Chapter IV: Part 4

“‘Don’ keer ef I do,’ Mas’ Jamieson say, a-tu’nin’ his hoss in de gate. ‘You Venables has got de res’ o’ my fambly.’ We all was mos’ s’prised to def.

“Mas’ Jamieson jumped offen his hoss, an’ Mas’ Venable come down de steps to meet him. Dey shuk han’s, an’ Mas’ Jack say, ‘Dey ain’t no fool lak a ole fool.’

“‘An’ fu’ unekaled foo’ishness,’ Mas’ Tom say, ‘reckermen’ me to two ole fools.’ Dey went into de house a-laffin’, an’ I knowed hit was all right ’twixt ’em, fu’ putty soon I seed Ike out in de ya’d a-getherin’ mint.”

AUNT MANDY’S INVESTMENT

AUNT MANDY’S INVESTMENT

The Coloured American Investment Company was organised for the encouragement and benefit of the struggling among Americans of African descent; at least, so its constitution said. Though truth was, Mr. Solomon Ruggles, the efficient president and treasurer of the institution, usually represented the struggling when there were any benefits to receive.

Indeed, Mr. Ruggles was the Coloured American Investment Company. The people whom he persuaded to put their money into his concern were only accessories. Though a man of slight education, he was possessed of a liberal amount of that shrewd wit which allows its possessor to feed upon the credulity of others.

Mr. Ruggles’s motto was “It is better to be plausible than right,” and he lived up to his principles with a fidelity that would have been commendable in a better cause. He was seldom right, but he was always plausible. No one knew better than he how to bring out the good point of a bad article. He would have sold you a blind horse and convinced you that he was doing you a favour in giving you an animal that would not be frightened by anything he saw. No one but he could have been in a city so short a time and yet gained to such an extent the confidence and cash of the people about him.

When a coloured man wishes to start a stock company, he issues a call and holds a mass meeting. This is what Solomon Ruggles did. A good many came. Some spoke for and some against the movement, but the promoter’s plausible argument carried the day.

“Gent’men,” he said, “my fellow colo’ed brotheren, I jest want to say this to you, that we Af’-Americans been ca’yin’ a leaky bucket to the well too long. We git the stream from the ground, an’ back to the ground it goes befoah we kin git any chance to make use o’ what we’ve drawed. But, not to speak in meterphers, this is what I mean. I mean that we work for the white folks for their money. All they keer about us is ouah work, an’ all we keer about them is their money; but what do we do with it when we git it? I’ll tell you what we do with it; we take an’ give it right back to the white folks fu’ somef’n’ or other we want, an’ so they git ouah labour, an’ ouah money too. Ain’t that the truth?”

There were cries of “Yes, indeed, that’s so; you’re right, sho!”

“Well, now, do you want this hyeah thing to go on?”

“No!” from a good many voices.

“Then how are we going to stop it?” Mr. Ruggles paused. No one answered. “Why,” he resumed, “by buyin’ from ourselves, that’s how. We all put in so much ev’ry week till we git enough to buy things of ouah own; then we’ll jest pat’onise ouahselves. Don’t you see it can’t fail?”

The audience did.

Brother Jeremiah Buford rose and “hea’tily concuhed in what the brothah had said;” and dapper little Spriggins, who was said to be studying law, and to be altogether as smart as a whip, expressed his pleasure that a man of such enterprise had come among them to wake the coloured people up to a sense of their condition and to show them a way out of it. So the idea which had been formulated in the fecund brain of Solomon Ruggles became a living, active reality. His project once on foot, it was easy enough to get himself elected president and treasurer. This was quite little enough to do for a man whose bright idea might make them all rich, so thought the stockholders or prospective stockholders who attended the meeting, and some who came to scoff remained to pay. It was thus that the famous Coloured Improvement Company sprang into life.

It was a Saturday afternoon of the third week after the formation of the company that Mr. Ruggles sat in the “firm’s” office alone. There was a cloud upon his face. It was the day when most of the stockholders brought in their money, but there had been a picnic the day before, and in consequence a distinct falling off in the receipts of the concern. This state of affairs especially annoyed the president and treasurer, because that dual official had just involved himself in some new obligations on the strength of what that day would bring him. It was annoying. Was it any wonder, then, that his brow cleared and a smile lightened up his rather pleasant features when the door opened and an old woman entered?

“Ah, madam, good afternoon,” said the Coloured American Investment Company, rubbing its hands; “and what kin I do fer you?”

The old lady timidly approached the table which the official used as a desk. “Is you Mistah Ruggles?” she asked.

“I have the honah to bear that name,” was the bland response.

“Well, I got a little money dat I wants to ’vest in yo’ comp’ny. I’s hyeahd tell dat ef you put yo’ money in dere hit jes’ lays and grows.”

“That’s the princerple we go on, to take small investments and give back big profits.”

“Well, I’s sho’ dat my ’vestment’s small ’nough, but I been savin’ it a mighty long while.” The old woman drew a weather-beaten purse from her pocket, and Solomon Ruggles’s eyes glistened with expectation as he saw it. His face fell, though, when he saw that it held but little. However, every little helps, and he brightened again as the old lady counted, slowly and tremblingly, the small store of only five dollars in all.

Ruggles took the money in his eager palms. “Of course, Mrs.—”

“Mandy Smif’s my name.”

“Of course, we can’t promise you no fortune in return fu’ an investment of fi’ dollahs, but we’ll do the bes’ we kin fu’ you.”

