, uh bin ketch cootuh een me time, uh bin ketch alligettuh, but uh yent fuh ketch no t’unduh en’ no lightnin’, en’ da’ t’ing oonuh call Ole Pickett, him duh t’unduh en’ lightnin’ alltwo one time! Uh gone een de pastuh en’ alltwo me han’ full’up wid bittle fuh da’ mule fuh eat. Uh hab uh kin’ feelin’ een me h’aa’t fuh da’ mule ’tell uh fin’um out, but now, uh nebbuh fuh trus’um ’gen no mo’! Mas’ Rafe, da’ mule ’ceitful ez uh ’ooman! ’E nyam de bittle out me han’, en’ w’en uh graff ’e yez fuh ketch’um, please Gawd, ’e head en’ ’e yez gone, en’ me han’ duh graff ’e two hin’ foot! Uh nebbuh see shishuh swif’ hin’ foot lukkuh da’ mule got. Ef me Jedus didn’ bin tell me fuh fall flat ’puntop me belly, sukkuh alligettuh, uh would’uh dead; but w’en uh do dat, een Gawd’ mussy, de mule kick obuh me, en’ de du’t en’ t’ing wuh ’e kick up out de pastuh, gone ’way up een de ellyment, en’ w’en ’e fall ’puntop me ’e kibbuh me up same lukkuh dem t’row du’t ’puntop’uh man een ’e grabe! Mas’ Rafe, uh tengkful fuh you fuh len’ me da’ mule fuh ride, but ’fo’ uh try fuh ketch’um ’gen, uh redduh walk on me han’ en’ me foot frum yuh spang Caw Caw Swamp!”

Old Pickett had now passed her twenty-fifth year,[Pg 200] and day by day became sadder and wiser. She accepted her daily tasks with resignation, but not with enthusiasm. The sockets above her weary eyes grew deeper, and white hairs thickened among the tawny pelage about her brow. Her ears, once so erect and responsive to all the sounds of the world about her, now flopped dejectedly like an unstarched “cracker” sunbonnet. Her lips, as pendulous as those of the bull moose that once tried to bite the Faunal Naturalist, hung lower and lower, and the hour drew near when she must shuffle off the mortal harness she had worn so long. Her eyes had looked upon smiling Peace, upon grim War, and—under Reconstruction, the once proud planters on foot and their quondam slaves on horseback—it was time to go. Turned out in the pasture to spend her last days in idleness, she walked listlessly about, cropping here and there a bunch of tender grass, while she waited for the summons. When it came, and she lay down to rise no more, a black spot, slowly circling in the sky, stooped, and, on a lower level, sailed again in narrowing circles. The keen eyes of other questing vultures, miles away, watched the drop, and followed. From the four corners of the heavens they came, and, alighting on rail fence and blasted pine, or hovering low on shadowy wings, they watched and waited, until at last Old Pickett’s glazing eyes told them that her heart and her heels were stilled forever.

A month or two later in the Autumn, when the family returned to the plantation from the pineland village, the boy indignantly reproached the negroes for not having given Old Pickett decent sepulture, and two of them were induced to gather up her whitened bones and bury them in a shallow grave at the edge of[Pg 201] the ante-bellum “horse burying ground,” where the old family horses rested under the live-oaks. The negroes could not understand the boy’s emotion as the clods fell on the bones of the faithful old mule. “Eh, eh, buckruh boy too commikil. Him duh cry ’cause mule dead!” They did not know that the passing of Old Pickett severed a link with the golden past, and that into her grave went something of The Lost Cause!

An hour after sunrise, hunters and pack assembled at the appointed rendezvous, a centrally situated plantation. There was the usual exchange of pleasant badinage as to the relative speed, stamina and other qualities of the different hounds, who, now united in an imposing pack of twenty, combined almost every type known to the deer hunter, and each had its admirers. The older men preferred the native low-country stock, a blend, perhaps, of the blood of fox hound and beagle, bred for a hundred years or more from dogs brought from England long, long ago. These were fine, high-bred looking animals, mostly “blue speckled,” flecked with patches of black and fawn, whose twisted ears, soft as velvet, were long enough to tie under their wearers’ throats—very aristocrats of the dog world, from their long muzzles to the tips of their slender “rat” tails, not very fast, perhaps, but with noses so “cold” that they could follow a deer trail more than twenty-four hours old. Then, too, their cry! “Rolling tongues,” all of them, sweet and sonorous, whose blending of deep and high-pitched tones sent the blood tingling through the veins. The hard-riding youngsters, however, preferred the recently imported “English” dogs—thick-set, powerful creatures, white, with great patches of black and tan, broad-eared and “feather-tailed.” Their noses were not cold, nor was the music of their yelping “chopped” tongues inspiring, but they had great speed, and their feet were so hard that they could be run day after day without becoming footsore. Here and there, a somber spot in[Pg 203] the pack, was a black and tan and—a touch of flame—a big “red-bone” of a western North Carolina strain, a rangy fellow, bred to speed and endurance in a rough, red-fox country. So each type and each individual had special qualities and special advocates, and all were gathered—Countess, Echo, Music, Harper, Lead, Luck, Modoc, Rowser, Blueman, the panther-like Huntress, and many younger dogs—into a pack whose all-round efficiency could not have been matched between Ashley River and the tawny waters of the Savannah!

At last the horns were sounded, and horsemen and hounds passed up the Cypress road. Soon after crossing the two bridges a mile or so away, a short consultation was had, and the “Elliott Big Drive” was decided upon. The elder huntsmen directed the standers to their positions and, after allowing sufficient time for those who had been assigned the more distant passes to reach their stands, the two expert and daring riders who had been designated as the “drivers” put in the eager pack and they spread fanlike among the myrtles.

The old buck, whose trophies were the special object of this day’s hunt, had long baffled the Nimrods of the neighborhood. Unusually large and with a magnificent head of “basket” horns, his resourcefulness had always enabled him to escape his pursuers. He varied his tactics as occasion required. In the early fall and winter, while lying with does and yearlings in the myrtles, or on the sunny side of some broomgrass field, he would cunningly keep his place upon the approach of hounds and hunters, allowing his companions to spring up and lead the cry off on a long run for the river. Then, when the danger was over, he would[Pg 204] sneak away and take sanctuary in some distant thicket. Later on, in February and March, when the bucks, having dropped their horns, herded together like timid sheep, he pursued the same course, allowing the younger and less experienced to “jump” at the approach of the pack and lead it away while he remained in safety. In his bachelor days, however, he changed his methods, and, at the first cry of a distant dog opening upon the trail, the wary buck would “sneak,” and, by the time the pack reached his erstwhile bed, they found only the outline of his burly body in the petticoat grass where he had made his luxurious couch, while the old fellow would be perhaps six or seven miles away in the Ti Ti across the Edisto, or in some remote and inaccessible fastness beyond the Toogoodoo. In summer, when his great antlers in the “velvet” were tender and sensitive to the slightest touch of twig or foliage, he avoided thickets and tangled places, skirting the ridges that rose like shoulders on either side of the narrow bays that intersected the great forests of long-leaf pine.

But on this crisp November day, the woods were clean and clear, with no tangle of summer foliage, and the big buck, now carrying iron-hard horns, was as free to run through swamp or thicket as on the higher knolls and ridges, and, cunning and deceitful, he changed his tactics from chase to chase, and kept his pursuers guessing as to whether he would “jump” or “sneak,” whether his course would be east, south or west. Northward he never ran, for thither lay the railway and the flat woods, with no rivers beyond whose waters lay sanctuary.

One of the standers, well-mounted, took up a distant pass at Elliott’s Wells, the site of a settlement[Pg 205] abandoned many generations ago. Concealing his horse in a thicket at the rear of the stand, he returned to the knoll, stood in front of a great pine, a giant among its lofty fellows, and listened for the cry of the pack. But listening was difficult and no cry came to his ears. The wind was high, and, singing among the pine tops like æolian harps, rose and swelled and softened and died away, now whispering of the wold with its peaceful sheep, and quiet meadows where cattle grazed, now thundering of stormswept mountain tops and the break of ocean surges on rockbound coasts, and again softened to the lap of sluggish wavelets on the shining shores of placid bays, and sighing told of those that grieved, and shrieked with the anguish of those that suffered, and softened again with the laughter of little children, and told the myriad stories and waked the thousand memories that the weird and mysterious songs of the wind among the pines bring to those whose hearts are attuned to nature. More than once the stander stood at attention, thinking he heard the cry of a distant hound, but, with a lull in the wind, the aural will-o’-the-wisp was gone, so misleading are the wind-sounds to even the trained ear. An hour passed. Two hours—but only the wind was heard, no bay of dog, no blast of horn betraying the presence of hunter or hound anywhere in the great expanse of forest.

Not far away was an old graveyard, one of the Colonial villages of the dead occasionally found in the low-country forests. The lettering on the marble slabs that covered the eternal sleepers revealed them as members of important families, many of them children who died of fever during the summer months before the days of quinine, deep wells and wire screens.[Pg 206] The stander, while listening for the cry of the pack, read the lichen-covered inscriptions on the tombs and mused like Gray and Omar. With a whimsical smile, he looked at the towering crown of a great water-oak deep-rooted in the mould of a stout-hearted 17th century squire—a “five-bottle man” perhaps, and marveled at the alchemy of nature that could, from Madeira, Port and old Jamaica Rum, resolve a dew to nourish a Water Oak! Then, with ineffable sadness, he read the brief life-stories of God’s little children, “Mary,” “Anne,” “William,” “beloved daughter,” “beloved son” “of —— and —— his wife,” “died August 171-,” “died September 172-.” A cherub deep-carved in the marble, the line “Suffer little children to come unto Me”—no more! Seven, eight generations of men and women had lived their lives and passed since these little children were taken home 200 years ago! Yet, how near the tragedy seemed! The father returning from field or forest to find the mother in agony over the stricken child, no doctor, no ice, no effective medicines. The brilliant eyes, the burning cheeks, delirium, the end. The little mound in the woodland, wet with a mother’s tears, the graver’s chisel in the marble—and that was all. So men and women lived, and little children died—two hundred years ago!

At the end of the fourth hour of waiting, the stander, hearing only the wind-harps among the pine-tops, and realizing that, either the pack had jumped and been led by the chase out of the drive—a cunning old buck sometimes running contrary to all precedent—or that, striking no trail, the drivers had “blown out” of the Big Drive and called the hunt together for exploitation elsewhere, mounted his[Pg 207] horse and rode due west through the woods for the Willtown road, which, running north and south, and nearly parallel with the Edisto and its tributary Penny Creek, would be crossed by any deer making for the river. Just as he reached the road, he accosted a negro walking toward Parker’s Ferry X-Roads, and asked if he had heard horns or hounds.

“Maussuh, uh binnuh stan’ een Willtown road close to Mas’ Edwu’d Baa’nwell’ Clifton place, w’en uh yeddy de dog duh comin’ fuh me, en’ uh stop fuh liss’n. Bimeby, uh see de mukkle duh shake, en’, fus’ t’ing uh know, de deer jump out de t’icket en’ light een de big road en’ look ’puntop me! ’E foot fall saaf’ly ’pun de groun’ same lukkuh cat duh sneak ’puntop’uh bu’d. ’E tu’n ’e head en’ ’e look ’puntop me lukkuh somebody, ’cep’n’ suh ’e yeye big lukkuh hawn owl’ eye. ’E look at me so positubble, uh t’ink mus’be ’e duh haant, en’ uh dat ’f’aid ’e gwine t’row one spell ’puntop me, uh tu’n ’way me head. W’en uh look roun’ ’gen, ’e gone! Yuh come de dog’! Uh nebbuh see summuch dog’! Dem full’ de road, en’ dem woice’ roll ’tell you nebbuh yeddy shishuh music. Dem cross’ de road, en’ dem gone! Attuh leetle w’ile, uh yeddy’um duh gib dem toung een de gyaa’d’n uh ole Maussuh’ Clifton house wuh dem Nyankee bu’n down eenjurin’ uh de wah. De gyaa’d’n big ez uh cawnfiel’, en’ ’e full’uh high rose bush duh climb up ’pun de tree, en’ all kind’uh briah en’ t’icket dey dey. Uh yeddy de dog’ mek uh sukkle roun’ de gyaa’d’n, den dem stop. Bimeby, yuh come de ole buck duh run puhzackly ’pun ’e back track, en’, w’en ’e git to de big road weh him lef’ me duh stan’up, uh t’awt at de fus’ ’e bin gwine jump ’puntop me, but ’e tu’n shaa’p roun’ en’ light down de road gwine Paa’kuh’ Ferry Cross-road’. ’E[Pg 208] run ’traight een de big road, en’ uh’ spec’ ’e gone ’way todduh side Allstun’ Abenue befo’ de dog’ git back to de big road on ’e trail. De dog’ comin’ so fas’ uh git out ’e way fuh l’em pass, en’ dem so hasty, dem nebbuh ’top fuh smell weh de deer tu’n off down de road, en’ dem gone uh bilin’ t’ru de mukkle t’icket on de back track weh dem come f’um, en’ dem run ’bout uh mile befo’ dem fin’ out sun dem bin ’puntop de back track, den dem tu’n roun’ en’ come back fuh weh uh binnuh stan’ up. One leetle blue speckle’ toad bus’ out de pack en’ tek de fresh trail weh de buck jump off de back track, en’ gone! Soon ez dem todduh dog’ yeddy him woice, dem lef’ de ole trail en’ bu’n de win’ down de big road on de fresh track. Da’ duh de las’ uh shum, en’ uh nebbuh yeddy’um no mo’ attuh ’e done gone.”

Sure enough, the veteran Echo, the most intelligent dog in the pack, was running wide when she reached the road for the second time and detected the old buck’s maneuver. With a roar, the pack followed her at top speed down the open road, but, by the time the cry reached the Allston place on Penny Creek, the buck, with two or three miles the start of them, had run directly through the negro quarters, causing general consternation in the settlement, and had taken the water at the landing. Instead of crossing, however, he swam rapidly up stream and, aided by the flood tide, was a mile away before the pursuing pack reached the water’s edge. True to their usual practice, they crossed the creek and spread over the swamp on the other side in search of the trail, but trail there was none. The puzzled hounds ran up and down the bank for several hundred yards, whimpering with disappointment, but, for them that day, the buck was lost as completely as[Pg 209] though the brown waters had swallowed him up, and one by one the disappointed dogs reluctantly recrossed the stream, and, as there was no sound of horn to summon them, singly and in groups they made their way to their respective homes.

Realizing that the buck had run far out of the chive, and, by giving all the passes a wide berth had lost the hunt, the sometime stander of Elliott’s Wells followed the spreading slot of the deer in the “big road” as far as Allston’s, and, riding up to the quarters, sought information of hounds and quarry from an old negress who was seated on the steps of her cabin, trying to loosen, with a tough horn comb, the kinky wool of a little black girl who sat on a lower step between her knees.

The old woman, true to her training, tried to rise to drop a curtsy before replying, but the wide-eyed imp of darkness between her knees sat stolidly on the hem of her homespun skirt and prevented her rising.

“Git up, gal, ent you hab sense ’nuf fuh mek yo’ mannus w’en you see w’ite people? Uh bin agguhnize ’long all dem fowl’ fedduh en’ t’ing you hab een you head, en’ dem tanglety up ’tell uh cyan’ git ’um out, en’ you hab no bidness fuh gone en’ creep t’ru da’ fowlh’us’ winduh fuh git dem aig’. Git up en’ gone!”

But long before she reached the end of her sentence, the girl was up and gone, and, with a deep curtsy, the old woman answered the hunter.

“Maussuh, ’bout two hour attuh middleday, dish’yuh nigguhhouse yaa’d bin full’uh nigguh’, ’cause duh Sattyday, en’ all dese’yuh ’ooman duh wash dem clo’es. All ub uh sudd’nt, uh yeddy’um holluh same lukkuh[Pg 210] roostuh holluh w’en ’e see hawk’ shadduh ’puntop de groun’, en’ eb’ry Gawd’ nigguh, ’ooman en’ chillun alltwo, drap eb’ryt’ing wuh dem got een dem han’ en’ run fuh dem house. Uh look ’roun’ fuh see wuh ’smattuh mek’um fuh holluh, en’, ef you b’leebe me, suh, one deer duh comin’ down de paat’, big same lukkuh ole Baa’ney, Mas’ Rafe dem bull! ’E hawn big ’nuf fuh hol’ bushel tub, en’, w’en ’e jump, ’e rise een de ellyment high mo’nuh dem house ebe’. W’en ’e look ’puntop me wid alltwo ’e yeye, uh ’f’aid suh de debble dey een’um, en’ uh drap ’pun me knee een de du’t en’ uh pray! Bimeby uh look ’roun’, en’ uh yent see nutt’n’ but ’e tail. De pyo’ tail dat big ’e kibbuhr’um, en’ ’e ’pread out w’ite lukkuh buckruh’ shu’t buzzum duh Sunday w’en ’e yent got on no weskit! ’E gone duh crick, ’e jump een, en’ nobody shum no mo’! All de nigguh’ come out dem house fuh look, en’ attuh w’ile dem yeddy de dog’ duh comin’, en’ dem run back ’gen. De beagle’ tayre up de street ’long dem foot, en’ dem mek shishuh woice de fowl’ fly up ’puntop de roof, en’ dem jis’ leely w’ile come down. Tengky, Maussuh, Gawd bless you, suh!—Come’yuh, gal! Yo’ head full’uh fedduh’ ’tell ’e stan’ same lukkuh frizzle’ hen! Come’yuh!”

Meanwhile, the big buck’s sensitive ears told him what had happened. He knew that the pack, at fault and silent, a mile behind him, was out of the running for that day, at least as far as he was concerned, and, touching bottom on a little wampee-covered spit of land that thrust itself into the creek, his dun and dripping body rose from the waters as he leisurely walked to shore, landing conveniently near a dense canebrake, within whose safe seclusion he found a dry bed until[Pg 211] nightfall. With the rising of the moon soon thereafter, he slowly fed his way homeward through the forest, pausing, first near the edge of the Baring backwater, and then on every knoll where he could find a grove of the beautiful swamp white-oaks, for his favorite autumn food, the great over-cup acorns. At last, as the morning star blazed in the east and the far off roosters—long before Maude Adams won her spurs and her tail-feathers in Edmond Rostand’s Chanticler—heralded the coming of the dawn, the old fellow returned to his bed among the myrtles in the Big Drive, and, full of acorns and the satisfaction of having again outwitted his pursuers, lay down to his well-earned rest, undisturbed by dreams of horn or hound.

The tail of a cold, blustering February day. In the creeks and leads of the Jehossee marshes the ducks sought protection from the wind until flushed by the hunter. Since early morning he had successfully explored every promising hiding place in the great marsh, under the guidance of Jim Moultrie, a skilled negro hunter and paddler, who pushed the nose of his clumsy dugout canoe up every little run that looked like a likely shelter for the wary game. As the sun sank below the horizon, staining the sky a dull red, the hunter quitted the marshes, and the bow of the canoe was turned toward Willtown, five miles away. Crouching low in the stern, Jim paddled silently and strenuously against the current for an hour. Like birdshot “patterns” thrown against the red sky, flocks of belated blackbirds hurried to their roosts.

