Documenting the American South Logo
powered by google
  Highlights   |   About   |   Collections   |   Authors   |   Titles   |   Subjects   |   Geographic   |   Classroom   |   New Additions  

On The Old Plantation:
Reminiscences of His Childhood:

Electronic Edition.

John George Clinkscales (1855-1942)

Text scanned (OCR) by Claire LaForce
Text encoded by Natalia Smith
First edition, 1997.
ca. 300K
Academic Affairs Library,
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1997.

        © This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.


Call number F273 .C64 (Davis Library, UNC-CH)

        The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-CH digitization project, Documenting the American South.
        Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed, and the trailing part of a word has been joined to the preceding line.
        All quotation marks and ampersand have been transcribed as entity references.
        All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as " and " respectively.
        All single right and left quotation marks are encoded as ' and ' respectively.
        Indentation in lines has not been preserved.
        Running titles have not been preserved.
        Spell-check and verification made against printed text using Author/Editor (SoftQuad) and Microsoft Word spell checkers.

Library of Congress Subject Headings,
19th edition, 1996

On The Old Plantation

REMINISCENCES OF HIS CHILDHOOD

by

J.G. CLINKSCALES

Author of "HOW ZACH CAME TO COLLEGE"

Band & White
Publishers
1916


COPYRIGHTED
BY J. G. CLINKSCALES
1916


DEDICATION

        To my sister, Ellen Bates, who shared with me the joys and sorrows of my childhood, and whose unselfish life has meant so much to me, this book is affectionately dedicated.

J. G. C.


CONTENTS

FOREWORD

        These chapters are written primarily for the benefit of my own children and grandchildren and with the hope that they may not be wholly uninteresting to many others whose parents lived through the days of which I write.

        Too many of our young people know of the institution of slavery only what they've learned from "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Knowing only the negro who has grown up since the Civil War, and knowing nothing whatever of "de ole-time slav'ry nigger," they cannot have a correct idea of "a civilization that is gone."

        If what Mrs. Stowe wrote was true, and only that, then our children's children must conclude that their fathers were only half-civilized and worthy of all the horrors of the Reconstruction. Slavery was not all bad. It had its evils, God knows; but, on the dark picture, there were many bright spots: our children should be allowed to see them.

J.G.C.

            Wofford College, March 30, 1916

Page 7

On The Old Plantation

CHAPTER I

"UNC' ESSICK," A NOBLEMAN IN BLACK

        ESSEX was his name, but to all the children on the plantation he was "Unc' Essick." When I first knew him, Unc' Essick was a very important personage on my father's plantation. I was a little late arriving, being the eleventh of a family of twelve children, and was born some years before the outbreak of the Civil War.

        As far back as I can remember, Unc' Essick was my father's foreman, general director - "right-hand man." On many of the Southern plantations the foreman was called "The Driver," and he was the driver literally. He carried his heavy whip, and did not fail to lay it on the backs of his indolent or disobedient fellow-slaves. Some of these drivers were the most merciless task-masters, and some were pitilessly cruel. My father would have none of that. His foreman

Page 8

was not allowed to touch one of his fellows. His business was to counsel, encourage, direct, and lead the others. Every morning he received his orders from my father, and every night he made his report. Intelligent readers know that it was against the law to teach a slave to read or write. Essex could neither read nor write, but I remember having heard my father say that the old man's reports were marvelous for accuracy and detail.

        In ante-bellum days there were in the middle section of South Carolina, and particularly in the coast counties-the rice-growing section-many plantations measuring many thousands of acres. On many of these slaves were numbered by the hundred; on a few, there were more than a thousand. Some of the "large slave-owners," that is to say, the owners of more than a thousand, did not know their own negroes. In such cases, master and slave came in touch with each other only through the overseer, or driver.

        In the Piedmont section of my State, now, since the decline of the rice industry, the most prosperous, there were few large plantations, and comparatively few slaves. The attachment between master and slave was, in some cases, very strong and very beautiful.

        My father's plantation, "Broadway," lay between Johnson's Creek and Little River on the one side, and Penny's Creek on the other, and in Abbeville District, now Abbeville County, the home of Secession. In the entire tract there were only twelve hundred acres, and

Page 9

on it only one hundred and ten slaves. Their owner knew them all by name.