“I do’ want no fortune ner nothin’ lak dat. What I wants is a little mo’ money—’cause—’cause I got a boy; he allus been a good boy to me an’ tuk keer o’ me, but he thought he would do bettah out West, so he went out dere, an’ fu’ a while he got along all right an’ sent me money reg’lar. Den he took down sick an’ got out o’ work. It was ha’d fu’ me to git along ’dout his he’p, ’cause I’s old. But dat ain’t what hu’ts me. I don’ keer nuffin’ ’bout myse’f. I’s willin’ to sta’ve ef I could jes’ sen’ fu’ dat boy an’ bring him home so’s I could nuss him. Dat’s de reason I’s a-’vestin’ dis money.”

Solomon Ruggles fingered the bills nervously.

“You know when a boy’s sick dey ain’t nobidy kin nuss lak his own mothah kin, fu’ she nussed him when he was a baby; he’s pa’t o’ huh, an’ she knows his natur’. Yo’ mothah livin’, Mistah Ruggles?”

“Yes, ’way down South—she’s ve’y ol’.”

“I reckon some o’ us ol’ folks does live too long past dey times.”

“No, you don’t; you couldn’t. I wish to God the world was full of jest sich ol’ people as you an’ my mothah is.”

“Bless you, honey, I laks to hyeah you talk dat way ’bout yo’ mammy. I ain’ ’fred to trus’ my money wif no man dat knows how to ’spect his mothah.” The old woman rose to go. Ruggles followed her to the door. He was trembling with some emotion. He shook the investor warmly by the hand as he bade her good-bye. “I shall do the ve’y bes’ I kin fu’ you,” he said.

“How soon kin I hyeah ’bout it?”

“I’ve took yo’ address, an’ you kin expect to hyeah from me in a week’s time—that’s sooner than we do anything fu’ most of ouah customers.”

“Thanky, sir, fu’ the favour; thanky, an’ good-bye, Mistah Ruggles.”

The head of the company went in and sat for a long time dreaming over his table.

A week later an angry crowd of coloured investors stood outside the office of the Coloured Improvement Company. The office was closed to all business, and diligent search failed to reveal the whereabouts of Mr. Solomon Ruggles. The investors knew themselves to be the victims of a wily swindler, and they were furious. Dire imprecations were hurled at the head of the defaulting promoter. But, as the throng was spending its breath in vain anger, an old woman with smiling face worked her way through them toward the door.

“Let me th’oo,” she said; “I want to fin’ Mistah Ruggles.”

“Yes, all of us do. Has he cheated you, too, Auntie?”

“Cheated me? What’s de matter wif you, man? I put fi’ dollahs in hyeah las’ week, an’ look at dat!”

The old woman waved some bills in the air and a letter with them. Some one took it from her hand and read:—

DEAR MRS. SMITH,—I am glad to say that yore int’rust ’cumulated
faster than usu’l, so I kan inklose you heerwith $15. I am
sorry I shall not see you again, az I am kalled away on bizness.

Very respectably yores,

S. RUGGLES.

The men looked at each other in surprise, and then they began to disperse. Some one said: “I reckon he mus’ be all right, aftah all. Aunt Mandy got huh div’den’.”

“I reckon he’s comin’ back all right,” said another.

But Mr. Ruggles did not come back.

THE INTERVENTION OF PETER

THE INTERVENTION OF PETER

No one knows just what statement it was of Harrison Randolph’s that Bob Lee doubted. The annals of these two Virginia families have not told us that. But these are the facts:—

It was at the home of the Fairfaxes that a few of the sons of the Old Dominion were giving a dinner,—not to celebrate anything in particular, but the joyousness of their own souls,—and a brave dinner it was. The courses had come and gone, and over their cigars they had waxed more than merry. In those days men drank deep, and these men were young, full of the warm blood of the South and the joy of living. What wonder then that the liquor that had been mellowing in the Fairfax cellars since the boyhood of their revolutionary ancestor should have its effect upon them?

It is true that it was only a slight thing which Bob Lee affected to disbelieve, and that his tone was jocosely bantering rather than impertinent. But sometimes Virginia heads are not less hot than Virginia hearts. The two young men belonged to families that had intermarried. They rode together. They hunted together, and were friends as far as two men could be who had read the message of love in the dark eyes of the same woman. So perhaps there was some thought of the long-contested hand of Miss Sallie Ford in Harrison Randolph’s mind when he chose to believe that his honour had been assailed.

His dignity was admirable. There was no scene to speak of. It was all very genteel.

“Mr. Lee,” he said, “had chosen to doubt his word, which to a gentleman was the final insult. But he felt sure that Mr. Lee would not refuse to accord him a gentleman’s satisfaction.” And the other’s face had waxed warm and red and his voice cold as he replied: “I shall be most happy to give you the satisfaction you demand.”

Here friends interposed and attempted to pacify the two. But without avail. The wine of the Fairfaxes has a valiant quality in it, and these two who had drunken of it could not be peaceably reconciled.

Each of the young gentlemen nodded to a friend and rose to depart. The joyous dinner-party bade fair to end with much more serious business.

“You shall hear from me very shortly,” said Randolph, as he strode to the door.

“I shall await your pleasure with impatience, sir, and give you such a reply as even you cannot disdain.”

It was all rather high-flown, but youth is dramatic and plays to the gallery of its own eyes and ears. But to one pair of ears there was no ring of anything but tragedy in the grandiloquent sentences. Peter, the personal attendant of Harrison Randolph, stood at the door as his master passed out, and went on before him to hold his stirrup. The young master and his friend and cousin, Dale, started off briskly and in silence, while Pete, with wide eyes and disturbed face, followed on behind. Just as they were turning into the avenue of elms that led to their own house, Randolph wheeled his horse and came riding back to his servant.