Gradually the shadowy mantle of the dusk shrouded marsh and headland and the shimmering waters that slid by the struggling canoe; then night fell and healed the blood-red wound in the West. The dugout crept along the shore where the current was less swift. Now and then a raccoon hunting in the marsh sprang away affrighted. The whistling wings of a swift-flying teal cut through the icy air. Far up the river, like low-hung stars, twinkled the watchfires of a great timber raft outward bound for the estuary of the North Edisto. From a distant plantation came the sweet lu-la-lu of a happy negro freed from work. The raft, borne upon the bosom of the strong ebb-tide, neared rapidly, and, around its fires built on earth-covered[Pg 213] platforms, the negro raftsmen talked and laughed as they cooked their supper, and the flames lighted the face and magnified the figure of the black steersman who stood by the great sweep oar with which, at the stern of the raft, he guided its course down stream.

For an hour Jim had silently bucked the tide, impelling the boat under the powerful strokes of his paddle, alternately left and right.

“’Ooman shishuh cuntrady t’ing, dem nebbuh know w’en dem well off. You kin feed dem, you kin pit clo’es ’puntop dem back, you kin pit shoe ’puntop dem foot, you kin pit hat ’puntop dem head, you kin pit money een dem han’, en’ still yet oonuh nebbuh know de ’ooman, nebbuh know w’en dem min’ gwine sattify. Dem fuhrebbuh duh lookout fuh trubble. Ef dem ent meet trubble duh paat’, dem gwine hunt fuhr’um duh ’ood. I dunkyuh howsoeb’uh fudduh de trubble dey, dem gwine fin’um. Ef dem cyan’ see ’e track fuh trail’um, dem gwine pit dem nose een de du’t en’ try fuh smell’um, but dem gwine fin’um! I duh study ’pun dat wife I nyuse fuh hab, name Mary. Look how him done, w’en him hab no cajun! You yeddy ’bout me trubble, enty, suh? Lemme tell you. One Sat’d’y night I gone home frum de ribbuh. I tek two duck’, bakin, flour en’ sugar en’ tea, den I pit fibe dolluh’ een Mary’ lap. Enty you know, suh, dat is big money fuh t’row een nigguh’ lap? W’en I binnuh boy en’ you t’row uh ’ooman uh fifty cent, ’e t’ink ’e rich, but I bin all dat week wid one cump’ny uh dese yuh rich Nyankee buckruh’ dat Mr. FitzSimmun hab yuh fuh shoot, en’ dem buckruh’ t’row me fibe dolluh bill same lukkuh[Pg 214] dem bin dime’! W’en I t’row de money in de ’ooman’ lap, en’ pit de todduh t’ing wuh I fetch ’pun de flo’, Mary nebbuh crack ’e teet’. I ax’um ’smattuh mek’um stan’ so? ’E mek ansuh, ’nutt’n’. Nex’ day de ’ooman keep on same fashi’n. ’E nebbuh crack ’e bre’t’. I quizzit’um ’gen. I ax’um ’smattuh ’long’um. Him say, ’nutt’n’. Den I say ’berry well den.’ Monday mawnin’ I tek me gun, I call me dog en’ den I talk to de ’ooman. I say, ’Mary, I gwine duh ribbuh, en’ I gwine come back Sat’d’y two week’. I dunno ’smattuh mek you stan’ so, but I know suh de debble dey een you. No ’ooman ’puntop dis ribbuh hab mo’ den you, no ’ooman got so much, but I yent able fuh lib dis way ’long no ’ooman wuh tie’up ’e mout’, en’, w’en I come back las’ Sat’d’y two week’, I gwine ’tarrygate you one mo’ time, en’ I gwine ax you ’smattuh mek you stan’ so, en’ ef oonuh still een de same min’ ez now, den me nuh you paa’t.’

“Well, suh, Sat’d’y two week’, I gone back en’ I say, ‘well, Mary, I come, how ’bout’um, wuh you got fuh say?’ Him mek ansuh: ‘Ent nutt’n’ ’bout’um. Yent got nutt’n’ fuh say.’ Den I tell’um ’berry well, den, I gone my way, en’ you tek you’n. Now, Mary, I yent no Wanderbilt fuh gi’ you fibe t’ousan’ dolluh’ allimunny fuh lib off, so you is free fuh lib ’cawd’n’ to yo’ own min’, en’ I is free fuh do ez I please.’ Den I tek me gun, I call me dog, en’ I gone!

“De nex’ week, I bin comin’ out de maa’sh on Mr. Rab’nel’ place, w’en I meet Mary. Him binnuh wait fuh me. I say ‘hello! dat duh you?’ Him say: ‘Jim, I come fuh tell you dat all dem t’ing I bin yeddy ’bout you, I fin’ out dem is lie, en’ I want you fuh come back to me.’ I say, ‘enty I tell you dat de finull wu’d would be talk w’en I come back fuh me ansuh Sat’d’y two[Pg 215] week’, en’ ent dat time done pass? You bidness fuh fin’ out ’bout dat lie een dem twelbe day’ time wuh I done gib you. ’E too late now.’ En’ I walk off en’ lef’um!”

“I hab dat gal you see wid me dis mawnin’ een Mr. FitzSimmun’ yaa’d. Him ent wut’!”

One time, w’en nutt’n’ cep’ de bu’d en’ de annimel en’ de Injun bin yuh, buh deer en’ buh alligettuh ain’ bin fr’en’, en’ buh alligettuh blan does kill buh deer en’ nyam’um w’enebbuh ’e git uh chance, en’ buh deer does ’f’aid fuh swim ’cross ribbuh, en’ w’enebbuh ’e go down to de ribbuh’ aige fuh drink, ’e does cock ’e yez en’ squint ’e yeye fuh buh alligettuh befo’ ’e pit ’e mout’ down fuh drink; but, bimeby, yuh come de buckruh, en’ bimeby ’gen, de buckruh fetch de nigguh, en’ bimeby ’e fetch houn’ dog, en’ den de Injun gone, en’ de buckruh’ biggin fuh hunt buh deer wid dem English houn’, en’ de dog’ so swif’ en’ dem blan push buh deer so close, de only chance ’e hab fuh git’way is fuh tek de watuh ’spite uh buh alligettuh, so, w’edduh de ribbuh dey close uh fudduh, buh deer mek fuhr’um w’enebbuh de dog jump’um.

Now, de fus’ time de buckruh’ run buh deer wid houn’, buh deer ain’ ’quaintun’ wid’um, en’ ’e leddown een ’e bed een one mukkle t’icket on de aige uh de broom grass fiel’ duh tek ’e res’, ’tell de dog mos’ git up tuhr’um, den ’e fin’ him ain’ able fuh hide, en’ ’e buss’ out de mukkle en’ lean fuh de ribbuh fuh who las’ de longes’! Yuh come de ole buck, yuh come de English houn’! Buh deer ’f’aid. ’E jump. ’E run. ’E git dey fus’. Jis’ ez ’e ketch de bluff fuh jump off een de ribbuh, buh alligettuh’ two eye’ rise out de watuh duh wait fuhr’um! De alligettuh hongry. Bittle berry sca’ceful. ’E belly pinch’um. Buh deer fat. ’E fat fuh sowl. Buh deer dey een one hebby trouble. Alligettuh dey befor’um, beagle’ dey behin’um, en’ dem toung duh[Pg 217] roll t’ru de swamp en’ dem comin’ fas’. Wuh buh deer gwi’ do? ’E yeye dey ’pun de alligettuh, ’e yez dey ’pun de beagle’. ’E mek uh sudd’n twis’ jis’ befo’ de dog’ sight’um, en’ bu’n de win’ down de ribbuh bank ’bout seb’n acre f’um de bluff and tek de watuh ’cross weh buh alligettuh nebbuh shum.

Yuh come de beagle’ uh bilin’ fuh de bluff. Dem come so fas’ ’pun buh deer track dem nebbuh stop, en’ two’t’ree gone obuh de bank en’ drap een de watuh close buh alligettuh’ snout. Buh alligettuh reason wid ’eself. “Wuh dis t’ing? I nebbuh see shishuh annimel befo’, but, duh bittle!” en’ ’e graff one de beagle’ en’ pull’um onduhneet’ de water. Todduh dog’ swim out en’ tek dem foot een dem han’ en’ gone home.

Buh deer git’way dis time. ’E gone! W’en ’e ready fuh tu’n back ’cross de ribbuh, ’e walk easy to de bank duh skin ’e yeye fuh buh alligettuh, en’ bimeby ’e shum ’tretch out ’pun one mud bank een de sunhot. ’E belly full’uh beagle. ’E sattify. ’E duh sleep. Buh deer sneak close to de ribbuh fuh tek a chance fuh git ’cross, but befo’ him kin wet ’e foot, buh alligettuh shum, en’ ’e slip off de bank fuh meet’um. Yuh de debble now! How buh deer kin git ’cross to ’e fambly? Him biggin fuh study, but befo’ him kin crack ’e teet’ fuh talk, buh alligettuh op’n de cumposhashun.

“Budduh,” ’e tell buh deer, “dat t’ing wuh I done eat, wunnuh call’um beagle, berry good bittle. Me lub um berry well. ’E easy fuh ketch, en’ ’e ent gots no hawn fuh ’cratch me t’roat. Me done fuh lub’um!”

“Ef you lub’um, mekso wunnuh don’ ketch’um, en’ lef’ me en’ my fambly ’lone?” buh deer ax’um. Buh alligettuh mek ansuh: “Me cyan’ ketch de dog ’cep’n’ wunnuh fetch’um t’ru de ribbuh, so leh we mek ’greement[Pg 218] fuh las’ long ez de ribbuh run. Wunnuh tek de ribbuh, me tek de beagle’. Me fuh you, en’ you fuh me, en’ alltwo fuh one’nurruh.”

Dat w’ymekso ebbuh sence de’ ’greement mek, w’enebbuh dog run’um, buh deer tek de ribbuh en’ buh alligettuh lem’lone, en’ w’en de beagle’ come ’e ketch’um, but ef buh deer ebbuh come duh ribbuh bidout dog dey att’um, him haffuh tek ’e chance.

One time Buh Hawss en’ Buh Mule tu’n out duh pastuh duh Sunday. Dem alltwo blonx to high buckruh. Buh Hawss binnuh dribe een buggy, en’ Buh Mule binnuh wu’k duh plow. Dem alltwo glad fuh git out en’ dem alltwo kick up dem foot en’ play ’bout de fiel’. Buh Hawss cantuh. ’E bow ’e neck sukkuh gobbluh duh strut, en’ ’e tail heng sukkuh willuh switch. Buh Mule trot. ’E ’tretch ’e neck out ’traight sukkuh Muscoby duck duh fly. ’E step high en’ ’e tail stan’ up sukkuh t’istle. Buh Mule tail oagly, fuh true, but da’ duh all de tail wuh ’e got en’ ’e berry well sattify ’long um. Buh Hawss biggin fuh brag. “Look ’puntop oonuh tail,” ’e say. “Mekso oonuh ent hab tail lukkuh my’own?” ’e ax’um. “Oonuh yent kin switch fly ’long’um ’cause ’e shabe. Shishuh no’count tail ent wut’,” ’e tell’um. “Me duh buckruh, you duh nigguh!” Buh Mule biggin fuh shame. ’E yent sattify ’long ’e tail no mo’. Buh Mule cyan’ switch fly, fuh true, but ’e skin tough, en’ fly don’ bodduhr’um, but Buh Hawss git’um so agguhnize’ een ’e min’ ’e fuhgit fuh tell’um suh ’e yent hab cajun fuh switch fly ’long ’e tail, en’ ’e heng ’e head en’ ’e tail alltwo, en’ ’e lef Buh Hawss en’ ’e gone off todduh side de fiel’ en’ ’e study. Bimeby, ’e look obuh de pastuh, en’ todduh side de fench ’e see one las’yeah cawnfiel’ weh de nigguh lef’ ’nuf sheep[Pg 220] buhr duh stan’ ’long de cawnstalk. Buh Mule biggin fuh laugh. ’E op’n ’e mout’. ’E blow ’e hawn. “Aw-e-Aw-e-Aw-e!” Buh Hawss cantuh. ’E come close. ’E ax’um ’smattuh mek ’e duh laugh. Buh Mule say ’e laugh ’cause Buh Hawss ent smaa’t ’nuf fuh jump de fench en’ run’um uh race t’ru de cawnfiel’. Buh hawss tek’um up. ’E jump de fench. ’E behin’ foot ketch de top rail en’ knock’um off. Buh Mule tumble t’ru. Yuh dem come! Buh Hawss cantuh, Buh Mule trot, up en’ down de fiel’ t’ru de sheep buhr. Buh Mule tail shabe ’tell ’e slick. ’E switch’um roun’ en’ roun’ ’mong de buhr but none nebbuh stick. Bimeby, Buh Hawss’ tail biggin fuh hebby. ’E ketch full’uh buhr. Dem tanglety een ’e tail ’tell ’e stan’ sukkuh timbuh cyaa’t rope. ’E duh drag. Eb’ry time ’e switch’um roun’ ’e hanch, de buhr sting’um. ’E say to ’eself, “wuh dis t’ing? Me fuh lick me own self! Me fuh hab spuhr een me own tail! De debble! Me dey een trubble, fuh true!” ’E talk trute. ’E tail lick’um en’ spuhr’um alltwo one time.

Buh Mule pass’um. ’E look ’puntop Buh Hawss’ tail, en’ ’e yent shame no mo’. “Tengk Gawd,” ’e say, “fuh shabe tail. Low tree stan’ high win’!”

From Olar, that favored spot in a fruitful section of the State, where, under the guidance of a Carolina Burbank, the amorous Iron pea, loving the “Shinny” despite her freckles, wooed and won her to wilt-resistance, where quiet farmers are classical scholars and hermits are hospitable, comes a story of Liss, a character as noted in local colored circles for oddity as for ugliness. A white neighbor, who recently met her, noticing that she was swelling with wrath, and, seeking to get a rise out of her, asked:

“Mimy’ yalluh gal Clara eensult me, suh. Dat gal en’ ’e maamy mek crap fuh Cap’n Willie. I bin to Mimy’ house, en’ one bale uh cotton bin fuh haul town fuh sell. Clara tell ’e maamy, ‘Ma, lemme go town wid dat bale, en’ lemme git a spo’tin’ suit out dat bale uh cotton?’

“Now, Mimy swell up bex, same lukkuh bullfrog. ‘Spo’t suit de debble!’ ’e say. ‘You binnuh do nutt’n’ but spo’t de Gawd’ blessed yeah. You don’t git a shimmy out dat bale uh cotton.’

“‘Ma, ef you don’t lemme git dat spo’tin’ suit, I gwi’ do eb’ry bad t’ing I know ’bout. I gwi’ do bad right now.’

“Clara hab on one deseyuh newfanglety kinduh t’ing dem call ‘middle-blouse.’ You know um, suh. ’E stan’ same lukkuh man shu’t, wid ’e shu’t tail heng out,[Pg 222] excusin’ ’e got one kind’uh shoe string tie onduhneet’ de gal’ buzzum. My Gawd, w’at a gal! Alldo’ t’ree man dey een ’e ma’ house, Clara staa’t fuh tek off ’e middle-blouse. I tell’um:

“‘Gal, ef you tek off dat middle-blouse een dis house befo’ dese mans, you will sho’ hab sin.’

“‘Sin, nutt’n’! I gwi’ strip nakit ez a jaybu’d befo’ ’e fedduh’ grow! I gwi’ do bad!’ W’en de gal say dis wu’d, ’e ketch ’e middle-blouse by ’e shu’t tail wid alltwo ’e han’ en’ hice’um obuh ’e head! Befo’ ’e kin git’um off, all t’ree de man jump out de do’, en’ w’en I look out een de yaa’d, I shum duh roll obuh en’ obuh een de du’t same lukkuh hawss roll, en’ duh buss’ demself wid laugh. Now, w’en I see de gal’ yalluh skin biggin fuh shine lukkuh dese yuh yalluh-belly cootuh, myself git eensult, en’ I lef’ ’e ma’ house, ’cause I is a lady, suh, en’ dat is a ondeestunt gal!”

Her name was Patty. She was as black as a tar baby, as oleaginous as a cotton oil mill and—like Captain Merrimac in Olivette—as broad in the beam and as square in the rig as a Dutch brig, when she appeared before a tidewater trial justice as the prosecuting witness in re the State of South Carolina vs. Cudjo Manigo, charged with malicious mischief.

Taking the stand, she put her head on one side and complacently smiled until the corners of her mouth—evidently designed for the wholesale trade—approached dangerously near her ears. Twisting his amber imperial, his Honor began:

A. “Yaas, suh. I lib on Mass Kit FitzSimmun’ plantesshun, w’ich’n ’e jis’ done buy’um de Chuesday een week befo’las’ mek six munt’ done gone, en’ I glad ’e buy’um, too, bekasew’y jis’ ez soon ez ’e buy’um ’e run dat las’ husbun’ w’ich I marry een Augus’ off de place, w’ich’n me en’ dat nigguh nebbuh could ’gree, ’cause, een de fus’ place, ’e too lub fuh lick ’e lady; en’, een de two place, ’e too oncommun lazy en’ no’count, en’, een de t’ree place, ’e fus’ wife en’ me nebbuh could git ’long, en’, een de fo’ place, him is a class-leaduh een de Baptis’ chu’ch, en’ eb’rybody know berry well dat wehreas class-leaduh mek a berry po’ kind’uh husbun’ fuh ’e own wife, en’—”

A. “B’Cudjo is a berry nomannus nigguh, suh. Him is de class-leaduh een my chu’ch, en w’en eeduhso de preachuh on de sukkus, elsehow de locus preechuh, onable to filfill de pulpit, den B’Cudjo does hol’ saa’bis een de chu’ch, en’ w’en B’Cudjo done resplain de Lawd’ wu’d, ’e berry lub fuh talk sweetmout’ talk to all ’e freemale sistuh een de chu’ch, en’ eb’ry time ’e meet me een de road ’e baig me fuh kiss’um, en’ I yent wantuh kiss no shishuh oagly, twis’mout’ nigguh lukkuh B’Cudjo, en’ I tell’um so, en’ den ’e does cuss at me berry nomannusubble, en’ de las’ time I meet’um een de paat’, ’e quizzit me berry rappit, en’ I tell’um ‘go’way, B’Cudjo, bekasew’y I ent wantuh yeddy no shishuh cumposhashun’, en’ yet B’Cudjo keep on peruse ’long de paat’, en’ ’e keep on ax’me shish squeschun, en’ fus’ t’ing I know ’e cuss me a berry bad cuss.”

A. “Dat all ’e had chance fuh tell me, ’cause I tell’um, ‘Haa’k’ee at me good fashi’n, B’Cudjo, ’fo’ de Lawd, ef my mout’ is stan’ lukkuh Ashley ribbuh, you cyan’ paddle yo’ boat cross’um’, en’ den ’e git bex en’ knock me wid ’e hoe handle, en’ dat w’yso I fetch’um yuh.”

At this stage of the proceedings, the Toogoodoo trial justice adjourned court to measure the Ashley River.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, an itinerant evangelist with a throat of brass was stationed at the corner of Richardson and Plain Streets in Columbia, singing hymns in the laudable endeavor to save a soul or two.

From an upper window of the Grand Central Hotel a fair face looked out to the westward, while a child tapped upon the pane.