        The institution of slavery, such a curse to the South, so misunderstood and so abused, developed some great characters among both races. And both are rapidly passing. The number of men in the South who were slave-owners is rapidly growing smaller, and only occasionally does one meet an old negro who fixes his place among that rapidly decreasing number of citizens by doffing his hat and saying with evident pride: "Yas, suh, Boss; yas, suh, I's a ole-time slav'ry nigger."

        Those of us who know the "ole-time slav'ry nigger" best and honor him most, are unwilling for the rising generation of both races to know so little of his virtues. Of one of these worthies I would tell the readers of this chapter.

I

        When I first knew Unc' Essick he was in the prime of a vigorous, powerful manhood, though more than fifty years of slave-life lay behind him. Five feet ten, he tipped the beam at one hundred and ninety pounds, and was as sinewy and as active as a Texas pony. Though unlettered, he was to us children a very prodigy: he knew so much and could do so many things. His uniform kindness to us and his unfailing patience with us very greatly endeared him to us.

        From our mother and from the old negroes "at

Page 10

the quarter" - among the cabins - we learned the story of Unc' Essick's early life. In his young manhood he had been a "runaway nigger." I remember that this revelation came as a distinct shock to me. I could not understand how this man, my devoted friend, this trusted servant of my father, could have been a "runaway nigger". That was the bogy with which the nurse had frightened us into silence when we were unduly noisy or impatient. How this man, my Sir Galahad, could have been a "runaway nigger", I could not understand, and I indignantly refused to believe when told so for the first time by another servant; refused to believe it, and cried about it until the story was corroborated by my own mother. After that I loved Unc' Essick none the less, but rather had greater respect for the "runaway nigger." I would not rest, however, until mother had told me everything about my hero's checkered career.

        On Southern plantations before the Civil War there was often comedy - sometimes tragedy; nor was romance always wanting. On my father's plantation two of his young men were rivals for the hand of a dusky maid: one, Essex, a common laborer who herded with twoscore of his kind, and the other, Griffin, one of my father's teamsters, a crack driver and an acknowledged aristocrat among the negroes. Nowadays one seldom sees a wagon drawn by six mules; in those days they were very common, and a plantation that could not boast of one or more such teams was looked upon by

Page 11

the negroes as of inferior grade, and the owner thereof as but slightly removed from the "po' buckra" class. To be the driver of a six-mule team, well matched and well equipped, was a mark of no little distinction. Griffin, my father's second teamster (Big Tom was his chief), though young, had made himself quite a name throughout the neighborhood by holding on to a runaway team until he was dragged from his saddle and had one ear cut off by the front wheel of the wagon. This almost fatal accident occurred while Griffin was taking a load of furniture to Smyrna Camp Meeting Ground.

        Today only a few scattered stones and a gnarled, dwarfed tree or two mark the old Smyrna Camp Ground, the annual meeting place of the best people on the western side of Abbeville County. The people were well-to-do, so the matter of expense was entirely negligible. Instead of the ordinary shack one sees nowadays at the few camp meetings kept up in South Carolina, the people built comfortable two-story frame dwellings, and for two weeks, sometimes longer, literally enjoyed the meeting. Every "tenter" kept open house, and not a few Georgians crossed over the Savannah to "get religion" and enjoy the meeting. Nowadays the people of my old county go to the mountains of North Carolina a few weeks in the summer for rest and recreation; then they went to the banks of the Savannah, to the Smyrna Camp Meeting. And I dare say they got about as much from that

Page 12

annual meeting as their children and grandchildren get from their yearly pilgrimage to the blue hills of our sister commonwealth.

        Besides being the best muleteer in the district, Griffin was a fiddler whose reputation extended far beyond the boundaries of his master's plantation. Not only did he furnish music for his own people at their annual "cake-walks," but he helped often to furnish music at the dances of the white race. That fact, together with his recognized ability as a wagoner, made him an aristocrat. He deigned to associate with men and women of his own color, but for "po' white trash" he had a contempt. When he left home with the load of furniture and provisions for the camp meeting, Griffin was in a jolly, good humor. He called back to one of his fellows: "I don't mind camp meetin', ef dey des let me play my fiddle." In two hours Griffin was picked up at the foot of Crosby's Hill on Rocky River in an unconscious condition and minus one ear. Regaining consciousness, he declared: "Dis is de judgment ob de Lord; I'll nuver tech dat fiddle ag'in." And he didn't. Other things he would do - curse, fight, and drink; but play the fiddle - never.