“Pete,” said he, sternly, “what do you know?”

“Nuffin’, Mas’ Ha’ison, nuffin’ ’t all. I do’ know nuffin’.”

“I don’t believe you.” The young master’s eyes were shining through the dusk. “You’re always slipping around spying on me.”

“Now dah you goes, Mas’ Randolph. I ain’t done a t’ing, and you got to ’mence pickin’ on me—”

“I just want you to remember that my business is mine.”

“Well, I knows dat.”

“And if you do know anything, it will be well for you to begin forgetting right now.” They were at the door now and in the act of dismounting. “Take Bess around and see her attended to. Leave Dale’s horse here, and—I won’t want you any more to-night.”

“Now how does you an’ Mas’ Dale ’spect dat you gwine to wait on yo’se’ves to-night?”

“I shall not want you again to-night, I tell you.”

Pete turned away with an injured expression on his dark face. “Bess,” he said to the spirited black mare as he led her toward the stables, “you jes’ bettah t’ank yo’ Makah dat you ain’t no human-bein’, ’ca’se human-bein’s is cur’ous articles. Now you’s a hoss, ain’t you? An’ dey say you ain’t got no soul, but you got sense, Bess, you got sense. You got blood an’ fiah an’ breedin’ in you too, ain’t you? Co’se you has. But you knows how to answah de rein. You’s a high steppah, too: but you don’ go to work an’ try to brek yo’ naik de fus’ chanst you git. Bess, I ’spect you ’ca’se you got jedgment, an’ you don’ have to have a black man runnin’ ’roun aftah you all de time plannin’ his haid off jes’ to keep you out o’ trouble. Some folks dat’s human-bein’s does. Yet an’ still, Bess, you ain’t nuffin’ but a dumb beas’, so dey says. Now, what I gwine to do? Co’se dey wants to fight. But whah an’ when an’ how I gwine to stop hit? Do’ want me to wait on him to-night, huh! No, dey want to mek dey plans an’ do’ want me ’roun’ to hyeah, dat’s what’s de mattah. Well, I lay I’ll hyeah somep’n’ anyhow.”

Peter hurried through his work and took himself up to the big house and straight to his master’s room. He heard voices within, but though he took many liberties with his owner, eavesdropping was not one of them. It proved too dangerous. So, though “he kinder lingered on the mat, some doubtful of the sekle,” it was not for long, and he unceremoniously pushed the door open and walked in. With a great show of haste, he made for his master’s wardrobe and began busily searching among the articles therein. Harrison Randolph and his cousin were in the room, and their conversation, which had been animated, suddenly ceased when Peter entered.

“I thought I told you I didn’t want you any more to-night.”

“I’s a-lookin’ fu’ dem striped pants o’ yo’n. I want to tek ’em out an’ bresh ’em: dey’s p’intly a livin’ sight.”

“You get out o’ here.”

“But, Mas’ Ha’ison, now—now—look—a—hyeah—”

“Get out, I tell you—”

Pete shuffled from the room, mumbling as he went: “Dah now, dah now! driv’ out lak a dog! How’s I gwine to fin’ out anyt’ing dis away? It do ’pear lak Mas’ Ha’ison do try to gi’e me all de trouble he know how. Now he plannin’ an’ projickin’ wif dat cousin Dale, an’ one jes’ ez scattah-brained ez de othah. Well, I ’low I got to beat dey time somehow er ruther.”

He was still lingering hopeless and worried about the house when he saw young Dale Randolph come out, mount his horse and ride away. After a while his young master also came out and walked up and down in the soft evening air. The rest of the family were seated about on the broad piazza.

“I wonder what is the matter with Harrison to-night,” said the young man’s father, “he seems so preoccupied.”

“Thinking of Sallie Ford, I reckon,” some one replied; and the remark passed with a laugh. Pete was near enough to catch this, but he did not stop to set them right in their conjectures. He slipped into the house as noiselessly as possible.

It was less than two hours after this when Dale Randolph returned and went immediately to his cousin’s room, where Harrison followed him.

“Well?” said the latter, as soon as the door closed behind them.

“It’s all arranged, and he’s anxious to hurry it through for fear some one may interfere. Pistols, and to-morrow morning at daybreak.”

“And the place?”

“The little stretch of woods that borders Ford’s Creek. I say, Harrison, it isn’t too late to stop this thing yet. It’s a shame for you two fellows to fight. You’re both too decent to be killed for a while yet.”

“He insulted me.”

“Without intention, every one believes.”

“Then let him apologise.”

“As well ask the devil to take Communion.”

“We’ll fight then.”

“All right. If you must fight, you must. But you’d better get to bed; for you’ll need a strong arm and a steady hand to-morrow.”

If a momentary paleness struck into the young fellow’s face, it was for a moment only, and he set his teeth hard before he spoke.

“I am going to write a couple of letters,” he said, “then I shall lie down for an hour or so. Shall we go down and drink a steadier?”

“One won’t hurt, of course.”

“And, by the way, Dale, if I—if it happens to be me to-morrow, you take Pete—he’s a good fellow.”

The cousins clasped hands in silence and passed out. As the door closed behind them, a dusty form rolled out from under the bed, and the disreputable, eavesdropping, backsliding Pete stood up and rubbed a sleeve across his eyes.