At a club window opposite, a young bachelor banker sipped his Sunday cocktail while he eyed critically the passers-by on their way from church. How many of their financial secrets did he hold in his keeping! How many of their obligations were locked in his vaults! The note of that jauntily dressed young man, who held his head so high as he spurned the dust from his patent leathers, had gone to protest but yesterday. The extravagance of yonder portly lady, who, with silken sails spread to the breeze, towed after her, as a tug tows a coal barge, one of the fashionable fourteen-inch trains, scattering in her wake banana peel, cigar butts and other miscellaneous wreckage of the street, had cost her husband another mortgage.

The banker was of a thrifty mind, and he wondered why, in the name of Saint Peter—why, in the name of the patron saints of cleanliness and all the gods of common-sense, fashion should exact of its devotees the performance of the unæsthetic work of the street-sweeper and the scavenger! Thinking, with a sigh, that shorter skirts might have permitted longer bank accounts, he turned his eyes to the wooded hills of Lexington above which hung the setting sun, a great[Pg 226] disk of gold. With his mental coupon shears, the speculative financier quickly clipped the “orb of day” into gold treasury certificates, put them out at interest—compounded, of course—and, with one more Vermouth cocktail to aid his imaginative computation, he was, in a twinkling, possessed of the wealth of Monte Cristo. And now the world and all beyond was his! On fancy’s wings he sailed away, away to Arcadie. Instead of herding bulls and bears, a shepherd now was he. Like Strephon, he played upon a pipe, while at his feet the lambkins played, or huddled together in the sunshine “so warm and sleepy and white.”

Garlanded with roses, the shepherdess led him through leafy bowers into an open glade, where, among the buttercups and daisies, he fell asleep, and dreamed. Ay, Dios! How few of us realize, until all too late, that the simplest pleasures are the best, that in home and friends we may make for ourselves happiness far above that which must be sought beyond our circle. How few of us realize that there is more exhilaration in a five-mile spin than in a quart of champagne, that ’tis more blessed to swish the briefest cotton skirt in Arcadie—if in Arcadie we belong—than to drag a satin train in a Paris salon!

But the banker dreamed, and the strains of the Santiago waltz were in his ears, and the houris of Mahomet glided along before him wreathed in—smiles. One, fairer than the rest, beckoned, and he followed on and on. Out into the darkness he followed the golden gleam of her beautiful bi-carbonated hair, followed through tangled forest and treacherous fen—alas! the will-o’-the-wisp!

With a start, he awoke from his reverie to find—like[Pg 227] the market girl who stumbled and smashed the basket of eggs from which she had hatched out all her hopes—that his gold was gone, for suddenly the sharp edge of the horizon was drawn like a scimitar across the throat of the sinking sun, and in an instant the western sky, away up to the zenith, was stained as with his life blood!

With a shudder, as though chilled from sitting in the overdraft of his imagination, the banker took his hat and went out into the street, where the evangelist, having closed his song service, was exhorting the little group clustered around him.

Suddenly, on the edge of the gathering, an old negro, bent with age and with a face furrowed by grief, appeared. He led by the hand a little black girl about ten years old. Her eyes were round with fright, and about her thin legs a ragged red calico skirt flapped like a weather-stained flag at half-mast.

The old man skirted the group, eagerly scanning each face as though looking for a sympathetic ear into which to pour his sorrows. Not finding what he wanted, he hurried on toward the State House, dragging the child after him, until, in front of a newspaper office, he saw a round-waisted gentleman with a priestly look talking to a tall, long-bearded one of the old school. Detecting benevolence in the faces of both, he approached the shorter of the two, and, in an anxious voice, inquired—“Maussuh, please, suh, tell me ef cat kin git crazy?”

“I apprehend,” said the English purist, “that you desire to ascertain whether it is possible for a cat to[Pg 228] have the rabies. I may say, for your information, that there are, literally and mathematically speaking, 18 phases of insanity to which humanity is subject, ranging from the emotional insanity of commerce, to the popular mania a potu, vulgarly called delirium inebriosa. I do not care to give an off-hand opinion as to whether or not a cat may have one or more of these kinds of insanity, unless you will accurately describe the symptoms and put your questions categorically. It is manifestly a work of supererogation—”

“Great Gawd, maussuh!” said the old man, turning appealingly to the tall gentleman. “Please, suh, tell dis juntlemun dat my cat nebbuh had no rabbit, ’e only had kitten’. Yaas, suh. My cat name Jane, en’ ’e b’long to dis leetle gal chile w’ich is my gran’, en’ him (dat is de gal) name Jane, en’ Jane (dat is de cat) b’long to Jane (w’ich is de gal) en’ Jane does use to folluh Jane eb’ryweh ’e go, en’ Jane does berry lub Jane, en’ w’enebbuh Jane does ketch rat, ’e fetch’um een de house, en’ w’enebbuh Jane does git ’e bittle fuh eat, ’e always keep some uh de bittle fuh Jane, en’ w’en Jane (dat is de cat) had nine kitten’ een Mistuh Claa’k’ smokehouse on de t’ree Chuesday een dis same berry munt’, den Jane (dat is de gal) set up all night fuh nuss Jane (dat is de cat) en’, please Gawd, maussuh, jis’ as soon as de nyung kitten’ eye’ biggin fuh op’n, one shaa’pmout’ black dog, wid ’e tail stan’ like dese bu’d fedduh buckruh ’ooman does lub fuh pit on ’e hat w’en Sunday come, dis dog jump obuh de fench en’ bite’um, en’ Jane (dat is de cat en’ de gal alltwo) git berry agguhnize en’ twis’ up een alltwo dem min’, en’ Jane (dat is de cat) him jump obuh de fench en’ run’way, en’ de dog en’ Jane (dat is de gal)[Pg 229] run attuh Jane (dat is de cat) ’tell w’en Jane (dat is de cat) staa’t fuh run down de lane, Jane (dat is de gal) see ole Unk’ Bill Rose—w’ich’n him is de Gub’nuh’ Claa’k, walkin’ good fashi’n down de lane. Now, de gal holluh att’um fuh ketch de cat, but eb’rybody know dat Unk’ Bill Rose is leetle kinduh bowleggit, en’, alldo’ him hol’ alltwo ’e foot togedduh, ’e foot couldn’ specify, en’ Jane (dat is de cat) jump clean t’ru Unk’ Bill Rose’ britchiz, en’ ’e git’way en’ gone, please Gawd, en’ lef’ Jane (dat is de gal) en’ lef’ ’e nine kitten’, w’ich all dem eye’ ent done open, een Mistuh Claa’k’ smokehouse, en’ gone en’ jump obuh de fench w’ich run roun’ de ’Sylum yaa’d—en’ dat de reaz’n w’ymekso I know berry well Jane (dat is de cat) mus’ be gone crazy, ’cause he gone spang een de ’Sylum!”

During the last freshet in the Congaree river, three negroes living on the Childs plantation five miles below Columbia took advantage of the high water to go rabbit hunting in a boat. Paddling about between the tree trunks, they scanned the knolls and tussocks that, rising above the flood, afforded sanctuary to the cotton-tail refugees.

So intent were they upon the chase, that the carelessly managed skiff struck a cypress “knee” and was instantly swamped. Fortunately, the trees were thick, and the wrecked crew climbed into a tall gum, where, far above the swelling flood, they spent the entire day, sending out from time to time across the waste of waters a piteous cry for help, until, late in the evening, their voices were heard from the highlands, and a boat was sent to their rescue by Mr. Childs.

Mingo Singletary, one of the treed nimrods, was in the city yesterday, and gave the following account of the adventure:

“Yaas, suh, me en’ Silus Smit’ en Hacklus Rab’nel, w’ich Hacklus is my niece, ’cause him gran’ en’ my gran’ alltwo is de same man, en’ him farruh en’ my farruh is two twin; so, berrywellden, me en’ dese two mans gone out een de bateau fuh hunt rabbit, ’cause w’en de ribbuh high, rabbit is a berry easy t’ing fuh ketch, ’cause dey berry ’f’aid fuh git dem foot wet, en’ dey does climb high ’puntop de tussock. So we paddle ’long en’ quizzit all de tussock, en’ de same time w’en me en’ Silus binnuh peep onduhneet’ one briah bush weh rabbit does hide, fus’ t’ing we know,[Pg 231] we ain’ know nutt’n’, ’cause my niece Hacklus, w’ich dat nigguh nebbuh did hab a Gawd’ piece uh sense, him paddle de boat ’puntop de snag, en’ de boat’ bottom couldn’ specify, en’ de boat’ bottom buss’, en’ lef’ we een de water. Now, Silus had a fight wid he lady las’ week, en’ he lady strong mo’den Silus, en’ Silus’ lady lick’um en’ mos’ bruk ’e back, so w’en Silus try fuh swim ’e back couldn’ specify, en’ jis’ ez ’e biggin to drowndid, my niece Hacklus ketch’um by ’e britchiz, but de britchiz buss’, en’ Silus gone down onduhneet’ de water fuh de two time, en’ w’en ’e rise ’gen I graff’um by ’e lef’ han’ foot en’ hice’um up close to one big gum tree, en’ all t’ree uh we climb de tree ’tell we git ’puntop de limb, en’ den, please Gawd, we seddown, en’ seddown, en’ seddown; en’ we all t’ree berry well sattify fuh seddown, ’tell hongry biggin fuh ketch we, en w’en him come, den we staa’t fuh holluh’ en’ holluh’ en’ holluh. But de mo’ we holluh, de mo’ we hongry, en’ bimeby we see Silus’ lady walkin’ by de ribbuh’ aige wid dat yalluh boy Sam, w’ich lib to Mistuh Hamptun’ place, en’ Silus holluh at ’e lady en’ scole’um, but you know berry well, suh, ’ooman is de debble, en’ dat ’ooman nebbuh had Silus een de back uh ’e head. So, we stillyet seddown, en’ seddown, ’tell we mos’ ready fuh drap off de tree limb; en’ Silus is a class-leader, en’ him biggin fuh praise de Lawd, en’ bimeby him tell we ’bout how de rab’n feed ’Lijah, en’ we look high een de ellyment en’ we see ’nuf buzzut flyin’ high obuh de tree top, en’ Hacklus call to de buzzut fuh fetch de bittle, but de buzzut keep on flew high een de ellyment, en’ nebbuh bodduh ’e head ’bout Hacklus. Den, bimeby ’gen, Silus resplain de Scriptuh ’bout how Noah’ dub fetch tree branch en’ all kinduh t’ing een ’e mout’ w’en de water[Pg 232] high; en’, fus’ t’ing we know, we see one dub fly t’ru de swamp, en’ de sun shine on ’e breas’ en’ mek’um look like gol’, en’, likewise also, we call to him, but ’e didn’ hab nutt’n’ een ’e mout’, en’ him fly ’way en’ gone, please Gawd! Den, w’en de sun biggin fuh lean ’cross de tree top ’en staa’t fuh walk down de sky fuh go to ’e res’, we git mos’ skaytode’t’, en’ we staa’t fuh sing sperritual’ en’ praise de Lawd, en’ Silus ketch ’e tex’ f’um de fo’teen chaptuh een Nickuhdemus, en’ him tell we ’bout how de Lawd tu’n Nickuhdemus eento cow w’en him hongry, so ’e could git grass fuh eat, but I tell’um dat tex’ couldn’ specify, ’cause how de debble—een de fus’ place, man cyan’ eat grass w’en him dey high een de tree top.

“En’ den de sun gone down, en’ one leetle cat squerril come out ’e hole een de gum tree en’ tu’n ’e tail obuh ’e back en’ say ‘paak, paak, paak’, en’ one big owl fly close to we en’ seddown een we tree en’ say ‘whaak, whaak, whaak, whaak, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo!’ en’ den I know de Lawd tek pity on we en’ sen’ we cump’ny, en’ we git mo’ fait’ een de Lawd, en’ we biggin fuh holluh ’gen, en’ dis time, suh, Mistuh Chile yeddy we woice en’ sen’ ’e boat en’ tek we off, en’ w’en we git back to de nigguhhouse yaa’d, eb’rybody on de plantesshun sing praise en’ glad we come back—eb’rybody ’scusin’ Silus’ wife, en’, you b’leebe me, suh! Silus’ lady him bex ’cause ’e husbun’ britchiz buss’, en’ ’e lick Silus ’cause ’e didn’ drowndid.”

On a hot June day a year or two ago, a tall, pumpkin-colored negro was leisurely plowing an unambitious mule in a cornfield in Lower Carolina. Minzacter Singleton was his euphonious name, and he was about 55 years of age.

As he passed up and down the furrows he whistled cheerily, for the brown earth that curled away in long waves from his plowshare was mellow and rich, and the bourgeoning corn that bristled around him, a grand industrial army, uniformed in blue green, epauletted with crimson silk and plumed with cream white tassels, was full of promise for the autumn. Here and there a convolvolus vine that had escaped the last hoeing twined lovingly around a sturdy stalk and, clambering boldly up, swung its purple, white-throated cups among the feathery blooms of the corn, where the swift-winged honey bee and the yellow-barred bumblebee plied their busy trade.

These sights, however, affected not Minzacter. He was a materialist, not a poet; and, mindful of his one-third interest in the crop that he was “laying by,” he concerned himself far more with the occasional bumping of his singletree against the corn stalks, than with the soft music of the wind harps that crept from among the broad blades as the breeze passed through them.

High up in the blue, a crow flew slowly over the field, twisting his head from side to side, while he critically inspected the work in progress; and, finding[Pg 234] that it was good, croaked out an occasional “ckwarrow, ckwarrow.”

As the friar of the middle ages—the prototype of this black-robed fellow—unctuously took from the fields of his flock a tithe of the garnered store, so, when the blades should be stripped away and September suns harden the grain, would this “sukkus preechuh” claim the reward of his interest in, and inspection of, the growing crop. As the ominous shadow passed between him and the sun, Minzacter, looking up, said: “N’mine, bredduh! Tek care buzzut don’ dance at yo’ fun’rul dis same berry fall! You smaa’t ’nuf fuh know w’en man got gun een ’e han’, but yo’ eddycashun cyan’ specify w’en ’e come fuh tell w’en shell’ cawn got pizen een um. You fly high een de ellyment teday, tek care you don’ flew low befo’ Chris’mus come!”

Upon reaching the end of his row, Minzacter found awaiting him the burly black constable of a neighboring Trial Justice, accompanied by a middle-aged brown woman, who, as the plowman came to a halt, accosted him with: “Mistuh Singleton, I t’awt you was a juntlemun, but I come to fin’ out you cyan’ specify as a juntlemun, ’cause you run’way en’ lef’ me obuh to Goose Crik, en’ gone en’ marry Paul Jenkin’ grumma jes’ ’cause ’e got fo’ cow en’ I ent got no cow. You run’way en’ lef’ yo’ lawfully lady, en’ I come to tek you to de Trial Jestuss fuh t’row you een Walterburruh jail.”

With apparent nonchalance, Minzacter said: “Go ’way, gal! Who you call husbun’? I nebbuh see you sence I bawn. I gots no time fuh hol’ cumposhashun wid eb’ry w’ich en’ w’y ’ooman dat come ’long de road. Dis cawn gots to lay by.”

Julia Singleton, the ecru claimant, left him with the threat that she would go home and fetch the marriage “stuhstiffikit” to prove that Minzacter was her lawful husband.

Sure enough, on the day set for the preliminary examination, she appeared with not only the marriage certificate, but accompanied by her brother and the Rev. Sancho Middleton, the Goose Creek “locus pastuh,” who was alleged to have performed the ceremony.

Upon being arraigned for bigamy, Minzacter denied indignantly any knowledge of the woman. The “stuhstiffikit” was put in evidence, but as it read simply, “I marry Mistuh Singleton to Missis Singleton,” the Trial Justice ruled that it couldn’t “specify.” The claimant’s brother and the preacher had been tampered with by an agent of Minzacter’s and, at the last moment, they went back on the prosecuting witness. The brother was put up first, and Julia did the questioning.

“Bredduh,” said she, “ent you ’membuh dat een June munt’ een de same year w’en us cut down dat new groun’ ’cross Caw Caw Swamp, en’ de same time w’en Sistuh Frayjuh him had two twin, ent you ’membuh dat de pastuh renite me to dis juntlemun?”

“I yent know nutt’n’ ’bout’um,” said the traitor, “nebbuh shum sence I bawn, ent know ’e name, needuhso ’e farruh, needuhso ’e murruh. Mo’ den one punkin-skin nigguh lib een dis wull’. Yalluh nigguh’ t’ick on de groun’ same as yalluh-hammuh’ t’ick on de tree, en’, as fuh dis nigguh—nebbuh shum sence I bawn.”

“Mistuh Jestuss,” said Julia, ruefully, “I come to[Pg 236] ketch my juntlemun, en’ my juntlemun lie. I gone en’ fetch my bredduh Sam, en’ my bredduh Sam lie. I gone en’ fetch de stuhstiffikit, en’ de stuhstiffikit lie. Now, I will ’tarrygate my locus pastuh, en’ I know berry well him ent gwine lie. Pa Sancho,” said she, turning to the sleek divine, “ent you ’membuh, suh, w’en Sistuh Frayjuh him had two twin?”

“Oh yaas, my sistuh, I ’membuh dat, ’cause dat same time Nickuhdemus Wineglass’ niece Joe, w’ich ’e had by ’e fus’ lady, git ’e foot ketch een de ottuh trap on Mistuh Fishpun’ place, en’ de doctuh haffuh cut off ’e right han’ feet close to ’e knee.”

“My sistuh,” said he, slowly and deliberately, “you see, dis is a berry onrabblin’ t’ing fuh yo’ pastuh fuh ’xamin’ ’e min’ ’bout. You know, all dese common eb’ryday kind’uh nigguh’ kin talk all dese gwinin’ en’ gwinin’, but de preechuh is de Lawd’ renointed, en’, w’en him open he mout’, e’ gots to quizzit ’e min’ berry close, ’speshly w’en ’e talk wid ’ooman, ’cause ’ooman so ’ceitful, ef you ent min’, him will fool de two eye’ out yo’ head; en’, fuh dictate now ’bout dis juntlemun, I mos’ kinduh t’ink I ’membuh leetle kinduh sump’n’, ’bout de time w’en I marry you to a kinduh punkin-skin juntlemun, en’ w’en I fus’ see dis juntlemun, I mos’ t’ink ’e look leetle like yo’ juntlemun, but w’en I come to saa’ch’um close en’ peruse’um puhtickluh, I mos’ kinduh t’ink maybe dis ent yo’ juntlemun.”

“Please Gawd,” said Julia despairingly, “I gone en try fuh ketch my juntlemun en’ I fetch’um yuh, en’ him lie. Den I gone en’ ketch my bredduh en’ fetch’um[Pg 237] yuh, en’ him lie. Den I gone en’ ketch de stuhstuffikit en’ fetch’um yuh, en’ him lie; en’, fin’lly at las’, I ketch de locus pastuh en ’fetch’um yuh, en’, ’fo’ de Lawd, him lie. Now, I gwine home en’ fetch de six bridegroom’ w’at bin to dis wedd’n’ w’en I marry dis juntlemun—w’ich my sistuh Amy bin one uh de bridegroom’—en’ I know berry well dem will crucify dat dis is my juntlemun.”