        Late one evening, about "feed time," a great commotion was heard at the barn. Father ran out to investigate. At the rear of the barn he found Essex and Griffin engaged in a fight. A dozen other slaves were enjoying the diversion. Now, these two powerful animals were fighting, not according to the rules

Page 13

of the ring, but just old-fashioned "fist and skull," science to the winds. Each of these splendid animals meant that to be a fight to the finish; and it would have been but for the timely appearance of my father on the scene.

        The majority of my readers can have no understanding or appreciation of the pride a slave-owner felt in the physical strength of his men-servants. Most negroes were expected to do unskilled labor; great strength of bone and muscle was therefore the sine qua non. When my father discovered the cause of the commotion among the, negroes, he stood for just a moment admiring the unflinching fortitude with which each of the two black men took his punishment. It was a pair of powerful men, and each was "dead game."

        I can say of a truth, and for that truth I am profoundly grateful, my father's slaves not only respected and obeyed him, but loved him. So when his voice rang out sharp and clear, "Stop that fighting!" the two combatants lowered their arms, stepped apart, and stood facing each other like two great wild boars ready for a death-struggle.

        "What does this mean?" demanded the master.

        Essex was the first to speak, while Griffin simply showed his pearly teeth.

        "Dis nigger want my gal, Marster, en 'e kyah git 'er," said Essex, snapping his heavy jaws with bitter defiance.

Page 14

        "Dat a lie, Marster," growled Griffin; "she' my gal."

        "Who is it you are talking about, Essex?" asked my father.

        "Hit Cindy, suh, Little Cindy."

        There were two Cindys on the plantation - Big Cindy and Little Cindy.

        Turning to a young girl who had been a witness to the fight, my father said: "Go tell Little Cindy to come here."

        Little Cindy was soon on hand, and was grinning as if perfectly delighted with what she had heard.

        "Cindy," said my father, "these boys have been fighting about you - now which do you want?"

        The dusky damsel broadened her grin, shifted her weight from one foot to the other, dug her big toe into the soft earth, and said with a glance at the other girls now gathered for the fun: "I wants de one whut kin whup; I want de bes' man. Dat whut I tell 'em."

        That had been her decision, and the two rivals had met to decide the matter once for all in accordance with her decree.

        "You know I do not allow the folks to fight, Cindy," said my father. "Now, Essex and Griffin shall not fight any more, but you may make choice between them: which one will you take?"

        "Well den, I'll tek Griffin," said Cindy, twisting her fingers together and blushing a blush that was

Page 15

never seen, because Little Cindy was as black as her great-grandmother, who came from the jungles of Africa.

        "Now then," said my father, "Cindy has settled this question, boys; let that decision be final - we must have no more fighting."

        Poor Essex! Resolute, game, tough, he would have fought Griffin to the death for Little Cindy, the apple of his eye, the fairest lily of the valley. Yes, he would have fought the whole world for Little Cindy; but now all was lost. In his very presence, and with those very lips that to him had been so dear, Cindy had said without a tremor of the voice, "I'll tek Griffin." Without a word or even a glance toward the girl in ebony who had sealed his destiny, with eyes cast down, Essex slowly made his way toward his cabin door.

        What did Griffin do? Well, not exactly what one would expect to see the fortunate lover in the "movies" do. Oh, no. Stooping to roll up one leg of his pantaloons above his knee, thereby exhibiting a bunch of magnificent muscles, Griffin opened his lips a little wider, showing two rows of as fine teeth as ever stuck in a human being's head, and said with suppressed delight: "Dat whut I tell dat nigger, Marster. Cindy love me. Dat whut make me fight Essick so hard."

        The matter settled, my father made his way back to "De Big 'Ouse," where he related the whole affair

Page 16

to my mother, who long years after that gave it to me in all of its details.