“It ain’t me dat’s gwine to be give to nobody else. I hates to do it, but dey ain’t no othah way. Mas’ Ha’ison cain’t be spaihed.” He glided out mysteriously, some plan of salvation working in his black head.

* * * * *

Just before daybreak next morning, three stealthy figures crept out and made their way toward Ford’s Creek. One skulked behind the other two, dogging their steps and taking advantage of the darkness to keep very near to them. At the grim trysting-place they halted and were soon joined by other stealthy figures, and together they sat down to wait for the daylight. The seconds conferred for a few minutes. The ground was paced off, and a few low-pitched orders prepared the young men for business.

“I will count three, gentlemen,” said Lieutenant Custis. “At three, you are to fire.”

At last daylight came, gray and timid at first, and then red and bold as the sun came clearly up. The pistols were examined and the men placed face to face.

“Are you ready, gentlemen?”

But evidently Harrison Randolph was not. He was paying no attention to the seconds. His eyes were fixed on an object behind his opponent’s back. His attitude relaxed and his mouth began twitching. Then he burst into a peal of laughter.

“Pete,” he roared, “drop that and come out from there!” and away he went into another convulsion of mirth. The others turned just in time to see Pete cease his frantic grimaces of secrecy at his master, and sheepishly lower an ancient fowling-piece which he had had levelled at Bob Lee.

“What were you going to do with that gun levelled at me?” asked Lee, his own face twitching.

“I was gwine to fiah jes’ befo’ dey said free. I wa’n’t gwine to kill you, Mas’ Bob. I was on’y gwine to lame you.”

Another peal of laughter from the whole crowd followed this condescending statement.

“You unconscionable scoundrel, you! If I was your master, I’d give you a hundred lashes.”

“Pete,” said his master, “don’t you know that it is dishonourable to shoot a man from behind? You see you haven’t in you the making of a gentleman.”

“I do’ know nuffin’ ’bout mekin’ a gent’man, but I does know how to save one dat’s already made.”

The prime object of the meeting had been entirely forgotten. They gathered around Pete and examined the weapon.

“Gentlemen,” said Randolph, “we have been saved by a miracle. This old gun, as well as I can remember and count, has been loaded for the past twenty-five years, and if Pete had tried to fire it, it would have torn up all of this part of the county.” Then the eyes of the two combatants met. There was something irresistibly funny in the whole situation, and they found themselves roaring again. Then, with one impulse, they shook hands without a word.

And Pete led the way home, the willing butt of a volume of good-natured abuse.

NELSE HATTON’S VENGEANCE

NELSE HATTON’S VENGEANCE

It was at the close of a summer day, and the sun was sinking dimly red over the hills of the little Ohio town which, for convenience, let us call Dexter.

The people had eaten their suppers, and the male portion of the families had come out in front of their houses to smoke and rest or read the evening paper. Those who had porches drew their rockers out on them, and sat with their feet on the railing. Others took their more humble positions on the front steps, while still others, whose houses were flush with the street, went even so far as to bring their chairs out upon the sidewalk, and over all there was an air of calmness and repose save when a glance through the open doors revealed the housewives busy at their evening dishes, or the blithe voices of the children playing in the street told that little Sally Waters was a-sitting in a saucer or asserted with doubtful veracity that London Bridge was falling down. Here and there a belated fisherman came straggling up the street that led from the river, every now and then holding up his string of slimy, wiggling catfish in answer to the query “Wha’ ’d you ketch?”

To one who knew the generous and unprejudiced spirit of the Dexterites, it was no matter of wonder that one of their soundest and most highly respected citizens was a coloured man, and that his home should nestle unrebuked among the homes of his white neighbours.

Nelse Hatton had won the love and respect of his fellow-citizens by the straightforward honesty of his conduct and the warmth of his heart. Everybody knew him. He had been doing chores about Dexter,—cutting grass in summer, cleaning and laying carpets in the spring and fall, and tending furnaces in the winter,—since the time when, a newly emancipated man, he had passed over from Kentucky into Ohio. Since then through thrift he had attained quite a competence, and, as he himself expressed it, “owned some little propity.” He was one among the number who had arisen to the dignity of a porch; and on this evening he was sitting thereon, laboriously spelling out the sentences in the _Evening News_—his reading was a _post-bellum_ accomplishment—when the oldest of his three children, Theodore, a boy of twelve, interrupted him with the intelligence that there was an “old straggler at the back door.”

After admonishing the hope of his years as to the impropriety of applying such a term to an unfortunate, the father rose and sought the place where the “straggler” awaited him.

Nelse’s sympathetic heart throbbed with pity at the sight that met his eye. The “straggler,” a “thing of shreds and patches,” was a man about his own age, nearing fifty; but what a contrast he was to the well-preserved, well-clothed black man! His gray hair straggled carelessly about his sunken temples, and the face beneath it was thin and emaciated. The hands that pulled at the fringe of the ragged coat were small and bony. But both the face and the hands were clean, and there was an open look in the bold, dark eye.

In strong contrast, too, with his appearance was the firm, well-modulated voice, somewhat roughened by exposure, in which he said, “I am very hungry; will you give me something to eat?” It was a voice that might have spoken with authority. There was none of the beggar’s whine in it. It was clear and straightforward; and the man spoke the simple sentence almost as if it had been a protest against his sad condition.

“Jes’ set down on the step an’ git cool,” answered Nelse, “an’ I’ll have something put on the table.”

The stranger silently did as he was bidden, and his host turned into the house.

Eliza Hatton had been quietly watching proceedings, and as her husband entered the kitchen she said, “Look a-here, Nelse, you shorely ain’t a-goin’ to have that tramp in the kitchen a-settin’ up to the table?”