From the clay chimney of a negro cabin in the lower part of Hampton County the blue smoke curled and floated away in graceful rings. Within, the flames crackled cheerily in the generous fireplace, and a woman, surrounded by half a dozen children, was preparing the evening meal. The building was of logs, with moss and clay plastered into the crevices, and the roof which covered it was of clapboards. An humble dwelling it was, but big enough and warm enough to shelter old Scipio Wineglass and his family, and it represented—together with the few acres of land surrounding it—the net earnings of twenty-seven years of toil “sence freedum fus’ come een.”

The crop had been gathered and locked in the little corn crib that nestled up under the eaves of the cabin, and among the shucks that lay around the door a few pigs were rooting. As the twilight fell on this crisp December evening, the querulous bark of a squirrel came from the swamp, and away down the road the sound of a horse’s hoofs in a sharp canter became louder and louder, until, at last, a horseman rode up and asked for a drink of water, just as old Scipio came in from the woods with a log on his head and threw it down with a grunt.

Bringing a gourd of water out to the gate, he eyed the stranger closely as he drank, and as he took back the dipper he asked, “Maussuh, enty puhlicituh kin oughtuh able fuh read?”

“Well, suh, please Gawd, I gots nutt’n’ but trouble all dis yeah done gone. Een de fus’ place, jis’ ez soon ez I git de crap plant een de t’ree week een las’ Epprull, de waa’ment en’ t’ing biggin fuh onrabble en’ distruss me een me min’ ’tell, please de Lawd, I yent know Rebus frum Rebelashun! Soon ez I t’row de cawn seed een de groun’, de waa’ment biggin fuh agguhnize me. I didn’t had no coal taar fuh pit ’pun de cawn, en’ soon ez I pit’um een de groun’, de debble’ub’uh’ crow come ’long en’ pull up half de cawn, en w’at de crow ent pull up, de cut wurrum ketch, en w’at de cut wurrum lef’, de dry drought ’stroy’d him, en’, soon ez de dry drought gone’way, den my ole mare Silby, him haffuh gone en’ dead! Yaas’suh, dat old mare done gone en’ leddown en’ dead, en’ lef’ me wid de fiel’ full’uh j’int grass, en’ nott grass, en’ crab grass en’ t’ing, en’ I yent got a hawss fuh ride now ’cep’n’ ’tis dese two foot, but stillyet I praise de Lawd en’ glorify’um, ’cause, ef dat mare didn’t dead, de debble would’uh had Scipio Wineglass done roas’ en bu’n’up een de fiah ’fo’ dis time! Yaas’suh, one night een las’ Augus’ een de daa’k uh de moon, jis’ ez I biggin to drap ’sleep, I yerry one rap ’pun de do’, en’ w’en I tell de somebody fuh come een, one sperrit buss’ op’n de do’, en’ stan’ on ’e two foot een de middle uh de flo! W’en I shum wid dese two eye’, I bin dat skay’to’de’t’ dat I didn’t ’membuh fuh ax’um ’e name, but I mos’ t’ink ’e bin eeduh de ’Postle Paul, elseso Pollido’. En’ dis sperrit ’tarrygate me good fashi’n, en’ ’e say, sezzee, ‘Scipio’; sezzi, ‘Suh.’ Sezzee, ‘Scipio, you got a great load uh sin ’puntop yo’ soul!’ Sezzi, ‘Yaas’suh, I know dat, suh.’ Den ’e say, ‘Scipio, ef dat load uh sin ent tek off yo’ soul, you cyan’ specify w’en de great day come, en’ you will sho’ to ebbuhlastin’ dead[Pg 240] en’ bu’n’up.’ En’ den I say ‘Yaas, suh, maussuh ainjul.’ En’ den I drap on dese two knee’ en’ pray de Lawd fuh tell de sperrit fuh tek de sin off my soul, en’ den de ainjul say ’e couldn’ tek de sin off my soul, ’cep’n’ ’e pit’um ’puntop somebody else’ own, en’ den I baig’um fuh pit de sin on ole Unk’ Hacklus Pinesett’ soul, ’cause Unk’ Hacklus lub fuh t’ief fowl en’ t’ing, en’ him is a nomannus nigguh, en’ de sperrit say ‘berrywell,’ en’ ’e wawm ’e han’ by de fiah en’ gone out de do’, en’, soon ez ’e gone, I yerry ole Silby duh kick en’ grunt een de stable, but I bin too twis’up in me min’ fuh pay ’tenshun to him, en’, een de mawnin’ soon, w’en I gone out to de stable fuh feed ole Silby, please de Mastuh, ’e stretch-out, dead! En’ stillyet, alldo’ ’e dead en’ gone, yet I glorify de Lawd en’ praise ’e name, ’cause I know ’e tek de sin off me en’ pit’um ’puntop ole Silby, en’ all de time I yerry’um binnuh grunt een de stable, dat sin binnuh ride’um roun’ en’ roun’, ’tell ’e kill’um. I wonduh w’ymekso dat sperrit ent tek dat ansuh to de Lawd de way I sen’um, ’cause I buy dat mare to Mistuh Larrissy’ place fuh seb’nty-fibe dollar, en’ Unk’ Hacklus Pinesett ent wut’ a t’ree cent, stillyet de Lawd tek ole Silby, en’ lef him!

“Now, w’en Silby dead, I tek de hoe een me han’ en’ lay by de crap, en’, tengk Gawd, I mek fo’teen bushel’ uh cawn een dis same fiel’. Well, suh, w’en de cawn done lay by, I git ’long berrywell ’tell Mingo Puhlite’ son Sambo t’ief’ de fattes’ hog I got. Een Septembuh munt’, soon ez I ketch’um, I tek’um to de Trial Jestuss, en’ him sen’um to Hamptun jail.

“Now, w’en de trial come in de fall, Sambo git Mistuh Tillin’ass’ to refen’ she, en I gone to Mistuh Muffey, de puhlicituh, en’ tell’um all ’bout de t’iefin’. Den Mistuh[Pg 241] Tillin’ass’ squizzit me en’ ax me all kinduh squesehun, en’ Mistuh Muffey squizzit Sambo en’ ax him all kinduh squesehun, en den ole Judge Hutsin him put on one black frock same lukkuh ’ooman, en’ him ax me all kinduh squeschun, en’ den Mass Billy Causey, de Claa’k ub de Co’t, tek de eenditement (dat w’at ’e call de papuh) een ’e han’, en’ ’e tu’n’um upside down en’ ’e read’um wrong, en’ den Mistuh Tillin’ass’ tek de papuh en’ tu’n’um upside down en’ him read’um wrong, en’ den Judge Hutsin tek de papuh en’ tu’n’um upside down en’ him read’um wrong, en’ den, please Gawd, Mistuh Muffey, de puhlicituh, Him tek de papuh en’ tu’n’um upside down en’ Him read’um wrong! Yaas’suh, de jury bin all buckruh’, en’ all dem care ’bout is fuh sen’ one nigguh to de penetenshus fuh eb’ry hog w’at git t’ief, en’ de Claa’k ub de Co’t git my name en’ Sambo’ name tanglety’up on de papuh, en’, fus’ t’ing I know—’cep’n’ dat Sambo own to t’ief de hog fuh git meat fuh eat to de passobuh preachin’ w’ich was hol’ to Sistuh Frajuh’ house—please Gawd, de buckruh’ would’uh sen’ me to de penetenshus fuh t’ief me own hog! En’ dat de reason, suh, w’ymekso I ax wedduh puhlicituh kin read, ’cause I didn’t bex so much ’bout Mistuh Tillin’ass’, en’ Mass Billy Causey, en’ ole Judge Hutsin wid ’e black frock sukkuh ’ooman, but I did t’ink dat Mistuh Muffey, de puhlicituh, could’uh read.”

Down upon the banks of the turbid Toogoodoo—one of the many creeks that indent the seacoast of Colleton County—lives June Middleton, a negro of the old school. As a body servant, he followed his master through Virginia “eenjurin’ uh de wah,” and, at its close, he received for his faithful service a few acres of the plantation upon which he had been reared. His little holding was as dear to him as was ever an entailed estate to an English noble, for, like all Southern negroes who had formerly belonged to families of culture and refinement, he shared the pride of his quondam owners in their ancestral acres and in their distinguished names.

The comfortable frame house, in which June had spent the days of his slavehood, had long since gone up in smoke, for no habitation of man or beast was too lowly to escape the torch of Sherman’s bummers, who, in 1865 illumined the “benighted South.” Upon its site now stands a clay-chimneyed log cabin, and by its door ebb and flow the waters of the creek from which June had for years drawn his sustenance. While he did not exactly “go down to the sea in ships,” he paddled his little “dugout” canoe out to the mouth of the stream at nearly every low tide during the winter season, and shared with the raccoons the little sharp-shelled bunch oysters that covered the exposed mud banks.

In the spring, when the yellow jessamine swung its golden cups above the forest undergrowth, and the silver stars of the dogwood gleamed from the chaparral,[Pg 243] he mended his nets and lines in preparation for the summer campaign, and, later, when the woods were odorous with the blossoms of the elder and the wild grape, he commenced his nocturnal forays against the finny tribes. On dark nights, when the piping of the marsh hens apprised him that the tide was out, he took with him a boy to paddle his cranky little craft, and, standing in the bow, threw his cast-net with a “swish” far out into the schools of shrimp and “finger mullet.” His catch, together with an occasional string of whiting and yellowtail taken with the hook and line, he converted at a distant village into the necessaries of life.

For many years there had scarcely been a ripple on this placid life of June’s, save when a “puppy-shark” would occasionally make away with his bait, sending the whiting line whizzing through his fingers and almost upsetting the little craft with his impetuous rush, or when, two or three times a year, the itinerant preacher would visit his cabin to swap ecclesiastical platitudes for fresh fish.

On a bright day in early summer, old June sat at his doorstep basking in the sun and watching the glistening waters as they hurried by. Occasionally, a kingfisher would leave his station on a dead limb and, zig-zagging in his flight, would swoop down on some small fish that showed on the surface, and, having swallowed his prey, would leisurely return to his perch with a harsh note of triumph. The “preechuh on de sukkus” had just arrived to pay his periodical visit, and, scattering a group of half-naked children who were playing around the door, June brought out[Pg 244] another three-legged stool and extended the hospitalities of the establishment.

“Well, suh,” said June, whose philosophical patience and faith might put to the blush many who quarrel with their lot, “I yent min’ ’bout me myself, suh, ’cause I tengk Gawd fuh life en’ de bre’t’ w’at Him lef’ een dis body. My lady, w’ich dead een las’ Augus’, had de consumpshus en’ de remonia alltwo, en’ him en’ me alltwo nyuse to smoke de same pipe befo’ him dead, en’ I berry ’f’aid dat I gwine likeso fuh ketch de consumpshus en’ de remonia frum dat same berry pipe, en’, den, I got mis’ry een de back, en’ I sen’ dat leetle gal ’Riah—dat is my gran’—to de cross road sto’ fuh git fibe cent’ wut’ ub tup’mtime, but de buckruh tek de fibe cent frum de gal en’ t’row water een de tup’mtime, en’ w’en I rub de back wid de tup’mtime de tup’mtime couldn’ specify, en’ de mis’ry keep on jes’ de same, en’ I git so po’ly now dat I kin sca’cely git een de crik fuh ketch swimp en’ t’ing, en’ bittle git berry sca’ceful dese days, suh; but tengk Gawd fuh life, suh, tengk Gawd fuh life, en’ I berry glad you come, ’cause I want’uh ax yo’ ’pinion ’bout my gran’, Sooky. You know’um, suh, him is uh ’leben yeahs ole gal chile, en’ ’e git sick een de two week een las’ Jinnywerry done gone mek one yeah, en’ Doctuh Baa’nwell t’row one dollar en’ sebenty-fi’ cent’ wut’ uh med’sin een de gal, but somehow I don’t t’ink de Doctuh exceed so well wid de gal, ’cause, een de fus’ week een dis same Jinnywerry—befo’ de yeah well out—de gal tek wid mo’ mis’ry een ’e lef’ han’ foot, en’ w’en I sen’um back to de Doctuh ’e want’uh chaa’ge anodduh[Pg 245] dolluh en’ sebenty-fi’ cent’ fuh t’row mo’ physic’ een de gal, en’ dat mek me bex, ’cause eb’rybody know ’tis too soon fuh t’row’way anodduh dolluh en’ sebenty-fi’ cent’, en’ likeso eb’rybody know dat Doctuh Baa’nwell couldn’ be exceed so well wid de gal, en’ ’e med’sin couldn’ specify, elseso ’e wouldn’ haffuh cyo’ one en’ de same gal two time een one en’ de same yeah!”

The Rev. Nepchun Kinlaw, the “locus pastuh” of a Colleton County flock, sat in the sunshine at the door of his cabin, drawing from the sights and sounds around him inspiration for his next Sunday’s sermon.

Although he could not read, an open Bible was on his knee, and his head was bowed reverently over the well-thumbed pages. His only knowledge of their contents was acquired from the circuit preacher whose quarterly sermons furnished the “class-leaders” and local preachers with scriptural data wherewith to conduct the campaign against Satan until his next round. These Bible truths “Pa Kinlaw”—as the female members of his charge delighted to call him—instilled into his flock by homely illustrations. Out in the yard before him, a little ridge of earth, which gradually increased in length, indicated the presence of a ground-mole that was burrowing through the hard ground. “Dat gru’mole hab fait’,” said he. “’E yent gots no eye een ’e head, en’ ’e cyan’ see de wurrum een de eart’, but ’e hab fait’, en’ de Lawd lead’um ’long to weh de wurrum does lib, en’ de gru’mole ketch de wurrum en’ eat’um. Same fashi’n, man en’ ’ooman gots to hab fait’ een de Lawd, elsehow dem ent able fuh specify w’en Gabrull blow ’e hawn en’ de great day come. Ef you ent got fait’, please Gawd, oonuh nebbuh ketch de wurrum ub Salwashun!”

His reflections were rudely interrupted by the advent of Jim Green, the colored constable of a neighboring trial justice, who, mounted on a razor-backed rat of a Texas pony, rode up to the door and, in the name of[Pg 247] the State of South Carolina, demanded from the “Reb’ren’” a dollar and a quarter, the balance due on a two-dollar marriage ceremony performed in October last by the aforesaid trial justice, “who did then and there, at the time and place aforesaid, unite one Nepchun Kinlaw to one Minda Manigo.”

Not a red flag flaunted before a bull—nor a rival’s becoming Easter bonnet before a society woman—could have been provocative of more wrath than was the constable’s demand upon “Pa Kinlaw.” Rising from his seat, with the natural color of his face deepened by anger until it was as dark as the hinges of Hades, he said: “Green, you kin go back to de Trial Jestuss en’ tell’um dat de lady, w’at him renite me to een de two Chuesday een las’ Octobuh, cyan’ specify. Tell’um dat de only reason w’ymekso I hab dis lady is bekasew’y my fus’ wife dead een las’ June. Dat ’ooman w’at dead wuz de fait’fules’ ’ooman I ebbuh come ’cross een dis wull’. I g’em praise fuh dat! De only fau’t I had wid’um, is ’cause ’e gone en’ dead een June! Ef de ’ooman had’uh dead een de fall w’en de crop done lay by, I wouldn’ uh min’ summuch, but ’e gone en’ leddown en’ dead een June, please Gawd, een June munt’, w’en de grass duh grow, en’ w’en de time haa’d, en bittle berry sca’ceful, en’ ’e lef’ seb’n chillun een de house, en’ lef’ de cawn een de fiel’ befo’ ’e gitt’ru hoe’um two time, en’ de jaybu’d flew een de fiel’ en’ nyam de cawn, en’ de redbu’d flew een de fiel’ en’ nyam de cawn, en de crow en’ de rokkoon en de ’possum en’ all de odduh’res’ waa’ment nyam de cawn, ’cause I yent gots nobody fuh min’um out’n de fiel’, en’ stillyet dat ’ooman gone en’ dead een June! Now, w’en I see all dese chillun, wid ’e mout’ open same[Pg 248] lukkuh chuckwilluh’ mout’, en’ I yent gots no bittle fuh pit een ’um, I mek up my min’ dat I gots to git anodduh lady, en’ sistuh Minda en’ him fus’ husbun’ paa’t, en’ I quizzit de fus’ husbun’ ’bout’um en’ ’e gib de lady uh berry good cyarrictuh, so I tek’um to de trial jestuss en’ marri’d’um, but w’en I marri’d’um I t’aw’t ’e could specify, so I pay de jestuss sebenty-fi’ cent’, en’ owe’um dolluh en’ uh quawtuh on de ’ooman, en’ I tek de ’ooman home en’ t’row’um een de fiel’ fuh done lay by de crap en’ plant peas een de cawn, but, please Gawd, soon ez I lef’ de ’ooman ’e leddown flat ’puntop ’e back en’ gone ’sleep een de sunhot, en’ ’e ’low de crow en’ t’ing fuh spile eb’ry Gawd’ crop een de fiel’ eenjurin’ de week day, en’, w’en Sunday come, de lady put one high brustle ’puntop ’e back en’ gone chu’ch same lukkuh him duh buckruh! En’ w’en I fin’ all dese gwinin’ en’ gwinin’ bout de ’ooman, I kinduh git disgus’ wid, de ’ooman, en’ I yent feel like pay out no mo’ money fuh de ’ooman w’en ’e cyan’ specify. W’en I ’gree fuh pay de jestuss two dolluh’ fuh marri’d dis lady, I t’aw’t ’e could specify, en’ I didn’ min’ ’bout payin’ two dolluh’ fuh uh smaa’t ’ooman, but sence I tek de ’ooman home en’ try’um, I fin’ dat de ’ooman cyan’ specify, en’ ’e yent wut’ mo’ den de sebenty-fi’ cent’ w’at I done pay on’um; en’, ef de jestuss ent sattify wid dat—befo’ I pay de odduh’res’ ub de money—befo’ I pay’um de dolluh en’ a quawtuh w’at I still jue on de ’ooman—him kin tek de lady back!”

The Republican State Convention was in session in the hall of the House of Representatives at Columbia. There was a contest between two rival delegations from Berkeley County, the one representing the “old line” Republicans, the other the younger element which had recently affiliated with the conservative Democrats. The fight came up on the seating of the delegations, and it was agreed that five minutes should be allotted to the chairman of each delegation for the presentation of his claims to the convention.

A young African, fancifully arrayed in a spotless white flannel suit, rose in behalf of the younger delegation and arraigned his opponents in an “impassioned” speech.

Before his five minutes had expired, Mr. Thompson, the ape-like chairman of the elder statesmen, interrupted him with an appeal to the chair.