        I loved Unc' Essick so that when my mother told me of Cindy's decision against him, I burst into tears. Then my loving, sympathetic mother, who had given twelve children to the world, drew the eleventh to her bosom, kissed away his tears, and said with a voice full of tenderness: "Never mind, my son; after a while you will be old enough to know that slavery has its tragedies."

II

        Essex did not respond to roll-call the next morning when the big farm bell called the "hands" to work. The foreman investigated, and, after a thorough search of the premises, reported to my father that Essex was missing and could not be found.

        Never before had Essex failed to respond for duty, being of perfect health and a willing, cheerful worker. So my father was naturally puzzled by his absence, the more so as it came so soon after the incident of the evening before.

        "Dat coon done run'd off," said one of his fellow-slaves with a chuckle. "Uh-huh! Dat right!" chimed in a half-dozen. And then their speculations as to his future were amusing and ridiculous.

        Essex had not blown out his brains, like some rejected lovers do, but had "jined the bird gang" sure

Page 17

enough, and was not seen again on the plantation for three long years - Essex was now a "runaway nigger."

        My father was worried that the incident of the evening before should have had such a sequel, but he had such confidence in the sanity of the runaway that he believed he would return to his place after a few days, or after a few weeks at most. In that, however, he was mistaken. Essex had gotten a taste of freedom, and, though it was purchased at a terrible cost, he preferred it to slavery and the regular grind of farm life.

        Of course, the runaway was legally advertised and reward offered for his capture. But week after week and then month after month passed, and nothing was heard of Essex. After a year, the reward offered was doubled, for Essex had been an obedient servant and valuable slave. Still no word of the runaway came, and father concluded that his negro was dead or had been captured by some unscrupulous parties and carried to the far South, as was sometimes done. Many a South Carolina negro found a grave in the canefields of Louisiana.

        Not so with Essex. South Carolina and Georgia were good enough for him; and the Savannah River was to him a joy forever. Essex had been by odds the best swimmer on my father's place, and with that fact Cindy was twitted after she rendered her decision against him and in favor of Griffin, the expert wagoner. So when chased by the "nigger dogs," Essex, like the shrewd old buck of the forest in which he

Page 18

slept, took refuge in the Savannah. Once in the river, he was perfectly safe; for, besides having the endurance of the wild animal, he had intelligence and judgment far above the average slave. He knew the instinct and habits of the hound perfectly, and could fool him with greater ease than any buck or wildcat could.

        Essex lived in the swamps and forests on both sides of the Savannah, not many miles from the City of Augusta, Georgia. He laughed at the ringing of the farm bells he heard, and, like the other wild animals of his habitat, he did most of his sleeping in daylight. Many a time he was chased by the best- trained dogs on either side of the river, but his fleetness of foot and uncommon shrewdness enabled him always to elude his pursuers and make good his escape. In the summer, he wanted no better sport than to slip into the river and kiss good-by to hound and hunter. When necessary, he could remain in the river as long as an otter. When the weather was favorable and the moon not too bright, he did his foraging for food after nightfall. The henroosts along the Savannah he knew much better than some of their owners knew them, and thought it not a crime to levy toll whenever his appetite called for fresh, fat fowl. A coppercolored woman on a Georgia plantation baked a "pone of bread" for him occasionally, and regularly washed and mended his scanty supply of clothing.

        The position of the runaway was unique. His

Page 19

freedom was purchased at a terrible price. With the silent stars his only sentinels, his house a hollow log or a hole in the ground, he had to be as sly as a fox and as alert as an Indian. Hunted by day and night, sometimes hungry and often cold, and with a constant dread of being betrayed by one of his own race, his life must have been a very hell. Essex stood it for three long years. He felt the pangs of cold and hunger, and many of the dogs that chased him he knew by name. These, the loud-mouthed, tireless "nigger dogs," were his most dreaded enemies. Firearms and poison he could not get; but, finding a bottle, he crushed it into small fragments, baked it in some bread, and fed it to the dogs, when their owners little dreamed that he was near. That meant sure death to the dogs.

        Essex had a half-score of aliases. The wily, foxy, dog-killing runaway became the most notorious and best-hated negro in the two States. But the end came with Essex. Malinda, his "Georgia gal," was his Delilah. They quarreled, Malinda and Essex did, one night, and she betrayed him. In less than forty-eight hours he was behind prison bars in the City of Augusta.