“Why, course,” said Nelse; “he’s human, ain’t he?”

“That don’t make no difference. I bet none of these white folks round here would do it.”

“That ain’t none of my business,” answered her husband. “I believe in every person doin’ their own duty. Put somethin’ down on the table; the man’s hungry. An’ don’t never git stuck up, ’Lizy; you don’t know what our children have got to come to.”

Nelse Hatton was a man of few words; but there was a positive manner about him at times that admitted of neither argument nor resistance.

His wife did as she was bidden, and then swept out in the majesty of wounded dignity, as the tramp was ushered in and seated before the table whose immaculate white cloth she had been prudent enough to change for a red one.

The man ate as if he were hungry, but always as if he were a hungry gentleman. There was something in his manner that impressed Nelse that he was not feeding a common tramp as he sat and looked at his visitor in polite curiosity. After a somewhat continued silence he addressed the man: “Why don’t you go to your own people when you’re hungry instead of coming to us coloured folks?”

There was no reproof in his tone, only inquiry.

The stranger’s eyes flashed suddenly.

“Go to them up here?” he said; “never. They would give me my supper with their hypocritical patronage and put it down to charity. You give me something to eat as a favour. Your gift proceeds from disinterested kindness; they would throw me a bone because they thought it would weigh something in the balance against their sins. To you I am an unfortunate man; to them I am a tramp.”

The stranger had spoken with much heat and no hesitation; but his ardour did not take the form of offence at Nelse’s question. He seemed perfectly to comprehend the motive which actuated it.

Nelse had listened to him with close attention, and at the end of his harangue he said, “You hadn’t ought to be so hard on your own people; they mean well enough.”

“My own people!” the stranger flashed back. “My people are the people of the South,—the people who have in their veins the warm, generous blood of Dixie!”

“I don’t see what you stay in the North fur ef you don’t like the people.”

“I am not staying; I’m getting away from it as fast as I can. I only came because I thought, like a lot of other poor fools, that the North had destroyed my fortunes and it might restore them; but five years of fruitless struggle in different places out of Dixie have shown me that it isn’t the place for a man with blood in his veins. I thought that I was reconstructed; but I’m not. My State didn’t need it, but I did.”

“Where’re you from?”

“Kentucky; and there’s where I’m bound for now. I want to get back where people have hearts and sympathies.”

The coloured man was silent. After a while he said, and his voice was tremulous as he thought of the past, “I’m from Kintucky, myself.”

“I knew that you were from some place in the South. There’s no mistaking our people, black or white, wherever you meet them. Kentucky’s a great State, sir. She didn’t secede; but there were lots of her sons on the other side. I was; and I did my duty as clear as I could see it.”

“That’s all any man kin do,” said Nelse; “an’ I ain’t a-blamin’ you. I lived with as good people as ever was. I know they wouldn’t ’a’ done nothin’ wrong ef they’d ’a’ knowed it; an’ they was on the other side.”

“You’ve been a slave, then?”

“Oh, yes, I was born a slave; but the War freed me.”

“I reckon you wouldn’t think that my folks ever owned slaves; but they did. Everybody was good to them except me, and I was young and liked to show my authority. I had a little black boy that I used to cuff around a good deal, altho’ he was near to me as a brother. But sometimes he would turn on me and give me the trouncing that I deserved. He would have been skinned for it if my father had found it out; but I was always too much ashamed of being thrashed to tell.”

The speaker laughed, and Nelse joined him. “Bless my soul!” he said, “ef that ain’t jes’ the way it was with me an’ my Mas’ Tom—”

“Mas’ Tom!” cried the stranger; “man, what’s your name?”

“Nelse Hatton,” replied the Negro.

“Heavens, Nelse! I’m your young Mas’ Tom. I’m Tom Hatton; don’t you know me, boy?”

“You can’t be—you can’t be!” exclaimed the Negro.

“I am, I tell you. Don’t you remember the scar I got on my head from falling off old Baldy’s back? Here it is. Can’t you see?” cried the stranger, lifting the long hair away from one side of his brow. “Doesn’t this convince you?”

“It’s you—it’s you; ’tain’t nobody else but Mas’ Tom!” and the ex-slave and his former master rushed joyously into each other’s arms.

There was no distinction of colour or condition there. There was no thought of superiority on the one hand, or feeling of inferiority on the other. They were simply two loving friends who had been long parted and had met again.

After a while the Negro said, “I’m sure the Lord must ’a’ sent you right here to this house, so’s you wouldn’t be eatin’ off o’ none o’ these poor white people ’round here.”

“I reckon you’re religious now, Nelse; but I see it ain’t changed your feeling toward poor white people.”

“I don’t know about that. I used to be purty bad about ’em.”

“Indeed you did. Do you remember the time we stoned the house of old Nat, the white wood-sawyer?”

“Well, I reckon I do! Wasn’t we awful, them days?” said Nelse, with forced contrition, but with something almost like a chuckle in his voice.

And yet there was a great struggle going on in the mind of this black man. Thirty years of freedom and the advantages of a Northern State made his whole soul revolt at the word “master.” But that fine feeling, that tender sympathy, which is natural to the real Negro, made him hesitate to make the poor wreck of former glory conscious of his changed estate by using a different appellation. His warm sympathies conquered.

“I want you to see my wife and boys, Mas’ Tom,” he said, as he passed out of the room.

Eliza Hatton sat in her neatly appointed little front room, swelling with impotent rage.