“Great Gawd,” said the thoroughly aroused delegate, “I rise to de priblidge en’ de squeschun, alltwo one time, en’ I also rise to uh squeschun ub inflummashun, ’cause I bin pussonully attacktid. Mistuh Chair, dis ondelicate nyung juntlemun w’ich pusceed me has prizzunt to dis augus’ body de credenshul ub de contestuss delegashun frum Bucksley County to Mount Pleasant presinck fuh sen’ one delegashun to Cuhlumbia, fuh sen’ anodduh delegashun to Chicagyo[Pg 250] fuh nominashun de Prezzydent uh dese Newnited State! Mistuh Chair, de ’Publikin paa’ty een Bucksley County is gots fuh specify, en’ I will likes to quizzit dis immaculate nyung juntlemun frum Bucksley County en’ ax’um a few cumposhashun! I will likes fuh ’tarrygate’um en’ ax she weh him bin een de yeah sebenty-stree, w’en I bayre my breas’ to de bullet uh de Dimmycrack frum de mountain to de seaboa’d! I will like, suh, fuh peruse de min’ uh dis ondeestunt nyung juntlemun en’ ax’um how de debble him kin specify en’ ruppezunt de ’Publikin paa’ty een Bucksley County to Mount Pleasant presinck, w’en him binnuh lib een Mistuh Puhshay Smit’ yaa’d, en’ binnuh nyam buckruh’ bittle ebbuh sence ’e farruh gone penetenshus fuh t’iefin’ hog een de yeah sebenteen-eighty-stree! I will likes to ax dis ondelicate chillun-nigguh how him kin come yuh wid ’e jaw teet’ full uh Puhshay Smit’ hog meat en’ onduhtek fuh seddown him contestuss delegashun ’pun dis historicus flo’!

“W’en, Mistuh Chair, dis meetin’ wuz hol’ to Bucksley County to Mount Pleasant presinck, fuh sen’ dis delegashun to Cuhlumbia fuh sen’ anodduh delegashun to Chicagyo fuh nominashun de Prezzydent uh dese Newnited State, dis immaculate juntlemun, Mistuh Dannil T. Middletun, repose heself ’gense de conwenshun plan fuh nominashun, en’ adswocate de primus ward[2] plan. Now, w’en de juntlemun fin’ dat de conwenshun plan is wictoria obuh de primus ward plan, de juntlemun git disgus’, en’ de juntlemun lef’ de flo’ uh de conwenshun en’ gone down de step, follow’ by he cohort, Mistuh Gibbes! Now, Mistuh Chair, I punnounce shish ondeestunt behavior, on de paa’t uh Mistuh Middletun, uh disgustuss splotch ’pun de ’Publikin[Pg 251] paa’ty’ cawpsus politicksus, en’ ef de juntlemun will contuhdix de wu’d w’ich I nyuse, I will punnounce she to be a lie! Mistuh Chair, de juntlemun’ mout’ is too black for she to be a Dimmycrack, en’ ’e yeye is too red fuh he to be a ’Publikin, en’ I punnounce’um, on de flo’ uh dis conwenshun, uh monstrosity politicuss muffledice!”[3]

Is there one, among the thousands that have traveled on his train, who does not know and, knowing, does not esteem, Conductor Smith—“Billy” Smith of the Blue Ridge Railroad? Surely not, for like his prototype, Baines Carew, the sympathetic attorney of the Bab Ballads, who was so overcome by the recital of his clients’ woes that he “had scarcely strength to take his fee,” Billy, the embodiment of courtesy and kindliness, never collected a fare or punched a ticket without a deprecatory smile and look of sympathy, as tho’ it grieved him very much. This accommodating disposition has made him an easy prey to an exacting public. Other trains have passed over his road, but the cream of the travel has always been reserved for Billy. His the happiness of looking after tow-headed boys sent to visit distant relatives; his the honor of escorting to and from boarding-school, grown girls who have been provided with half-fare tickets by their thrifty mothers; his the privilege of hauling to and fro, ladies who have been blessed with twins by a prodigal Providence, ladies with birdcages, ladies with baby-carriages, ladies with cats in baskets, ladies with geraniums in pots, ladies with home-made jams and pickles in jars, ladies with bundles and bandboxes, ladies with an overweening desire to pour into his sympathetic ear divers family secrets—the exact number of teeth the last baby but one has cut, the number and variety of fashionable ailments considerately diagnosed by their family physicians, etc., etc. With these and like confidences the patient conductor’s time is not infrequently whiled away between stations.

Thus for years has Billy Smith trod—or rather joggled along—the path of duty between Walhalla and Belton. In the spring-time, when rill and river are swollen by heavy rains, and the tawny waters rush down the hillsides, gullying the plowed lands and scattering the rich soil “out among the neighbors,” when the pale blue wild violet and the waxen Easter lily peep from dell and dingle, and the peach and plum trees, clustering around the farmsteads, open their pink and white petals to the sunshine and the dew; in the summer, when the golden bees swarm over the clover blooms and the ripe grain falls before the sweep of the scythe; in the autumn, when the chestnut burrs lie on the sod and the dead leaves swirl in the blast; in the winter, when the Blue Ridge is wrapped in a slumber-robe of snow and the frost crystals, forced out of the icy earth, sparkle on the sides of the deep cuts—in all seasons and in all weathers—Billy Smith plods on. Time and toil have streaked his beard with gray, and deepened the lines in his face, but his smile is as sweet and his hands and feet as willing as ever they were in his younger days, and, until he shall run his last train through the golden gates of the new Jerusalem and pass in his manifests to be checked up by the Almighty Auditor, he will doubtless be seen at the termini of the Blue Ridge Railroad, loaded to the gunwales, like a lighter at a coaling station, with babies, pug dogs, flowering plants and all the miscellaneous paraphernalia apparently inseparable from itinerant femininity, and will still take a commanding position in the centre of his coach and diurnally sing, alas! “that old sweet song:” “Belton, Belton! Junction Columbia and Greenville Railroad! About fifty[Pg 254] minutes, fifty minutes, before the train comes for Columbia! Passengers going in the direction of Columbia will have to git off now, you’ll have to git off, as this train leaves in about ten minutes, ten minutes, for Greenville, for Greenville—which is in the opposite direction from Columbia!”

There are moments in every life when flowers are no longer sweet, and women no longer fair; when there is no music in the song of birds, no merriment in the laughter of children, and all the world seems dark.

One of these moments came to Billy Smith the other day, when Conductor Fielding of the main line unloaded at Belton, Diana Hawlback, an elderly black woman from Beaufort County, who, with her grand-daughter “Lizzybet’,” a spotted pig in a bag, two barnyard roosters and a hen, tied by the legs, four quarts of roasted peanuts, a bushel of “Crazy Jane” sweet potatoes, a large bundle of bedding, and divers and sundry other belongings, was on her way to Pendleton to visit relatives. “The fight came up,” as the Congressional reporters say, “on the recurrence of the previous question,” which was, in this case, an emphatic demand for the payment of full fare for Diana’s “gran’,” “Lizzybet’,” a leggy girl of apparently fourteen years of age. “Cap’n,” said Diana, “dat gal is a ’leben yeahs old gal, en’ wehrebbuh I does tek’um on de train, de buckruh nebbuh does chaa’ge me mo’ den chillun money fuh de gal. Enty you ’membuh, suh, de yeah w’en de dry drought come? Well, dat gal bawn een dat same berry yeah een de middle paa’t ub de summuh, ’cause I ’membuh berrywell de dry drought dry up all de swamp en’ backwatuh en’ t’ing een Augus’, en’ all de man on de plantesshun gone out[Pg 255] een de swamp en’ ketch de alligettuh out’n ’e hole, en’ dis gal Lizzybet’ ma—him name Benus—eat too much alligettuh w’en Lizzybet’ wuz a t’ree weeks’ ole gal, en’ de ’ooman dead en’ lef’ dis gal on my han’. De gal’ pa wuz my nyoungis’ son, Pollydo’, en’ alldo’ de scriptuh say, ‘Paul kin plant en’ Pollydo’ kin water, but Gawd duh de man w’at gib de greese,’ stillyet Pollydo’ en’ him bredduh Paul plant de crap en’ watuhr’um alltwo ’tell de dry drought come, but Gawd nebbuh sen’ de greese ’tell Pollydo’ ketch de alligettuh en’ bile’um, en’ stillyet, alldo’ ’e folluh’ de scriptuh’ wu’d en’ gib ’e lady de alligettuh greese w’at de Lawd sen’, yet de lady dead, so I don’t t’ink dat tex’, w’at my locus pastuh resplain, could be specify, elseso I don’t t’ink Pa Kinlaw could be onduhstan’ de scriptuh berry well, or de greese nebbuh would’uh ’stroy’d de ’ooman. Stan’ up gal, en’ ’low de buckruh fuh look ’puntop yo’ foot. Cap’n, you ebbuh see, sence you bawn, shishuh feet lukkuh dat on a fo’teen yeahs ole gal? Ent you know,” said she, as Conductor Smith’s eyes opened at the size of the pedal extremities exhibited, “ent you know dat a ’leben yeahs ole gal gots bigguh foot den a fo’teen yeahs ole gal? Dis gal nebbuh had a shoe ’pun ’e foot, en’ ’e foot gots nutt’n’ fuh stop’um frum grow. Befo’ you tek’way all my money fuh tek dis gal to Pendletun, I wish you, please, suh, kin eeduh go yo’self, elseso sen’ uh ansuh to my sistuhlaw, Miss Frajuh, w’at lib to Mistuh Brissle place to Cumbee, en’ ax’um wedduh dis gal Lizzybet’, w’ich him is my gran’, is mo’ den ’leben yeah ole.”

On the hot white sand of a cart road that wound along the edge of a ricefield in lower Carolina, lay the stiffened body of a yellow, crop-eared cur. By his side, a companion in death, was a cottonmouth moccasin, beaten almost to a pulp.

The road was flanked on either side by a canal half filled with stagnant water, dotted here and there with water lilies and shaded by the feathery foliage of the pond willows, while, among the clumps of rushes that fringed the edges, blue flags nodded. Over all, the July sun glared fiercely, and up on the willow branches, where, here and there, his rays penetrated the dense foliage, lay a water snake basking in the golden light. Now and then a blue heron—the “Po’ Joe” of the plantation negro—rose lazily from his fishing station out in the ricefield, and, trailing his long legs after him, moved on to another “drop.” The whole world seemed to be asleep in the warm sunshine—all the world save old Ca’lina Manigo, who sat on a cypress log by the side of the road and gazed sorrowfully at the dead dog, and the snake that had caused its death, while he muttered to himself:

“Po’ ole Hol’fas’ dead, yaas, suh, dead en’ gone! Ketch ’e de’t’ en’ git ’structed by uh debble’ub’uh snake! De preechuh say dat w’en de Lawd tek’way good man en’ good ’ooman frum dis wull’ ’tis bekasew’y Him lub ’um en’ gots nyuse fuhr’um, but I wunduh w’y mekso Him tek’way Hol’fas’? Cyan’ be dem does ketch rokkoon en’ ’possum en’ t’ing een Heben! I nebbuh yerry ’bout no shishuh t’ing, but, my Mastuh! ef dem is[Pg 257] got’um dey, Hol’fas’ will tree’um befo’ dayclean tomorruh mawnin’, ’speshly ef ’e got sense ’nuf fuh fin’ Bredduh Cudjo, my class-leader, w’at de Lawd tek las’ Fibbywerry, ’cause B’Cudjo nyuse to lub fuh folluh de waa’ment’ track een de swamp same lukkuh ’e nyuse to lub fuh folluh de ’Postle Paul’ en’ Nickuhdemus’ track een de Scriptuh, en’, I tell you, suh, w’en B’Cudjo git on a hot trail, wedduh’so ’e duh trail ’possum or ’postle, ’e berry haa’d fuh t’row’um off!

“Dat mek me ’membuh ’bout de las’ time me en’ him en’ Hol’fas’ ketch de hebby rokkoon een de Cypress swamp close to Beabuh dam. Yaas’suh, dat dog couldn’ tu’ndown fuh rokkoon! ’E wuz jes’ ’bout fus’ fowlcrow; de mawnin’ staar climb up de sky ’tell ’e stan’ ’puntop de treehead, en’, ’way obuh de swamp een de big dribe, we yerry de owl ‘whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo,’ en’ bimeby pres’n’ly, we list’n good en’ we yerry Hol’fas’ comin’ ’pun one hot trail, en’, bimeby ’gen, we know by ’e baa’k dat ’e done tree; so, w’en we come to de dog, ’e bin at de biggis’ sweetgum tree een de swamp en’ duh gib ’e tongue berry rappit. Now, w’en we pit de light’ood junk behin’ we fuh shine ’e yeye, we see de rokkoon ’puntop de berry top uh de gum tree, en’ we yent gots no gun fuh shoot de rokkoon, so B’Cudjo staa’t’ fuh climb de tree fuh t’row down de rokkoon, en’ ’e git’long berry well ’tell ’e git mos’ to de rokkoon, en’ B’Cudjo so hongry fuh ketch de rokkoon, dat ’e nebbuh quizzit de limb w’at him binnuh seddown ’puntop, en’ w’en ’e graff at de rokkoon, please Gawd, de limb couldn’ specify, en’ de limb bruk, en’ w’en B’Cudjo graff de rokkoon by ’e tail, him en’ de rokkoon alltwo drap out de tree, en’ hit de groun’ ‘bim!’ De rokkoon dead, but B’Cudjo, een Gawd’[Pg 258] mussy, fall ’puntop ’e head, en’ dat hukkuh ’e didn’ bruk ’e back!

“Well, praise de Mastuh, Him tek’way Hol’fas’. I yent grudge’um de dog, ef Him want’um, but I wish ’E had uh bin tek my lady Bina en’ lef’ de dog, ’cause de dog nebbuh lie, en’ de ’ooman fuhrebbuh duh lie, en’ de dog wuz a fait’ful dog, en’ de ’ooman is a ’ceitful ’ooman, en’ w’en you feed de dog, de dog wag ’e tail, but de ’ooman! him nebbuh tengkful fuh nutt’n’. You nebbuh kin sattify him!”

“Come’yuh, gal, en’ lemme look ’puntop yo’ foot. W’en I call you, yo’ foot hebby ez i’on, en’ w’en I tu’n you loose, ’e light ez uh fedduh. Wuh ’smattuh? Yo’ two foot’ mus’ be tie togedduh, enty? Befo’ de Lawd, you stan’ same lukkuh yo’ maamy en’ yo’ gran’maamy alltwo. You is tarrypin w’en time come fuh wu’k, en’ bu’d w’en time come fuh play!”

Old Carolina Manigo sat on a three-legged stool at the door of his cabin, as he thus addressed his grand-daughter, Lucinda, a scrawny negress of twelve or thirteen years. With reluctant feet, the girl, a pitiful object, approached him. Her dress and appearance were in keeping with the wretched poverty of her grandfather and all his surroundings, and evidenced the utter incapacity of the average negro, thrown by “freedom” upon his own resources, to care decently for his family. The frowzy wool on her unkempt head had been plaited weeks before into little pigtails that bristled all over her crown like black caterpillars. Her face was gray with dirt, around her thick lips lingered the encrusted remnants of her sweet-potato dinner of the day before, while down her cheeks lay, like the rills of resinous gum that streak the bark of the pine tree “boxed” for turpentine, the tracks of recent tears. Through the rifts in the ragged cotton dress that constituted her sole attire, her scraggy limbs showed as she walked, or limped, rather, toward her grandfather. Around her left foot was wrapped a piece of burlap bagging, and, whenever she stepped upon it, her pinched face contracted with pain.

“’Smattuh, gal, snake bite you, enty? Dis house mus’be hab sin, ’cause dis mek de two time Gawd, een ’e mussy, sen’ mis’ry en’ water-moccasin een dis fambly. Las’ week dem ’stroy’d Hol’fas’ (w’ich him wuz de bes’ rokkoon dog ebbuh git ’pun a trail) en’ now, please de Mastuh, de snake gone en’ structid dis chillun gal, en’ ’e gwine to dead on my han’, en’ ’e know berry well ’e ma gone town, en’, ef ’e yiz dead befo’ ’e ma git back frum town, him will lef’ me bidout a Gawd’ somebody fuh min’ bu’d out de cawnfiel’, en’ I nebbuh see, sence I bawn, shishuh hebby gang uh woodpeckuh’, crow’ en’ all kind’uh annimel lukkuh dis same Augus’ munt’. Gal! You ent gots no eye een yo’ head ’scusin’ fuh look fuh blackberry, enty? You walk duh paat’ en’ tu’n yo’ gaze ’puntop de sky, ’stead’uh quizzit de groun’ weh you duh walk! W’en you dead, who gwine keep jaybu’d’ out’n dis fiel’? I good min’ to lick you!”

“Gran’puh,” whimpered ’Cindy, “I nebbuh step ’puntop no snake, suh, ’tis briah w’at ’cratch me foot.”

“Briah!” laughed old Ca’lina, derisively. “Briah! Who’ebbuh yerry ’bout shishuh t’ing! Briah! I sway to Gawd, gal, you mos’ mek me laugh! Weh de debble you ebbuh know briah kin ’cratch nigguh’ foot? You mus’ be t’ink you is buckruh, enty? You binnuh walk een briah en’ t’ing ebbuh sence you bawn, ’tell de bottom uh yo’ foot haa’d same lukkuh alligettuh’ back, en’ you gots de impedin’ to come’yuh en’ tell yo’ gran’puh dat briah ’cratch yo’ foot! Step fas’, gal. Slow walkin’ mek quick lickin’, en’ fus t’ing you know briah will ’cratch you ’puntop yo’ back ’stead’uh ’pun yo’ lef’ han’ feet. Mek’ace, gal, en’ come’yuh. Ent you ’membuh dat, een de ’Postle Paul’ ’Pistle to de[Pg 261] ’Feeshun’, him resplain de wu’d dat ’long talk ketch run’way nigguh?’ Ent you know dat dey ent uh Chryce’ hom’ny een de house fuh eat? De las’ fr’en’ I got een dis wull’ wuz ole Hol’fas’, en’ snake gone en’ structid dat dog en’ kill’um, en’ ebbuh sence ’e dead, de waa’ment en’ t’ing come en’ ’stroy’d eb’ry Gawd’ fowl on de place, en’ las’ night wil’cat come en’ ketch de frizzle hen wat binnuh set onduhneet’ de cedar bush een de fench cawnuh, en’ de hen ’low de cat fuh ketch’um, en’ t’ree uh de aig’ is duck aig’ en’ two uh de odduh’res’ is tuckrey aig’, en’ you bettuh tek de aig’ to Mistuh Ram’ sto’ to de Cross Road’, en’ chaa’ge’um seb’npunce fuh de aig’, ’cause I don’t t’ink de aig’ kin specify berry well, ’cause de hen w’at bin seddown ’puntop de aig’ git ketch by de wil’cat en’ de aig’ binnuh seddown een de jew en’ t’ing, but ef de buckruh ’tarrygate you en’ quizzit you too ondeestunt ’bout de aig’, you kin tell’um dat de aig’ kin specify, ’cause de frizzle hen w’at de wil’cat ketch ent binnuh seddown ’puntop dem aig’ mo’n t’ree week, en’ you kin tell’um dat wehreas de hen aig’ oughtuh hatch’out een t’ree week’ de duck aig’ en’ de tuckrey aig’ ent jue fuh hatch’out ’tell de fo’ week done out, en’ tell’um dat wehreas de hen aig’ en’ de duck aig’ en’ de tuckrey aig’ all binnuh keep one’nudduh cump’ny, de hen aig’ is too mannusubble fuh hatch’out befo’ de odduh’res’ aig’, so de hen aig’ keep ’e cyarrictuh f’um spile, ’tell all ’e cump’ny done hatch’out.”