        Advised of the capture of his slave, my father went to Augusta, paid all costs, and brought Essex back to the home he had left three years before. Augusta was only seventy-five miles from home, so father drove through in his buggy.

Page 20

        Master and slave talked freely on the return trip. Essex answered with manifest sincerity all the questions my father put to him, and talked freely of his trying experiences and narrow escapes during those long years.

        "Dat gal tell on me, suh; dat Malinda tell de white folks. I could fool de dogs, but when dat yeller gal tell dem white folks, dey trap me."

        Essex had been such a faithful negro, my father was curious to know just what motive prompted him to run away. He said to him: "Essex, you have told me all about the hard times you have had, how you had your toes frost-bitten and how you suffered for food at times; now I want you to tell me why you ran away. Did I not feed and clothe you well? And was I not kind to you?"

        "Yes, suh, Marster; yes, suh, I nuver did get hongry at home, en you never did hit me narry lick. But it was dis way: I des nachily couldn' stan' it when Cindy say she tek Griffin an' lef' me. I des couldn' stay on de same place an' see Little Cindy livin' wid Griffin. Marster, I sho would a kilt dat nigger - I des had to leave. Den, arter I git away, I taste how it is to be free, en I didn' come back. Marster, is Little Cindy livin'?"

        "No, Essex; Cindy is dead, and Griffin has married again."

        "Gawd, Marster! Is Little Cindy dade?" - and

Page 21

the poor fellow rubbed the tears from his cheek on the rope with which his hands were tied.

        "Yes, Cindy is dead."

        "She was a good gal, Marster; I loved dat 'oman."

        Then the two men, master and slave, rode many miles without a word.

        When the second day out from Augusta, and they were within a few miles of home, the black man said to his owner: "Marster, you allus treat me mighty good, en I bin a mean nigger to run'd off dat er way. I got nuff sleepin' in log, en rennin' tru brier patch. Ef you'll let me off dis time en not whup me, I'll be de bes' nigger on de place, en I won't run'd off no mo'."

        My father looked the black man straight in the eye, then said deliberately: "Essex, you never did tell me a lie; I believe you are speaking the truth now. I'm going to trust you."

        "Fo' Gawd, Marster, I tellin' de trufe."

        Then my father took out his knife and cut the rope with which Essex was bound.

        "Now, Essex," said father, "you will live in the house with Big Tom and his wife until you can find you a wife. As soon as you get married, you shall have a house of your own."

        In six weeks Essex had married Dinah, a good woman, and got a house of his own. He became the father of London, one of the two negroes that Mr. Lincoln freed for me. My father gave me London and Jack for my own.

Page 22

III

        Essex redeemed his pledge. He developed into "de bes' nigger on de place"; and, after a few years of faithful service, was made the foreman. When I first knew him, though he was still in the prime of a vigorous manhood, his kinky hair was turning gray, and to all the children he was "Unc' Essick."

        The average black man loves authority. Not so with Unc' Essick, though he accepted the place of foreman with all its responsibilities without a protest. He was prompt, accurate, exact, and demanded first-class service from his fellows, but was always sympathetic, never arrogant. For an uncultured man - a black slave-man - he had high ideals of what constituted righteous living; and up to these ideals he tried to hold his fellow-slaves without harshness or unkindness. The negroes, with few exceptions, loved Unc' Essick and trusted him implicitly. My father, now in bad health, actually leaned on him, and counted himself fortunate in having as foreman a man of such fine judgment and one in all respects so absolutely trustworthy. Like the white people, the negroes, though slaves, had their petty jealousies. There were two or three men on the plantation who did not like Unc' Essick, and for no other reason than that he was promoted over them. They could not understand how the reformed runaway deserved more at my father's hands than they did. Through all the years

Page 23

they had been faithful, they claimed; now this man who had been away for three years was freely pardoned and highly honored. History was repeating itself, but they could not understand it.

        I think every man looking back over his past life can call up some event or some incident that marks his first intelligent conception of the existence of things outside of himself; or the first distinct consciousness of his own identity. I do not remember Unc' Essick farther back than the day the first Secession speech was made on Secession Hill in the town of Abbeville, South Carolina. Unc' Essick and I were there. Father was there. I was still wearing dresses. That day I can never forget. I remember the great crowd of men and boys as they surged by me and around me. I recall even the frantic gesticulation of one of the speakers - the one, I guess, who promised to drink every drop of blood spilled in the War.