If this story were chronicling the doings of some fanciful Negro, or some really rude plantation hand, it might be said that the “front room was filled with a conglomeration of cheap but pretentious furniture, and the walls covered with gaudy prints”—this seems to be the usual phrase. But in it the chronicler too often forgets how many Negroes were house-servants, and from close contact with their master’s families imbibed aristocratic notions and quiet but elegant tastes.

This front room was very quiet in its appointments. Everything in it was subdued except—Mrs. Hatton. She was rocking back and forth in a light little rocker that screeched the indignation she could not express. She did not deign to look at Nelse as he came into the room; but an acceleration of speed on the part of the rocker showed that his presence was known.

Her husband’s enthusiasm suddenly died out as he looked at her; but he put on a brave face as he said,—

“’Lizy, I bet a cent you can’t guess who that pore man in there is.”

The rocker suddenly stopped its violent motion with an equally violent jerk, as the angry woman turned upon her husband.

“No, I can’t guess,” she cried; “an’ I don’t want to. It’s enough to be settin’ an on’ry ol’ tramp down to my clean table, without havin’ me spend my time guessin’ who he is.”

“But look a-here, ’Lizy, this is all different; an’ you don’t understand.”

“Don’t care how different it is, I do’ want to understand.”

“You’ll be mighty su’prised, I tell you.”

“I ’low I will; I’m su’prised already at you puttin’ yourself on a level with tramps.” This with fine scorn.

“Be careful, ’Lizy, be careful; you don’t know who a tramp may turn out to be.”

“That ol’ humbug in there has been tellin’ you some big tale, an’ you ain’t got no more sense ’an to believe it; I ’spect he’s crammin’ his pockets full of my things now. Ef you don’t care, I do.”

The woman rose and started toward the door, but her husband stopped her. “You mustn’t go out there that way,” he said. “I want you to go out, you an’ the childern; but I want you to go right—that man is the son of my ol’ master, my young Mas’ Tom, as I used to call him.”

She fell back suddenly and stared at him with wide-open eyes.

“Your master!”

“Yes, it’s young Mas’ Tom Hatton.”

“An’ you want me an’ the childern to see him, do you?”

“Why, yes, I thought—”

“Humph! that’s the slave in you yet,” she interrupted. “I thought thirty years had made you free! Ain’t that the man you told me used to knock you ’round so?”

“Yes, ’Lizy; but—”

“Ain’t he the one that made you haul him in the wheelbar’, an’ whipped you because you couldn’t go fast enough?”

“Yes, yes; but that—”

“Ain’t he the one that lef’ that scar there?” she cried, with a sudden motion of her hand toward his neck.

“Yes,” said Nelse, very quietly; but he put his hand up and felt the long, cruel scar that the lash of a whip had left, and a hard light came into his eyes.

His wife went on: “An’ you want to take me an’ the childern in to see that man? No!” The word came with almost a snarl. “Me an’ my childern are free born, an’, ef I kin help it, they sha’n’t never look at the man that laid the lash to their father’s back! Shame on you, Nelse, shame on you, to want your childern, that you’re tryin’ to raise independent,—to want ’em to see the man that you had to call ‘master’!”

The man’s lips quivered, and his hand opened and shut with a convulsive motion; but he said nothing.

“What did you tell me?” she asked. “Didn’t you say that if you ever met him again in this world you’d—”

“Kill him!” burst forth the man; and all the old, gentle look had gone out of his face, and there was nothing but fierceness and bitterness there, as his mind went back to his many wrongs.

“Go on away from the house, ’Lizy,” he said hoarsely; “if anything happens, I do’ want you an’ the childern around.”

“I do’ want you to kill him, Nelse, so you’ll git into trouble; but jes’ give him one good whippin’ for those he used to give you.”

“Go on away from the house;” and the man’s lips were tightly closed. She threw a thin shawl over her head and went out.

As soon as she had gone Nelse’s intense feeling got the better of him, and, falling down with his face in a chair, he cried, in the language which the Sunday sermons had taught him, “Lord, Lord, thou hast delivered mine enemy into my hands!”

But it was not a prayer; it was rather a cry of anger and anguish from an overburdened heart. He rose, with the same hard gleam in his eyes, and went back toward the kitchen. One hand was tightly clinched till the muscles and veins stood out like cords, and with the other he unconsciously fingered the lash’s scar.

“Couldn’t find your folks, eh, Nelse?” said the white Hatton.

“No,” growled Nelse; and continued hurriedly, “Do you remember that scar?”

“Well enough—well enough,” answered the other, sadly; “and it must have hurt you, Nelse.”

“Hurt me! yes,” cried the Negro.

“Ay,” said Tom Hatton, as he rose and put his hand softly on the black scar; “and it has hurt me many a day since, though time and time again I have suffered pains that were as cruel as this must have been to you. Think of it, Nelse; there have been times when I, a Hatton, have asked bread of the very people whom a few years ago I scorned. Since the War everything has gone against me. You do not know how I have suffered. For thirty years life has been a curse to me; but I am going back to Kentucky now, and when I get there I’ll lay it down without a regret.”

All the anger had melted from the Negro’s face, and there were tears in his eyes as he cried, “You sha’n’t do it, Mas’ Tom,—you sha’n’t do it.”

His destructive instinct had turned to one of preservation.

“But, Nelse, I have no further hopes,” said the dejected man.

“You have, and you shall have. You’re goin’ back to Kintucky, an’ you’re goin’ back a gentleman. I kin he’p you, an’ I will; you’re welcome to the last I have.”