Out at the edge of the woods that fringed a sea-island cotton field in the lower part of Colleton County, stood a little bush church—a primitive affair, constructed by setting four ten-foot stakes at the corners of a square, laying ridgepoles in their forked tops, and covering the whole with green boughs of the sweetgum. Humble as it was, this summer sanctuary of the Rev. Nepchun Kinlaw’s congregation was as dear to them as was ever minareted mosque to Moslem, or cloister to Monk. Here, during the warm weather, when the more pretentious clapboard church became unbearably hot, they assembled two or three times a week to receive the pearls of theological thought that, clothed in the Gullah dialect of the Carolina coast, fell from the thick lips of their beloved “locus pastuh.” Here, sheltered from sunshine and shower, they sat, like roosting chickens, on pine poles that, upholstered only with the bark that covered them, rested upon upright stakes sawed square at the top and driven into the ground. When these “pews” were filled to the ends, the overflow found lodgment on the stumps and logs that lay within sound of the preacher’s voice in the environing forest.

On a night in the early summer, an unusually large congregation had gathered at this trysting place of the faithful, for the news had spread that “Pa Kinlaw” was going to say something sensational on the subject of pastoral ways and means. The night was dark, the sky overcast, and now and then the low rumble of distant thunder and a fitful gust of wind from the south-east,[Pg 263] that soughed through the tops of the pines for a moment and then died away, betokened the coming storm. Around the place of worship, two or three pine-knot fires blazed brightly, furnishing, at once, light for the comfort of the congregation, and smoke for the discomfiture of the gnats and sandflies that swarmed about the church. Around and between the fires, the negroes, men and women, moved, avoiding the smoke and sparks that the wind, from time to time, sent among them, the firelight falling on their dark faces recalling the “hot-pot” scene in Rider Haggard’s “She.” While they awaited the advent of their preacher, they discussed their daily pleasures, trials, hopes and fears—the reduced cost of bacon or calico at the country store, the demand for labor, and the increased price therefor, at the rice plantations along the river, the destruction of the early corn by the cutworms and the crows, etc.

“I yerry,” said one old woman to another, “I yerry dat Mistuh FitzSimmun done tek de sprout flow off ’e rice, en’ ’e gwine hoe’um nex’ week, T’ursday.”

“Dat so?” said her companion. “Den, I gwine dey sho’ ez Gawd lemme go. Ef my juntlemun kin git uh hawss, eeduhso uh oxin, fuh knock de middle out’n ’e crap, I will mek she go ’long too, alldo’ ’e gots de mis’ry een ’e back ’tell ’e cyan’ specify wid ’e hoe lukkuh ’e nyuse to do.”

“I ’spec’,” said old Ca’lina Manigo, “I ’spec’, I mos’ sho’, rokkoon duh walk duh paat’ dis berry night! Please Gawd, ef Him didn’ mek dat snake ’stroy’d Hol’fas’ las’ yeah, I could’uh ketch one tenight, tenight, duh de night!”

“Ef you so hongry fuh rokkoon meat, w’en de praise[Pg 264] done gitt’ru, we kin tek my dog Ring en’ tek a leetle dribe,” said Monday Parker, a stalwart black fellow.

“Ring!” said Ca’lina, scornfully. “Ring! Boy, ef you talk Ring’ name een de same bre’t’ wid Hol’fas’ name, you will mek me hab sin right yuh tenight! I kin tek ole Hol’fas’ jawbone out’n de du’t weh de buzzut done lef’um, en’ I kin pit dat jawbone ’puntop uh rokkoon track, en’ him will mek de rokkoon git een de tree top, befo’ Ring kin ketch a fleas out’n ’e own tail! Go’way, Paa’kuh, man, you know berry well yo’ dog cyan’ specify!”

“’Nuf t’ing, ’scusin’ dog, dey een dis wull’ w’at cyan’ specify,” said a deep voice from the darkness without, and, in a moment more, the long-looked-for pastor, mounted on a raw-boned brindled ox, rode into the broad disk of firelight that filled the glade. A grain sack stuffed with corn shucks was his saddle, and a long grapevine wound around and around the unhappy ox, together with martingales and crupper of the same, held it in place. A bridle and stirrups of frayed cotton rope completed the extraordinary equestrian equipment.

“Cow iz shishuh ’ceitful t’ing fuh ride, dat I mos’ didn’ mek me ’p’int,” said the preacher, as he dismounted and hitched his animal to a bush.

“Paul Jinkin’ got some shinny peas plant close by de road aige, en’ dis cow bin so hongry dat, w’en I git to weh de fench bruk down, ’e tek ’eself en’ me en’ all, en’ gone een de fiel’ en’ staa’t fuh nyam de peas, en’ I try fuh git’um out de fiel’, ’cause Paul ent b’long to we chu’ch, but de cow haa’d-head ez a ’ooman, en’ I couldn’ git’um fuh lef’ de fiel’, ontel we yerry Paul call to ’e lady fuh git up en’ he’p’um ketch de somebody[Pg 265] w’at dey een de fiel’, en’ w’en I yerry dat, I yent want’uh git de cow’ cyarrictuh spile, so I mek’um come out’n’ de fiel’—en’ dat how I git yuh late.”

Taking his stand in the tall box of rough pine boards that served for a pulpit, he looked askance at the contributions to his support that various members of his congregation brought to the altar and laid on the ground beside him. A quart of grist, a dozen eggs, a chicken, a pint of “clean” rice, a nickle—ostentatiously brought forth from a knot in the corner of an apron and placed by the proud donor “een de Reb’ren’ han’”—such were the offerings of this simple people, but, although representing more than a tithe of their possessions, they found little favor in the pastor’s eyes.

“Sistuh Wineglass,” said he, as a bustling middle-aged woman smilingly presented a chicken. “Sistuh Wineglass, chickin’ seems to sca’ceful een dis congregashun ez debble sca’ceful een heab’n! Dis mek only de t’ree chickin’ w’at bin contributes to dis chu’ch sence de las’ quawt’ly preachin’, en’ I done tell oonuh one time ’ready dat dis pulpit cyan’ filfill’ bidout bittle. Ent de Scriptuh say een de fo’teen chaptuh een Nickuhdemus, dat de lab’ruh wut’ ’e hire? I gots to lef’ my crap kibbuh wid grass, en’ come yuh fuh ’rassle en’ agguhnize wid oonuh sinful soul en’ t’ing, en’ you gots de nomannus to come een de Lawd’ house wid t’ree aig’ en’ one leetle fo’punce chickin een yo’ han’, en’ ’spec’ fuh ketch salwashun, enty? Ef you saa’ch Nickuhdemus’ wu’d you will fin’ dat ’e say ’sponsubble dat a fo’punce chickin cyan’ specify fuh seb’npunce’ wut’ uh salwashun! You tell me week befo’ las’ dat you couldn’ git no chickin’ ’scusin’ you[Pg 266] git aig’, en’ you cyan’ gots no aig’ ’cep’n’ de hen lay’um, but de Lawd’ wu’d say, ef yo’ right han’, eeduhso yo’ right han’ feet, refen’ you, you mus’ cut’um off, en’ ef de hen cyan’ specify, you mus’ cut off him head same fashi’n en’”—

The pastor’s prelude was brought to a sudden close by a deafening peal of thunder that echoed and re-echoed through the forest. A gust of wind lifted the sweetgum thatch from the rafters of the little church and scattered the boughs to leeward, and, as the big raindrops began to fall upon the assembled worshipers, Pa Kinlaw gathered together his prog, mounted his ox, and trotted off in the darkness, calling to his flock as he went, “de Lawd en’ me alltwo cyan’ talk one time! De nex’ preachin’ will be to Sistuh Rab’nel’ house ’bout fus’ daa’k Chuesday night!”

She came into the office of a Walterboro lawyer and engaged his services to reverse, upset and “spile” the decision of a trial justice who had just fined her “nine dolluh’ en’ de cawss’, suh,” for obstructing a public highway.

Grace Rivers was her “eentitlement.” The color of her skin was so deep that a piece of charcoal drawn across her face would have left a pallid mark. Although literally on the “shady side” of seventy, she was not regardless of the advantages of dress, and her costume was, like Katisha’s left elbow, worth “coming miles to see.” The gray wool that covered her head was snarled and tangled like a burry merino pelt, but a man’s black straw hat, battered and weather-stained, was set upon it as jauntily as was ever worn the rakish cap of Fra Diavolo! When a fashion-plate had last been seen in her habitat near Ion’s Cross Roads, bustles were “the thing.” Although these protuberances on the human form divine had long since been called in and relegated to the rear (?) they were still “the thing” for Grace. The balloon bustle of the society actress, the oscillating bustle, the coiled-spring variety that rebelled at being sat upon, and, when “crushed to earth,” like truth, would “rise again,” having passed away, were not now obtainable at the country stores; so the ingenuity of this dusky devotee of fashion was called into play, and she had constructed as unique a “dress improver” as was ever worn under the sun—or under a homespun skirt, either, for that matter. A rift in the rear of her gown disclosed[Pg 268] the mechanism of this work of art, which was merely a piece of an iron barrel hoop, bent into a half-elipse, and wound with two or three thicknesses of cotton bagging. Primitive as it was, it sufficed to elevate the hind part of her skirt several inches above the level of the lower periphery of the front breadth, which was hidden by an apron made of a rough-dried guano sack, on which appeared in bold stenciled letters, “Ashepoo Acid Phosphate, 200 pounds—privilege tax paid.”

Taking a seat in the counsellor’s office, she said: “Majuh, I come fuh git jestuss yuh teday, teday! W’en my juntlemun, Mistuh Ribbuhs, dead yeah befo’ las’, een Augus’ munt’ (en’ ’e dead ’cause snake structid’um on ’e lef’ han’ feet w’en ’e binnuh gwine to praise meetin’ to Sistuh Gibbes’ house on Hawss Shoe causeway) w’en him dead, ’e lef’ me t’irty acre’ lan’ w’ich ’e buy frum Cap’n Gracy befo’ ’e dead. Now, w’en my juntlemun binnuh lib, Cudjo Singletun en’ ’e fambly buy a piece uh groun’ close to weh we lib, en’ likeso Sambo Hawlback buy groun’ eenjinin’ de same lan’. ’Long ez my juntlemun binnuh lib, dem berry well sattify fuh trabble ’longside de aige uh my groun’ w’en dem duh gwine chu’ch, eeduhso to de sto’, but soon ez my juntlemun dead, de eegnunt nigguh’ git so swell’up en’ ’laagin’, dem come en’ cut paat’ t’ru my pinelan’, en’ call’um pulblic road. W’en I see de ’ceitfulness’ en’ de ondeestunt gwinin’ en’ gwinin’ uh dese nomannus nigguh’, I git disgus’ wid de nigguh’, en’ I mek a fench ’cross de road, ’tell de road couldn’ specify. Now, w’en Sunday night come, Sambo tek ’e lady een ’e oxin cyaa’t, en’ staa’t lukkuh him duh gwine chu’ch, but ’e nebbuh git to chu’ch, suh, ’cause ’e oxin ent gots good eye duh night time, en’ de oxin[Pg 269] git tanglety’up een de fench, befo’ Sambo ruckuhnize weh ’e duh gwine, en’ de oxin t’row Sambo’ lady out’n de cyaa’t, en’ de lady fuhgit de ’lij’un w’at ’e staa’t fuh tek to chu’ch, en’ ’e git bex, en’ Sambo git bex, en, fin’lly at las’, dem didn’ gone chu’ch, but dem tu’n back home, en’ nex’ mawnin’ Sambo gone to de Trial Jestuss en’ swayre out warrant fuh ’res’ me en’ my groun’ fuh twis’up en’ obstruck de pulblic highway, en’ de Jestuss sen’ a mufflejaw’ nigguh counstubble to my house, en’ him tek me off befo’ I gitt’uh chance eb’nso fuh pit on me shoesh, en’ I tell’um dat ’e yent deestunt, no, suh, fuh ’res’ a lady en’ tek’um to co’t, bidout ’e shoesh ’puntop ’e foot, but dat counstubble raise’ by po’ buckruh en’ ’e yent gots uh Chryce’ mannus to ’e name!”

“Well,” said the attorney, when he had stemmed this torrent of speech, “did you tell him that you were not ready for trial; that you wished time to secure counsel and to summon witnesses to testify in your behalf?”

“I baig’um, I tell’um, ‘Mistuh Awkuhmun, I want to quizzit you on dis p’int, how de debble you kin ’res’ a lady fuh obstruck uh highway, w’en you know berrywell de road w’ich de nigguh’ mek t’ru my lan’, run t’ru low groun’! How, een de name uh Gawd, kin I eentuhfayre wid de pulblic highway w’en de road so low dat ’e full uh watuh ’tell limus cootuh en’ t’ing duh swim een’um! No, suh! ’scusin’ you kin ansuh me dat parable, yo’ eenditement cyan’ specify’.”

“’E didn’ reply nutt’n’, suh. ’E jis’ tell me I gots fuh specify wid nine dolluh’ en’ de cawss’, ’scusin’ I want’uh leddown een Walterburruh jail ontell de t’ree[Pg 270] Sat’d’y een June. I didn’ gots no money fuh g’em, so I g’em mawgidge on my cow en’ t’ing ’tell I kin come yuh to you, suh, en’ git you fuh see me t’ru, ’cause dis ondelicate buckruh ’res’ me’, en’ try me en’ all, een one en’ de same day. ’E wouldn’ eb’n gimme time fuh go home en’ reconstruck meself, en’, please suh, Majuh, w’en my juntlemun dead, ’e tell me fuh fin’ out w’at you will chaa’ge me fuh tek care uh me en’ my cow en’ my groun’ en’ t’ing by de yeah—eb’n so ef I duh sleep—I want you fuh see how much you will chaa’ge fuh keep nigguh, en’ counstubble, en’ po’buckruh en’ all kind’uh waa’ment en’ t’ing off my groun’, ’tell I dead, suh.”

The lawyer told her he would consider the matter, and, Ashepoo’s “Nada, the Lily,” with a curtsy to the stranger within the attorney’s gate, drifted out into the brilliant sunlight that lay like a golden mantle on field and woodland.

He lived in Spartanburg, and was the proud valet (pronounced “valley” in the up-country) of a young physician. Whether the charcoal hue of his face, or his employer’s profession, prompted a clever woman to bestow upon him the appellation of “the valley of the shadow of death,” I do not know, but it certainly seemed, to every one acquainted with him, a peculiarly appropriate “eentitlement.”

Whence he came was a mystery. He tramped into the town one day, with his kinky wool full of the red dust of the up-country roads and his mouth full of the Gullah dialect of the coast, and asked for work. Although not more than thirteen years of age, his hardened muscles and pinched face indicated that he had known both toil and starvation. “Gran’puh lick me en’ I run’way en’ lef’um,” was all he said, and, as he proved industrious and reasonably honest, there was no further inquiry into his antecedents.

One day, soon after he had established himself in his Spartanburg sanctuary, I chanced, while on a visit to the low-country, to learn something of his history. Passing through a plantation, formerly the home of a distinguished South Carolina family, but now abandoned to the occupancy of a few negro squatters, whose slovenly agricultural methods extracted but a scanty subsistence from the naturally fertile soil, I came to a miserable cabin, half a mile away from the main settlement. On its site had once stood a comfortable frame house of the type in general use on Southern plantations for ante-bellum negro quarters,[Pg 272] but the woodwork had long since been destroyed by fire, and the brick chimney alone remained. Among the negroes of the coast, where brick are scarce and the cabin chimneys are generally made of clay or mud, the possession of a brick “chimbly” is a sort of badge of aristocracy and a passport to high position in colored society, and old Scipio Smashum, having been a house servant before the war, and, retaining through all the hardships that had come to him with freedom, a profound contempt for the coarser-fibred “field hands,” preferred to live apart from them, and had reared around the isolated brick chimney a habitation which, even when new, was never weatherproof, and was now in a pitiable state of dilapidation.

From the pine saplings, of which the walls were constructed, the rotting bark had fallen away, disclosing the perforations of the wood borers or “sawyers,” whose industry had almost honey-combed the sappy logs. The clapboards which covered the house were falling to pieces with decay, and here and there on the weather-worn roof lay, like oases in a desert of gray, patches of green mould.

The surroundings of the cabin were as unkempt and unattractive as the building itself. Dogfennel and “Jimpson” weed grew almost up to the threshold. A few rows of corn and beans in a garden nearby were choked with grass and had been abandoned soon after the plants were up. The “wattled” fence of clapboards surrounding it was tumbling down, and through the fallen panels the neighbors’ cows and pigs roamed at will. On the top of a little log chicken coop, a young Dominique rooster cackled loudly while he awaited the coming of his partner, who was, at the moment, busied with domestic duties within.

On a bench near the door sat old Scipio. The wool which covered his head was as white as the back of a Cotswold sheep, and the face, in which his bleared and jaundiced eyes were deeply set, was seamed with care.

As I approached, he was upbraiding the boastful rooster. “You so ’laagin’. Soon ez yo’ lady git on ’e nes’ you biggin fuh cackle same lukkuh you duh specify, ’stead’uh him. You stan’ dey wid yo’ back speckle’ lukkuh one dese red-head’ woodpeckuh’, en’ t’ink you gots mo’ eentruss’ een dat aig den de hen ’eself.—Mawnin’, maussuh, t’engk Gawd I see you teday. De time so berry haa’d, maussuh; ef you didn’ bin come soon, I ’spec’ you wouldn’ uh fine’ yo’ ole nigguh yuh teday. I mos’ t’ink de big Maussuh gwine to call me putty soon, ’cause de mis’ry een de back git mo’ wuss den ’e nyuse to be, en’ bittle git so sca’ceful dese day’, en’ I cyan’ hol’ de hoe like I could’uh do one time, en’ I cyan’ git no cow, needuhso no mule, fuh plow de groun’, ’tell I cyan’ raise no crop, en’ eb’nso w’en de crop done plant, I yent gots no chillun en’ t’ing’ fuh keep de waa’ment out’n’um, en’ I mos’ t’ink ef you didn’ come teday, Stepney would’uh git dis po’ ole body. Trouble come sence you bin yuh las’, sho’ ez Gawd! Dat boy Joe run’way en’ gone to de up-country jis’ ’cause I lick’um, en’ soon as him gone, old Sancho Haywu’d’ lady dead, en’ Sancho come en’ tek’way my gran’daa’tuh ’Riah, en’ tek’um home fuh wife. I t’aw’t dat ole nigguh had mo’ sense, but w’en I peruse ’e cyarrictuh close, I see ’e cyan’ specify ez uh sensubble man.”

“’E dead een Fibbywerry, suh. ’E binnuh cook supper, en’ ’e gone to de shelf fuh git salt fuh pit een de[Pg 274] hom’ny, en’ ebbuh sence ’e gots catt’rack’ een ’e yeye ’e cyan’ see berry well, en’ ’stead’uh tek de can wid de salt, ’e tek de can wid de consecrate’ lye, en’ ’e pit de consecrate’ lye een de hom’ny, en’ fus’ t’ing ’e know, ’e yent know nutt’n’ ’cause ’e dead! Oh yaas’suh, ’e git relij’un jis’ befo’ ’e dead, en’ ’e dead beautiful, yaas’ suh, en’ ’e had de biggis’ fun’rul you ebbuh see, en’ ole Pa Sancho pit ’e lady een de groun’ lukkuh teday, en’, please Gawd, ez ’e gwine home frum de fun’rul dat same berry day, ’e come by my house en’ tek my gran’ ’Riah en’ tek she home fuh wife! Ef I had’uh bin home, I wouldn’uh let’um tek de gal befo’ de munt’ done out, ’e would’uh look mo’ deestunt, yaas’suh. But I don’ min’ ’bout Sancho, ’cause dat gal gwine to mek’um t’ink t’unduhsnake got’um befo’ dis yeah gone, yaas’suh. I tell’um, ‘Sancho, you better min’! Tek care bettuh mo’nuh baig paa’d’n[4], en’ Paul’ wu’d to Buhrabbus een de Scriptuh specify puhtickluh dat you cyan’ pit uh nyung grapewine een uh ole killybash, en’ you cyan’ pit a nyung ’ooman een uh ole ’ooman’ frock, ’cause dem alltwo will buss’. Sancho, you know berry well you cyan’ specify, en’ you ent gots de strengk fuh lick dat nyung ’ooman, en’ likeso Buhrabbus say dat ef you don’ lick yo’ lady you will spile ’e chile,’ but I sway-to-Gawd, suh, dat gal tu’n Pa Sancho staa’t fool, en’ ’e nebbuh had my exwice een de back’uh ’e head! En’ now, maussuh, sence de gal gone, I ent gots nobody fuh do nutt’n’ fuh me. Dese nigguh’ w’at grow up sence freedom come een ent gots no mannus, en’ dey would’uh lemme dead een dis house, ef de w’ite people didn’ see me t’ru. W’en ole Missis binnuh lib, bress Gawd, ’e always ’membuh de ole nigguh, but[Pg 275] now, sence him dead en’ de grass duh grow obuh ’e grabe out yonduh onduhneet’ de libe-oak tree, en’ all de w’ite people w’at I raise lef’ de ole plantesshun en’ scattuh all obuh de wull’, en’ all kind’uh low-down buckruh, w’at couldn’ ’sociate wid we w’ite people’ fambly een ole time’, come fuh lib on de place, please Gawd, I yent gots nutt’n’ much fuh lib fuh now, dese days. T’engk you, nyung maussuh, t’engk you, suh,Gawd bress you!”

The Glossary included in this volume, while making no pretense to absolute accuracy, is offered as a workable list of the words in common use by the Negroes of the South Carolina coast. It is doubtful, however, if the vocabulary of any single individual comprises more than half the list, for many words in everyday use about Georgetown or Charleston occur rarely at Beaufort, or on the Combahee. Then, too, many terms and expressions have only a local significance. On the seacoast and along the lower reaches of the tidal rivers, “trus’-me-Gawd” (I trust my God) is the common name for the cranky, unseaworthy dugout canoe, the hazard of whose use on the rough waters of the coast implies faith in the watchful care of a divine Providence. Higher up the same river, however, where smoother waters exact smaller faith, the coffin-like craft is merely a “coo-noo,” a “cun-noo,” or a “con-noo.”

He who adventures into Gullah and would “make head or tail” of its queer phonetics, must keep in mind the sounds “uh,” “e,” “ran,” and “a.” In no other tongue, perhaps, can so much be expressed with so little strain upon brain or lips or glottis as by the Gullah’s laconic use of these grunting jungle-sounds.

To the Gullah, the naked “a” at the top of the first column of the dictionary is “uh,” the dominant note upon which his speech is pitched. With “uh” he boastfully proclaims the personal pronoun “I.” As “bubbuh,” or “budduh,” or “buh,” he greets his brethren; as “sistuh,” or “tittuh,” his sisters. Sweet potatoes he roasts and eats as “tettuh.” His father, mother, daughter, are “farruh, murruh, daa’tuh;” his ever is “ebbuh,” his never is “nebbuh;” forever, “fuhrebbuh.” His answer is “ansuh,” his master is “mastuh,” his pastor is “pastuh” (and so is his pasture); his either is “eeduh,” his neither is “needuh,” his fever is “febuh,” his river is “ribbuh,” his cooter is “cootuh,” his silver is “silbuh.” If in daylight he falls asleep in an open place, the vulture’s wing that hovers over him will cast a “shadduh.” His neighbor is “navuh,” his favor is “fabuh,” his labor is “lavuh,”[Pg 278] his Savior is “Sabeyuh.” His bother is “bodduh,” his other is “odduh,” his t’other is “todduh;” another, “anodduh.” Otter is “ottuh,” and ’gator is “’gatuh;” better, “mo’bettuh,” and alligator, “alligettuh.” Barrow is “barruh,” burrow is “burruh,” furrow is “furruh,” harrow is “harruh,” borrow is “borruh;” tomorrow, “tomorruh.” His mourner is “mo’nuh,” and so is his more than (more nor) and corner is “cawnuh,” “mauma” is “maumuh,” “maussa” is “maussuh,” cover is “kibbuh;” uncover, “onkibbuh,” the white man is “buckruh,” the Negro is “Nigguh.” And finger is “finguh,” as ginger is “ginjuh.” Pshaw is “shuh,” and sir is “suh.” His feather is “fedduh,” his weather is “wedduh,” his measure is “medjuh,” his pleasure is “pledjuh.” And if, in pleasantry or wrath, he cries out upon a compatriot, he scornfully apostrophizes him as “uh Gulluh nigguh!”

Following “uh” in frequency of occurrence comes “’e,” a contraction of he, she (but used also for it)—usually pronounced as “ee” in see, but sometimes approaching “e” in set and “i” in sit; but, without the use of diacritical marks, the exact shading cannot be expressed. This “’e” is ever in the Gullah mouth. If a man has shuffled off this mortal coil, “’e dead;” if a fruitful woman has blessed the earth, “’e hab chile;” if the dusky infant cries out upon the world, “’e cry;” if a mule be too free with her hindlegs, “’e kick.” If winter comes, “’e freeze,” and in summer weather “’e hot.” If a storm approaches, “’e gwine to wedduh;” when it breaks, “’e t’unduh, ’e lightnin’, ’e blow win’, ’e rain.”

In “Myths of the Georgia Coast,” Colonel Jones’s Gullahs pronounce this contraction “eh,” but with this a clearer phonetic apprehension of the Gullah does not permit agreement. “Eh” is a good English word which the Gullah pronounces correctly and frequently utters in the ejaculation “eh, eh!” to express surprise or bewilderment.

Almost the twin of “’e” is “um,” expressing him, her, it and them. Did that man steal your pig? “’E t’ief’um.” Did the woman whip the boy? “’E lick’um.” Did the fire burn your house? “’E bu’n’um.” Have you finished your task? “Uh done’um.” Did you shoot those crows? “Uh shoot’um.” And “um” added to see or saw becomes “shum.”[Pg 279] See that woman? “Uh shum.” Did you see her yesterday? “Uh shum.” Will you see her tomorrow? “Uh gwine shum.” “Shum” expresses see, seeing, or saw him, her, it, or them.

If the Gullah Negro, in “fuh him” and “fuh she,” changes the pronoun to “um,” he adds an “r” for euphony and utters a rolling “fuhr’um;” and, similarly, “tuh him,” “tuh she” are changed to “tuhr’um.”

The Gullah’s favorite pronunciation of our first vowel is that of “a” in at, hat, bat—words that, like all others having the same “a” sound, he invariably pronounces correctly. Drawled to the double “a” as in “baa,” it does yeoman service in “paat’,” path; “paa’t,” part; “smaa’t,” smart; “cyaa’t,” cart; “h’aa’t,” heart; “shaa’p,” sharp; “baa’n,” barn; “yaa’d,” yard; “maamy,” mother; “maa’k,” mark; “staa’t,” start; and so in many other words.

In the Gullah there are many contradictions, the Negro sometimes taking surprisingly short-cuts, expressing himself succinctly and saying a great deal with but a mouthful of words; while at others he rambles interminably and wanders so far afield in his verbal intoxication that he can hardly come soberly again to his starting point.

In this tongue one word or combination of words frequently does duty for singular and plural numbers, past and present tenses, and for masculine, feminine, and neuter genders. Thus “Uh shum” may mean I saw him, I see him, I saw her, I see her, I saw it, I see it, I saw them, I see them. So “Uh tell’um” means I told or I tell him, her, or them. Oxen and bulls, as well as cows, are generally classified and denominated as “cow,” oxen as “ox,” “two ox,” “ten ox,” etc., while a single ox, if not called a “cow,” is invariably “one oxin.” “’Ooman” is both woman and women; “man” stands also for men, although “mens” is sometimes used for the plural, as “t’ree man,” or “fo’ mens.”

Many words the Gullahs pronounce correctly. These are here spelled in the normal way, as to respell them would result only in a useless mutilation of the text.

Very often the Gullah usage consists in new and peculiar applications of words, twisted to meet its own needs, and making a single vocable serve the purpose of many.

With “run,” he runs, has run, is running; and so on with many other words, used to express singular and plural numbers, or all the simple tenses of the verb.

While the Gullah usually holds fast to his favorite pronunciation, he sometimes permits himself a grotesque variation. For example, his usual pronunciation of car is “cyaa’,” which he utters as flatly as a Charlestonian of the Battery; but should he permit himself a “cyaar,” he will roll you an “r” as raucously as any Ohioan.

Of course, all Gullah Negroes pronounce certain English words correctly, while others approximate, in varying degrees, the speech of their former masters. This fact accounts for the slight variations that will be noticed in the speech of different individuals in these stories, and in the several pronunciations sometimes occurring in the Glossary. For example, the Gullah word for you, ye, your, yours, is variously pronounced “ona, oona, oonuh, unnuh,” and, among dyed-in-the-wool dialecticians, “yunnuh” and “wunnuh.” So, the Orang-utan is called by some “’Rangatang” and by the extremists “’Ranguhtang.”

Warm is “wawm;” form or inform, “fawm,” “eenfawm;” morning is “mawnin’;” corn, “cawn;” horse or horses, “hawss;” horn, “hawn;” born, “bawn;” cow is correctly pronounced, and calf is near enough to the Charleston usage to pass. Tore, torn, tears, and tearing are never used, tear taking the place of all. As: the girl tore her petticoat—“De gal tayre ’e ’coat.” That man’s shirt is torn—“Da’ man’ shu’t tayre.” This cloth tears badly—“Dis clawt’ tayre bad.” They are tearing off the boards—“Dem duh (does) tayre off de boa’d’.”

Them (“dem”) is universally used for they and their. They took off their shoes—“Dem tek off dem shoesh.” Dog and hog, while sometimes drawled, are very rarely lengthened to “dawg” and “hawg,” tho’ God is almost invariably “Gawd.” The contraction of your is “yo’;” and yet, for[Pg 281] yours, instead of “yo’n”—the mountaineers’ “yourn”—they prefer “you’own,” as theirs or their own is always “dem’own.”

Unlike Mr. Weller, the Gullah does not affect the letter V, which he always changes to W or B—Violet modestly shrinking to Wi’let or Bi’let, while, as Benus, the amorous Aphrodite doubtless loves quite as ardently in her humble way. And the soft and teasing vex suggests, as “bex,” anger swift and passionate!

“Lukkuh,” or “same lukkuh,” a corruption of like unto or same like unto—“same lukkuh” occasionally shortened into “sukkuh” by an excited or rapid talker—express likeness, resemblance.

“’E fat” means that the man, the woman, the pig, or the lightwood, is or was fat. “’E fat fuh true” (in truth) adds emphasis, while “’E fat fuh sowl” brooks no contradiction.

“’Puntop,” sometimes “’puntap,” or “’pantap,” on or near Edisto Island, means not only on top and on, but at. As: “De squinch owl light ’puntop de chimbly;” “Him plant’ ’puntop Cumbee ribbuh;” “W’en uh look ’puntop de ’ooman en’ see ’e yeye red, uh know him bex.” “Biggin” is equivalent to begin, began, begun, or beginning.

“Haffuh” is both have to and had to. “W’en de strain leff’um to John’ Ilun’, him haffuh tek him foot en’ gone spang town,” meaning when she missed the train at John’s Island station she had to walk all the way to Charleston.

“Alltwo” may mean both or each; as: “alligettuh en’ cootuh alltwo stan’ same fashi’n, alltwo hab fo’ foot en’ one tail, en’ alltwo trabble ’puntop dem belly.” So “stan’ lukkuh” and “stan’ sukkuh” mean look alike or bear a close resemblance, whether standing, sitting, crawling, lying, flying, or swimming.

At times, “duh” and “suh” (not the “suh” for sir) have peculiar usage. “Wuffuh you duh do dat?” What for, or why are you doing that? “Him gone duh ribbuh,” he has gone to the river. “Him walk duh paat’,” he walks in the path (or[Pg 282] the road). So, too, “’e duh sleep” for he does sleep, or he sleeps; and “duh wintuh time” for in the winter or during the winter. “Nuh” is another oddity, “me nuh him” being he and I.

Many years ago, the Reverend Kinlaw, upon hearing an educated darkey reading aloud one of the Kinlaw sermons from a newspaper, exclaimed: “Uh ’cla’ to Gawd da’ buckruh do me too bad! Dem t’ing suh him suh suh me susso, me nubbuh susso. Me t’ink’um, aw, but uh nubbuh susso, en’ how de debble him know suh me t’ink’um, w’en uh nubbuh susso?” Which, interpreted, means: “I declare that buckra did me too bad. Those things that he said I said, I never said so. I thought them, it is true, but I never said them, and how did he know that I thought them, when I never said them?” Kinlaw was an extremely uncouth creature and his Gullah was of the rankest, spoken with the hot-potato-in-the-mouth effect of the low-comedy stage Irishman, hence his use of “suh” for that as well as for said, and of “nubbuh” for never, instead of the usual “nebbuh.”

“Blan,” pronounced with the nasal resonance of the French “blanc,” but without the broad “a” sound, or as the French would pronounce “blin,” is probably a corruption of belong, and means used to or accustomed to.

The Gullah, like the Queen of Spain, has no legs, “foot” serving for the lower limbs as well as for their extremities. “Deer hab long foot, him run fas’;” “Cootuh hab shawt foot, him trabble slow.”

“Yez” is ear or ears, and “yeddy,” sometimes “yerry,” is hear, or hearing, heard; while “haa’kee” (hark ye) is also hear, and so on, whether addressed to one or to more persons, and is used not only in admonition, as “haa’kee at me good fashi’n,” but is sometimes spoken lightly, as certain modern flappers and their bifurcated companions say “listen!” “Haa’kee” also does duty interchangeably for “yeddy,” as[Pg 283] “haa’kee att’um,” “yeddy’um”—hearken to him! hear him! And one who holds a warning as of small account, will often say in response to an admonitory “haa’kee!” “Yaas, bubbuh, uh haa’kee, but uh yent yeddy”—literally, I hearken but I don’t hear, while actually meaning I hear but I don’t heed, going in one ear and coming out of the other.

“’Nuf” means not only enough, sufficiency, but more often abundance. Thus “you hab enny mint?” “Yaas, suh, we hab ’nuf,” carries assurance of not merely enough for a few juleps, but a patch of fragrant greenery that could cover the graves of a score of old-school Virginians!

“Specify,” one of the most characteristic Gullah words, from the English “specify,” serves for most of the varied meanings of “specifications”—“making good.” If a woman proves an unsuitable mate, she “cyan’ specify.” If trousers are frail, and “de britchiz buss’,” “’e yent specify.” If a “cunnoo” proves unseaworthy—“him cyan’ specify.” And even of a Bible text, the fulfilment of whose promise seems inadequate, the Gullah says: “Buhrabbus’ wu’d, him ent specify berry well.”

“Enty,” “ent,” “yent,” sometimes “ain’,” serve for isn’t, aren’t, didn’t, don’t, doesn’t. “Ent you shum?” “enty you shum?” may mean didn’t you see? or don’t you see? him, her, it, or them.

Preceded by a soft vowel sound, “iz” and “ent” are changed to “yiz” and “yent;” as: “him iz,” “him ent,” become, by the substitution of “’e” for him, “’e yiz,” “’e yent.

“’Cep’n’” is except or excepting, and so is “’scusin’” or “excusin’.”

“Wunnuh,” “yunnuh,” “oonuh,” “unnuh,” occasionally “hoonuh,” probably from one and another, is used for you and ye, usually in addressing more than one, though sometimes also in the singular.

Except along the Georgia and Carolina seacoast and the outlying islands, the older Negroes are almost invariably addressed as “uncle” and “auntie” by the whites of all ages, and by the younger Negroes, but, wherever the Gullah dialect[Pg 284] predominates, “daddy” and “mauma” take their places. For that reason, perhaps, white children in the low-country never call their fathers “daddy,” pa or papa frequently taking the place of the more formal “father.”

Where the name of the person addressed or spoken of is used, “mauma” is changed to “maum,” as “Maum Kate.”

The simple name of the month is seldom sufficient, but must be fortified by the addition of “munt’,” as: “Uh hab da’ gal een June munt’.”

Second, third, etc., are seldom used, the preferred forms being “two-time,” “t’ree-time,” etc. “Uh done tell oonuh fuh de two-time fuh lef’ da’ gal ’lone”—I’ve told you for the second time to leave that girl alone; and “two-time” is invariably used for twice. “Uh done call you two-time”—I’ve called you twice. The third Tuesday in August would be “De t’ree Chuesday een Augus’.”

“Onrabble ’e mout’”—unravel her mouth, for it’s always a feminine skein that’s to be unwound—is as comprehensive as it is picturesque. At times the verbal tide flows on unchecked from a full ball of yarn; again, the ravelings are pulled angrily, jerkily, from the warp of a threadbare subject. “Onrabble ’e mout’!”

“Lef’”—left—is given not only its own proper meaning, but serves for leave, leaving, as “loss” does extra duty for lose, losing, lost.

“She-she talk”—a contemptuous characterization by Gullah bucks of feminine gossip—is suggestive of the whispering frou-frou of silken petticoats.

“En’ t’ing’”—and things—is a verbal grab-bag comprehensive enough to hold every etcetera, animate or inanimate, that one may lay tongue to. A woman’s “chillun en’ t’ing’” may cover her chickens as well as her children; her “husbun’ en’ t’ing’” may include also her gentlemen friends, while reference to King Solomon’s “wife en’ t’ing’” would assuredly have lumped in with his wives every petticoat on the “Proverbial” premises!

The Gullah contraction of defend, is “’fen’,” yet, if that defense be inadequate, he will invariably “refen’” himself. If he anoint, ’tis “’n’int,” yet his pastor is the Lord’s “renointed.”

As the Gullah’s tongue has no trouble with “eart’”—his correctly pronounced contraction of “earth”—he should have no difficulty with dirt or shirt, but these are invariably pronounced “du’t” and “shu’t;” and, although the “uh” sound is so easily uttered, he always “shets” a door, and tries to “shet,” but never shuts, his lady’s mouth.

Among the Negroes on Pon Pon, Stepney—a man’s name—is commonly used as a synonym for hunger, want. He who hoped to keep the wolf away would “haffuh wu’k haa’d fuh keep Stepney frum de do’,” while the fabled ant would admonish La Cigale, the grasshopper, “tek care, gal, you duh sing duh summuhtime, tek care Stepney don’ come een yo’ house ’fo’ wintuhtime!”