“God bless you, Nelse—”

“Mas’ Tom, you used to be jes’ about my size, but you’re slimmer now; but—but I hope you won’t be mad ef I ask you to put on a suit o’ mine. It’s put’ nigh brand-new, an’—”

“Nelse, I can’t do it! Is this the way you pay me for the blows—”

“Heish your mouth; ef you don’t I’ll slap you down!” Nelse said it with mock solemnity, but there was an ominous quiver about his lips.

“Come in this room, suh;” and the master obeyed. He came out arrayed in Nelse’s best and newest suit. The coloured man went to a drawer, over which he bent laboriously. Then he turned and said: “This’ll pay your passage to Kintucky, an’ leave somethin’ in your pocket besides. Go home, Mas’ Tom,—go home!”

“Nelse, I can’t do it; this is too much!”

“Doggone my cats, ef you don’t go on—”

The white man stood bowed for a moment; then, straightening up, he threw his head back. “I’ll take it, Nelse; but you shall have every cent back, even if I have to sell my body to a medical college and use a gun to deliver the goods! Good-bye, Nelse, God bless you! good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Mas’ Tom, but don’t talk that way; go home. The South is changed, an’ you’ll find somethin’ to suit you. Go home—go home; an’ ef there’s any of the folks a-livin’, give ’em my love, Mas’ Tom—give ’em my love—good-bye—good-bye!”

The Negro leaned over the proffered hand, and his tears dropped upon it. His master passed out, and he sat with his head bowed in his hands.

After a long while Eliza came creeping in.

“Wha’ ’d you do to him, Nelse—wha’ ’d you do to him?” There was no answer. “Lawd, I hope you ain’t killed him,” she said, looking fearfully around. “I don’t see no blood.”

“I ain’t killed him,” said Nelse. “I sent him home—back to the ol’ place.”

“You sent him home! how’d you send him, huh?”

“I give him my Sunday suit and that money—don’t git mad, ’Lizy, don’t git mad—that money I was savin’ for your cloak. I couldn’t help it, to save my life. He’s goin’ back home among my people, an’ I sent ’em my love. Don’t git mad an’ I’ll git you a cloak anyhow.”

“Pleggone the cloak!” said Mrs. Hatton, suddenly, all the woman in her rising in her eyes. “I was so ’fraid you’d take my advice an’ do somethin’ wrong. Ef you’re happy, Nelse, I am too. I don’t grudge your master nothin’—the ol’ devil! But you’re jes’ a good-natured, big-hearted, weak-headed ol’ fool!” And she took his head in her arms.

Great tears rolled down the man’s cheeks, and he said: “Bless God, ’Lizy, I feel as good as a young convert.”

AT SHAFT 11

AT SHAFT 11

Night falls early over the miners’ huts that cluster at the foot of the West Virginia mountains. The great hills that give the vales their shelter also force upon them their shadow. Twilight lingers a short time, and then gives way to that black darkness which is possible only to regions in the vicinity of high and heavily wooded hills.

Through the fast-gathering gloom of a mid-spring evening, Jason Andrews, standing in his door, peered out into the open. It was a sight of rugged beauty that met his eyes as they swept the broken horizon. All about the mountains raised their huge forms,—here bare, sharp, and rocky; there undulating, and covered with wood and verdure, whose various shades melted into one dull, blurred, dark green, hardly distinguishable in the thick twilight. At the foot of the hills all was in shadow, but their summits were bathed in the golden and crimson glory of departing day.

Jason Andrews, erstwhile foreman of Shaft 11, gazed about him with an eye not wholly unappreciative of the beauty of the scene. Then, shading his eyes with one brawny hand, an act made wholly unnecessary by the absence of the sun, he projected his vision far down into the valley.

His hut, set a little way up the mountain-side, commanded an extended view of the road, which, leaving the slope, ran tortuously through the lower land. Evidently something that he saw down the road failed to please the miner, for he gave a low whistle and re-entered the house with a frown on his face.

“I’ll be goin’ down the road a minute, Kate,” he said to his wife, throwing on his coat and pausing at the door. “There’s a crowd gathered down toward the settlement. Somethin’ ’s goin’ on, an’ I want to see what’s up.” He slammed the door and strode away.

“Jason, Jason,” his wife called after him, “don’t you have nothin’ to do with their goin’s-on, neither one way nor the other. Do you hear?”

“Oh, I’ll take care o’ myself.” The answer came back out of the darkness.

“I do wish things would settle down some way or other,” mused Mrs. Andrews. “I don’t see why it is men can’t behave themselves an’ go ’long about their business, lettin’ well enough alone. It’s all on account o’ that pesky walkin’ delegate too. I wisht he’d ’a’ kept walkin’. If all the rest o’ the men had had the common-sense that Jason has, he wouldn’t never ’a’ took no effect on them. But most of ’em must set with their mouths open like a lot o’ ninnies takin’ in everything that come their way, and now here’s all this trouble on our hands.”

There were indeed troublous times at the little mining settlement. The men who made up the community were all employees, in one capacity or another, of the great Crofton West Virginia Mining Co. They had been working on, contented and happy, at fair wages and on good terms with their employers, until the advent among them of one who called himself, alternately, a benefactor of humanity and a labour agitator. He proceeded to show the men how they were oppressed, how they were withheld from due compensation for their labours, while the employers rolled in the wealth which the workers’ hands had produced. With great adroitness of argument and elaboration of phrase, he contrived to show them that they were altogether the most ill-treated men in America. There was only one remedy for the misery of their condition, and that was to pay him two dollars and immediately organise a local branch of the Miners’ Labour Union. The men listened. He was so perfectly plausible, so smooth, and so clear. He found converts among them. Some few combated the man’s ideas, and none among these more forcibly than did Jason Andrews, the foreman of Shaft 11. But the heresy grew, and the opposition was soon overwhelmed. There are always fifty fools for every fallacy. Of course, the thing to do was to organise against oppression, and accordingly, amid great enthusiasm, the union was formed. With the exception of Jason Andrews, most of the men, cowed by the majority opposed to them, yielded their ground and joined. But not so he. It was sturdy, stubborn old Scotch blood that coursed through his veins. He stayed out of the society even at the expense of the friendship of some of the men who had been his friends. Taunt upon taunt was thrown into his face.

“He’s on the side of the rich. He’s for capital against labour. He’s in favour of supporting a grinding monopoly.” All this they said in the ready, pat parlance of their class; but the foreman went his way unmoved, and kept his own counsel.

Then, like the falling of a thunderbolt, had come the visit of the “walking-delegate” for the district, and his command to the men to “go out.” For a little time the men demurred; but the word of the delegate was law. Some other company had failed to pay its employees a proper price, and the whole district was to be made an example of. Even while the men were asking what it was all about, the strike was declared on.

The usual committee, awkward, shambling, hat in hand, and uncomfortable in their best Sunday clothes, called upon their employers to attempt to explain the grievances which had brought about the present state of affairs. The “walking-delegate” had carefully prepared it all for them, with the new schedule of wages based upon the company’s earnings.

The three men who had the local affairs of the company in charge heard them through quietly. Then young Harold Crofton, acting as spokesman, said, “Will you tell us how long since you discovered that your wages were unfair?”

The committee severally fumbled its hat and looked confused. Finally Grierson, who had been speaking for them, said: “Well, we’ve been thinkin’ about it fur a good while. Especially ever sence, ahem—”

“Yes,” went on Crofton, “to be plain and more definite, ever since the appearance among you of Mr. Tom Daly, the agitator, the destroyer of confidence between employer and employed, the weasel who sucks your blood and tells you that he is doing you a service. You have discovered the unfairness of your compensation since making his acquaintance.”

“Well, I guess he told us the truth,” growled Grierson.

“That is a matter of opinion.”

“But look what you all are earnin’.”

“That’s what we’re in the business for. We haven’t left comfortable homes in the cities to come down to this hole in the mountains for our health. We have a right to earn. We brought capital, enterprise, and energy here. We give you work and pay you decent wages. It is none of your business what we earn.” The young man’s voice rose a little, and a light came into his calm gray eyes. “Have you not been comfortable? Have you not lived well and been able to save something? Have you not been treated like men? What more do you want? What real grievance have you? None. A scoundrel and a sneak has come here, and for his own purposes aroused your covetousness. But it is unavailing, and,” turning to his colleagues, “these gentlemen will bear me out in what I say,—we will not raise your wages one-tenth of one penny above what they are. We will not be made to suffer for the laxity of other owners, and if within three hours the men are not back at work, they may consider themselves discharged.” His voice was cold, clear, and ringing.

Surprised, disappointed, and abashed, the committee heard the ultimatum, and then shuffled out of the office in embarrassed silence. It was all so different from what they had expected. They thought that they had only to demand and their employers would accede rather than have the work stop. Labour had but to make a show of resistance and capital would yield. So they had been told. But here they were, the chosen representatives of labour, skulking away from the presence of capital like felons detected. Truly this was a change. Embarrassment gave way to anger, and the miners who waited the report of their committee received a highly coloured account of the stand-offish way in which they had been met. If there had been anything lacking to inflame the rising feelings of the labourers, this new evidence of the arrogance of plutocrats supplied it, and with one voice the strike was confirmed.

Soon after the three hours’ grace had passed, Jason Andrews received a summons to the company’s office.

“Andrews,” said young Crofton, “we have noticed your conduct with gratitude since this trouble has been brewing. The other foremen have joined the strikers and gone out. We know where you stand and thank you for your kindness. But we don’t want it to end with thanks. It is well to give the men a lesson and bring them to their senses, but the just must not suffer with the unjust. In less than two days the mine will be manned by Negroes with their own foreman. We wish to offer you a place in the office here at the same wages you got in the mine.”

The foreman raised his hand in a gesture of protest. “No, no, Mr. Crofton. That would look like I was profiting by the folly of the men. I can’t do it. I am not in their union, but I will take my chances as they take theirs.”

“That’s foolish, Andrews. You don’t know how long this thing may last.”

“Well, I’ve got a snug bit laid by, and if things don’t brighten in time, why, I’ll go somewhere else.”

“We’d be sorry to lose you, but I want you to do as you think best. This change may cause trouble, and if it does, we shall hope for your aid.”

“I am with you as long as you are in the right.”

The miner gave the young man’s hand a hearty grip and passed out.

“Steel,” said Crofton the younger.

“Gold,” replied his partner.

“Well, as true as one and as good as the other, and we are both right.”

As the young manager had said, so matters turned out. Within two days several car-loads of Negroes came in and began to build their huts. With the true racial instinct of colonisation, they all flocked to one part of the settlement. With a wisdom that was not entirely instinctive, though it may have had its origin in the Negro’s social inclination, they built one large eating-room a little way from their cabin and up the mountain-side. The back of the place was the bare wall of a sheer cliff. Here their breakfasts and suppers were to be taken, the midday meal being eaten in the mine.