There are, of course, many variations, some Negroes using only a few Gullah words, while practically all the house servants spoke without a taint. During the Confederate War, Phyllis, a highly trained young maid who had been taught deportment under Maum Bella, a fine old family servant in Charleston, once “impeached” the language of the five-year old boy under her charge. “Mass——, you shouldn’t say path, you should say parth.” How a broad “a” got loose in Charleston one can’t imagine, unless it came in with the buxom Virginia girls who periodically descended upon “the City” to marry her most eligible young men.

The Gullah grabs his prophets, his kings, and his apostles out of the Old and New Testaments, haphazard, and uses them as they come, “to point a moral or adorn a tale”—and he believes in elaborate adornment.

Himself unlettered, he catches the names as they come to his ears from the lips of the whites, or of educated Negroes, and frequently gets his personnel inextricably mixed, the mouth-filling “Nickuhdemus” being quite as frequently turned out to graze, “bite grass,” as the esteemed “Nebuhkuhnezzuh.” The Apostle Paul is most often quoted by the class-leaders and local preachers, but they love to mouth over “Buhrabbus,” while entirely ignorant of the character.

What Old Testament book can it be that the Gullah calls “Rebus?” Perhaps some Bible student will hazard a guess. It may be a far-fetched corruption of Genesis, for, in giving[Pg 286] assurance of his having pursued a subject or an investigation from beginning to end, he will often say: “Uh bin t’ru da’ t’ing frum Rebus spang to Rebelashun!”

Edisto Island was, before the war, through the fine Sea Island cotton produced there, one of the garden spots of the earth, and has been for many generations noted for the hospitality, culture, and refinement of its families; but in old times it was also noted for an unusual provincialism and for the habitual use of Gullah dialect by many of the planters’ young sons. These were in constant association with their slaves on hunting and fishing parties, and unconsciously adopted the highly picturesque and expressive speech of their black servitors. They were accordingly subjected to many hard stories by their neighbors on the main land, who declared that, when the tardy news of Napoleon’s exile to St. Helena, one hundred years ago, reached Edisto, the young islanders, believing their neighboring island of St. Helena to be the place of safekeeping, were apprehensive of another “return from Elba,” and, fearing the great Corsican as a potential liberator of their precious slaves, held an indignation meeting and resolved that: “Ef dem buckruh’ ’pantap Sa’leenuh choose fuh hab ’Poleon come ’pantap dem ilun’, berry well, but, uh sway-to-Gawd, him cyan’ come ’pantap dis ilun’, ’cause dat duh dainjus buckruh, en’, fus’ t’ing wunnuh know, him set we Nigguh’ free.”

The Edisto marshes abounded in wild donkeys, and a favorite Sunday amusement used to be the chevying of these unhappy animals out of the marshes by the white and black boys who, using sections of jackvine for whips, chased them over the plantations. A story is told of a young Edisto Islander who, a few days after matriculation at the University of Virginia, was requested by his fellow students to tell them something about the favorite sports and amusements of the South Carolina coast. He enlightened them as follows: “Great King wunnuh boy! Me nuh Cudjo blan hab fun duh Sunday. Cudjo him ketch long tail’ hawss, me ketch shawt tail’ hawss; we tek dem jack-wine, run dem jackass out’uh maa’sh, run’um all obuh plantesshun; den we blan go duh crik, ketch dem big pap-eye mullet!”

The following list contains some seventeen hundred words. About this vocabulary two things are to be noted:

Second, these 1,700 and odd words are so extended and applied according to Gullah usage as to serve the purpose and scope of at least 5,000 English words.

Buh Wolf and Buh Rabbit, dem bin lib nabur. De dry drout come. Ebry ting stew up. Water scace. Buh Wolf dig one spring fuh him fuh git water. Buh Rabbit, him too lazy an too scheemy fuh wuk fuh isself. Eh pen pon lib off tarruh people. Ebry day, wen Buh Wolf yent duh watch um, eh slip to Buh Wolf spring, an eh full him calabash long water an cah um to eh house fuh cook long and fuh drink. Buh Wolf see Buh Rabbit track, but eh couldnt ketch um duh tief de water.

One day eh meet Buh Rabbit in de big road, an eh ax um how eh make out fur water. Buh Rabbit say him no casion fuh hunt water: him lib off de jew on de grass. Buh Wolf quire: “Enty you blan tek water outer me spring?” Buh Rabbit say: “Me yent.” Buh Wolf say: “You yis, enty me see you track?” Buh Rabbit mek answer: “Yent me gone to you spring. Must be some edder rabbit. Me nebber bin nigh you spring. Me dunno way you spring day.” Buh Wolf no question um no mo: but eh know say eh bin Buh Rabbit fuh true, an eh fix plan fuh ketch um.

De same ebenin eh mek Tar Baby, an eh gone an set um right in de middle er de trail wuh lead to de spring, and dist in front er de spring.

Soon a mornin Buh Rabbit rise an tun in fuh cook eh bittle. Eh pot biggin fuh bun. Buh Rabbit say: “Hey! me pot duh bun. Lemme slip to Buh Wolf spring an git some water fuh cool um.” So eh tek eh calabash an hop off fuh de spring. Wen eh ketch de spring, eh see de Tar Baby duh tan dist een front er de spring. Eh stonish. Eh stop. Eh come close. Eh look at um. Eh wait fur um fuh mobe. De Tar Baby yent notice um. Eh yent wink eh yeye. Eh yent say nuttne. Eh yent mobe. Buh Rabbit, him say: “Hey titter, enty you guine tan one side an lemme git some water?” De Tar Baby no answer. Den Buh Rabbit say: “Leely Gal, mobe, me tell you, so me kin dip some water outer de spring long me calabash.”[Pg 344] De Tar Baby wunt mobe. Buh Babbit say: “Enty you know me pot duh bun? Enty you know me hurry? Enty you yeddy me tell you fuh mobe? You see dis han? Ef you dont go long and lemme git some water, me guine slap yon ober.” De Tar Baby stan day. Buh Rabbit haul off an slap um side de head. Eh han fastne. Buh Rabbit try fuh pull eh hand back, en eh say: “Wuh you hole me han fuh? Lemme go. Ef you dont loose me, me guine box de life outer you wid dis tarruh han.” De Tar Baby yent crack eh teet. Buh Rabbit hit um, bim, wid eh tarruh han. Dat han fastne too same luk tudder. Buh Babbit say: “Wuh you up teh? Tun me loose. Ef you dont leggo me right off, me guine knee you.” De Tar Baby hole um fas. Buh Rabbit skade an bex too. Eh faid Buh Wolf come ketch um. Wen eh fine eh cant loosne eh han, eh kick de Tar Baby wid eh knee. Eh knee fastne. Yuh de big trouble now. Buh Rabbit skade den wus den nebber. Eh try fuh skade de Tar Baby. Eh say: “Leely Gal, you better mine who you duh fool long. Me tell you, fuh de las time, tun me loose. Ef you dont loosne me han an me knee right off, me guine bus you wide open wid dis head.” De Tar Baby hole um fas. Eh yent say one wud. Den Buh Rabbit but de Tar Baby een eh face. Eh head fastne same fashion luk eh han an eh knee. Yuh de ting now. Po Buh Rabbit done fuh. Eh fastne all side. Eh cant pull loose. Eh gib up. Eh bague. Eh cry. Eh holler. Buh Wolf yeddy um. Eh run day. Eh hail Buh Rabbit: “Hey Budder; wuh de trouble? Enty you tell me you no blan wisit me spring fuh git water? Who calabash dis? Wuh you duh do yuh anyhow?” Buh Rabbit so condemn eh yent hab one wud fuh talk. Buh Wolf, him say: “Nummine, I done ketch you dis day. I guine lick you now.” Buh Rabbit bague. Eh bague. Eh prommus nebber fuh trouble Buh Wolf spring no mo. Buh Wolf laugh at um. Den eh tek an loose Buh Rabbit from de Tar Baby, an eh tie um teh one spakleberry bush, an eh git switch an eh lick um tel eh tired. All de time Buh Rabbit bin a bague an a holler. Buh Wolf yent duh listne ter um, but eh keep on duh pit de lick ter um. At las Buh Rabbit tell Buh Wolf: “Dont lick me no mo. Kill me one time. Mek fire an bun me up. Knock me brains out gin de tree.” Buh[Pg 345] Wolf mek answer: “Ef I bun you up, ef I knock you brains out, you guine dead too quick. Me guine trow you in de brier-patch, so de brier kin scratch you life out.” Buh Rabbit say: “Do Buh Wolf, bun me: broke me neck, but dont trow me in de brier patch. Lemme dead one time. Dont tarrify me no mo.” Buh Wolf yent bin know wuh Buh Rabbit up teh. Eh tink eh bin guine tare Buh Rabbit hide off. So, wuh eh do? Eh loose Buh Rabbit from de spakleberry bush, an eh tek um by de hine leg, an eh swing um roun, an eh trow um way in de tick brier patch fuh tare eh hide an cratch eh yeye out. De minnit Buh Rabbit drap in de brier patch, eh cock up eh tail, eh jump, an holler back to Buh Wolf: “Good bye, Budder! Dis de place me mammy fotch me up,—dis de place me mammy fotch me up.” An eh gone befo Buh Wolf kin ketch um. Buh Rabbit too scheemy.

“Didn’t the fox never catch the rabbit, Uncle Remus?” asked the little boy the next evening.

“He come mighty nigh it, honey, sho’s you born—Brer Fox did. One day atter Brer Rabbit fool ’im wid dat calamus root, Brer Fox went ter wuk en got ’im some tar, en mix it wid some turkentime, en fix up a contrapshun wat he call a Tar-Baby, en he tuck dish yer Tar-Baby en he sot ’er in de big road, en den he lay off in de bushes for to see wat de news wuz gwineter be. En he didn’t hatter wait long, nudder, kaze bimeby here come Brer Rabbit pacin’ down de road—lippity-clippity, clippity-lippity—dez ez sassy ez a Jay-bird. Brer Fox he lay low. Brer Rabbit come prancin’ ’long twel he spy de Tar-Baby, en den he fotch up on his behime legs like he wuz ’stonished. De Tar-Baby, she sot dar, she did, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

“‘Mawnin’!’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee—’nice wedder dis mawnin’,’ sezee.

“Brer Fox, he wink his eye slow, en lay low, en de Tar-Baby she ain’t sayin’ nothin’.

“‘How you come on, den? Is you deaf?’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee. ‘Kaze if you is, I kin holler louder,’ sezee.

“‘Youer stuck up, dat’s w’at you is,’ says Brer Rabbit, sezee, ‘en I’m gwineter kyore you, dat’s w’at I’m a gwineter do,’ sezee.

“Brer Fox, he sorter chuckle in his stummuck, he did, but Tar-Baby ain’t sayin’ nothin’.

“‘I’m gwineter larn you howter talk ter ’spectubble fokes ef hit’s de las’ ack,’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee. ‘Ef you don’t take off dat hat en tell me howdy, I’m gwineter bus’ you wide open,’ sezee.

“Brer Rabbit keep on axin ’im, en de Tar-Baby, she keep on sayin’ nothin’, twel present’y Brer Rabbit draw back wid his fis’, he did, en blip he tuck ’er side er de head. Right dar’s whar he broke his merlasses jug. His fis’ stuck, en he can’t pull loose. De tar hilt ’im. But Tar-Baby, she stay still, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

“‘Ef you don’t lemme loose, I’ll knock you agin,’ Brer Rabbit, sezee, en wid dat he fotch ’er a wipe wid de udder han’, en dat stuck. Tar-Baby, she ain’t sayin’ nothin’, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

“‘Tu’n me loose, fo’ I kick de natal stuffin’ outen you,’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, but de Tar-Baby, she ain’t sayin’ nothin.’ She des hilt on, en den Brer Rabbit lose de use er his feet in de same way. Brer Fox, he lay low. Den Brer Rabbit squall out dat ef de Tar-Baby don’t tu’n ’im loose he butt ’er cranksided. En den he butted, en his head got stuck. Den Brer Fox, he sa’ntered fort’, lookin’ des ez innercent ez one er yo’ mamy’s mockin’-birds.

“‘Howdy, Brer Rabbit,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee. ‘You look sorter stuck up dis mawnin’,’ sezee, en den he rolled on de groun’, en laughed en laughed twel he couldn’t laugh no mo’. ‘I speck you’ll take dinner wid me dis time, Brer Rabbit. I done laid in some calamus root, en I ain’t gwineter take no skuse,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee.”

“Did the fox eat the rabbit”? asked the little boy to whom the story had been told.

“W’en Brer Fox fine Brer Rabbit mixt up wid de Tar-Baby, he feel mighty good, en he roll on de groun’ en laff. Bimeby he up’n say, sezee:

“‘Well, I speck I got you dis time, Brer Rabbit,’ sezee: ‘maybe I ain’t, but I speck I is. You been runnin’ roun’ here sassin’ atter me a mighty long time, but I speck you done come ter de een’ er de row. You bin cuttin’ up yo’ capers en bouncin’ roun’ in dis neighberhood ontwel you come ter b’leeve yo’se’f de boss er de whole gang. En den youer allers some’rs whar you got no bizness,’ sez Brer Fox sezee. ‘Who ax you fer ter come en strike up a ’quaintance wid dish yer Tar-Baby?[Pg 348] En who stuck you up dar whar you iz? Nobody in de roun worril. You des tuck en jam yo’se’f on dat Tar-Baby widout waitin’ fer enny invite,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee, ‘en dar you is, en dar you’ll stay twel I fixes up a bresh-pile and fires her up, kaze I’m gwineter bobbycue you dis day, sho,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee.

“‘I don’t keer w’at you do wid me, Brer Fox,’ sezee, ‘so you don’t fling me in dat brier-patch. Roas’ me, Brer Fox,’ sezee, ‘but don’t fling me in dat brier-patch,’ sezee.

“‘Hit’s so much trouble fer ter kindle a fier,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee, ‘dat I speck I’ll hatter hang you,’ sezee.

“‘Hang me des ez high as you please, Brer Fox,’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, ‘but do fer de Lord’s sake don’t fling me in dat brier-patch,’ sezee.

“‘I ain’t got no string,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee, ‘en now I speck I’ll hatter drown you,’ sezee.

“‘Drown me des ez deep ez you please, Brer Fox,’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, ‘but do don’t fling me in dat brier-patch,’ sezee.

“‘Dey ain’t no water nigh,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee, ‘en now I speck I’ll hatter skin you,’ sezee.

“‘Skin me, Brer Fox,’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, ‘snatch out my eyeballs, t’ar out my years by de roots, en cut off my legs,’ sezee, ‘but do please, Brer Fox, don’t fling me in dat brier-patch,’ sezee.

“Co’se Brer Fox wanter hurt Brer Rabbit bad ez he kin, so he cotch ’im by de behime legs en slung ’im right in de middle er de brier-patch. Dar wuz a considerbul flutter whar Brer Rabbit struck de bushes, en Brer Fox sorter hang ’roun’ fer ter see w’at wus gwineter happen. Bimeby he hear somebody call ’im, en way up de hill he see Brer Rabbit settin’ cross-legged on a chinkapin log koamin’ de pitch outer his har wid a chip. Den Brer Fox know dat he bin swop off mighty bad. Brer Rabbit wuz bleedzed fer ter fling back some er his sass, en he holler out:

“‘Bred en bawn in a brier-patch, Brer Fox—bred en bawn in a brier-patch!’ en wid dat he skip out des ez lively ez a cricket in de embers.”

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	Page
Foreword	7
Gullah Stories
Noblesse Oblige	19
My Maussuh	24
An Antemortem Demise	29
The Lion of Lewisburg	35
The Lion Killer	45
Old Barney	53
Billybedam	58
A Short Cut to Justice	64
Sam Dickerson	72
Simon the “Squerril” Hunter	82
The “Cunjuh” That Came Back	87
The Raccoon Hunter	96
The Turkey Hunter	107
The ’Gator Hunter	116
The “Wiles That in the Women Are”	128
A Ricefield Idyll	134
The Dower House	142
At the Cross Roads Store	150
Mingo the Drill Master	158
Old Harrison	166
A Marriage of Convenience	174
The Plat-Eye	183
Old Pickett	190[Pg 5]
The Lost Buck	202
Jim Moultrie’s Divorce	212
Buh Alligettuh en’ Buh Deer	216
Buh Hawss en’ Buh Mule (a Fable)	219
Liss “Bin Eensult”	221
The Retort Courteous	223
The Cat Was Crazy	225
A Congaree Water-Color	230
Waiting Till the Bridegrooms Come	233
A Gullah’s Tale of Woe	238
The Doctor Didn’t “Exceed”	242
The Lady Couldn’t “Specify”	246
A Question of Privilege	249
Conductor Smith’s Dilemma	252
One Was Taken—the Other Left	256
Egg-zactly	259
An Interrupted Offertory	262
A Flaw in the “Eenditement”	267
Old Wine—New Bottles	271

A Glossary of the Gullah	277
The Tar-Baby Story, as Told by Col. C. C. Jones and Joel Chandler Harris	343

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Black Border by Ambrose Elliott Gonzalez

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

THE BLACK BORDER

NOBLESSE OBLIGE

“MY MAUSSUH”

AN ANTEMORTEM DEMISE

THE LION OF LEWISBURG

THE LION KILLER

“OLD BARNEY”

“BILLYBEDAM”

A SHORT CUT TO JUSTICE

SAM DICKERSON

SIMON, THE “SQUERRIL” HUNTER

THE “CUNJUH” THAT CAME BACK

THE RACCOON HUNTER

THE TURKEY HUNTER

THE GATOR HUNTER

“THE WILES THAT IN THE WOMEN ARE”

A RICEFIELD IDYLL

THE DOWER HOUSE

AT THE CROSS ROADS STORE

MINGO, THE DRILL MASTER

“OLD HARRISON”

A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE

THE PLAT-EYE

“OLD PICKETT”

THE LOST BUCK

JIM MOULTRIE’S DIVORCE

“BUH ALLIGETTUH EN’ BUH DEER”

BUH HAWSS EN’ BUH MULE A FABLE

LISS “BIN EENSULT”

THE RETORT COURTEOUS

THE CAT WAS CRAZY

A CONGAREE WATER-COLOR

WAITING TILL THE BRIDEGROOMS COME

A GULLAH’S TALE OF WOE

THE DOCTOR DIDN’T “EXCEED”

THE LADY COULDN’T “SPECIFY”

A QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE

CONDUCTOR SMITH’S DILEMMA

ONE WAS TAKEN—THE OTHER LEFT

EGG-ZACTLY

AN INTERRUPTED OFFERTORY

A FLAW IN THE “EENDITEMENT”

OLD WINE—NEW BOTTLES

A GULLAH GLOSSARY

Vocabulary

THE TAR BABY STORY AS TOLD BY COL. C. C. JONES AND JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

Buh Wolf, Buh Rabbit, and de Tar Baby Jones’s Version

The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story Harris’s Version

FOOTNOTES:

Transcriber’s Notes

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

BUH HAWSS EN’ BUH MULE
A FABLE

THE TAR BABY STORY
AS TOLD BY COL. C. C. JONES AND JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS

Buh Wolf, Buh Rabbit, and de Tar Baby
Jones’s Version

The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story
Harris’s Version