        That was a strange, new world to me - the crowd, the speaking, the yelling, the little old women with the ginger cakes and cider - everything. And I stood it all with wide-open eyes and attentive ears until the cannon began to boom. That was more than I could stand. So I ran screaming to Unc' Essick. The faithful guardian pressed me trembling to his great, throbbing heart, and, brushing the tears from my cheeks with his big, rough hand, said with peculiar tenderness: "Nuver min', honey, nuver min'; don'

Page 24

you know if dat big gun bodder dis chile, Unc' Essick chew it up an' spit it out on de groun'?"

        Then I smiled, and I rested my head on his great, broad shoulder and pressed my cheek against the rough face of the black man. I felt safe now, perfectly safe. And I was. That man would have died for me. Did not my mother say to him when we left home that morning, "Now, Essex, take care of the baby?" Yes; Unc' Essick would have died that day for Missus's baby. And the baby knew it, and Missus knew it.

        That evening, when the day's excitement was over and we were nearing home, Unc' Essick said to my father: "Marster, who gwine fight? I hear dem ge'men talk 'bout war, en fight, en blood - whut dey mean? Do dey shoot one nudder?" He really understood but little more of what he heard than the child that sat upon his knee.

        My father explained the situation as fully as he could to Unc' Essick, and made him understand that war was terrible.

        "Does dey stan' up en shoot one nu'er, Marster?"

        "Oh, yes; and thousands are killed in war, Essex."

        "Gawd, Marster, how kin dey stan' up en let men shoot at 'em bedout runnin'? Why, dat night when dem paterrollers down in Georgia shoot at me en nip off a little piece of my year, I des quit runnin' en flewd. Yas, suh, I flewd."

        I looked up into my father's face in time to catch

Page 25

a broad smile. "Yes," he said, "I guess you came as near flying as a man ever did."

        "Yas, suh, I sho flewd. A man kin fly when 'e git skeered 'nuff. All 'e got to do is to guide 'e foots - dey take 'im whar 'e gwine."

        The next day a half-dozen neighbors called to discuss the political situation with my father, and with my mother, for she was a great reader and took as lively interest in public affairs as my father did. I was too young to understand much of what they said. But this much I caught: My father, shaking his head emphatically, said more than once: "Gentlemen, it's a mistake - a terrible mistake - and the South will regret the day she brings on war."

        But the South did secede; and though my father opposed the step, he seceded with his State. More than that, he invested his money in Confederate bonds.

        The baby that heard the first speech on Secession Hill grew and grew rapidly, and, I am sure, was no better than the average boy with Irish blood in his veins. To me life was very real. The great out-of- doors appealed to me strongly, as it does to this good day. Constantly exposed to the danger of being kicked or thrown by the mules, gored by the bulls, or butted by the billy goats, I was an object of special concern to my mother. In her solicitude for my safety, she appealed to Unc' Essick. She couldn't keep me in. Being courageous herself, she did not desire to do so. So she said: "Essex, do watch him

Page 26

as closely as you can; he is so imprudent, so reckless, that I do not know when I may see him brought in mangled and torn."

        Unc' Essick promised, and I want to bear testimony to the fact that the old man never forgot that promise. The morning I rolled off old Bill and broke my arm, he picked me up tenderly, and carrying me in his arms to my mother, said: "Missus, dis chile sholy will git kilt ef he don't stop foolin' wid dat hoss." And the day I slipped off the pole while "skinning the cat" at Dinah's house and split my scalp on the corner of a brick, Unc' Essick was distressed because I bled so freely, and when he carried me all bloody to my mother, he said: "Fo' Gawd, Missus, whut I'm gwine do wid dis chile? De debil heself kyah keep up wid him."

        My father's plantation stretched for a mile along Martin's millpond on Little River. Unc' Essick and I had many a good time fishing along that river bank. The water was so deep that mother would not allow me to go there without Unc' Essick. He was an expert fisherman as well as a great swimmer. When the rain caught us fishing, we found shelter in Fox's Den. This was a large sheltering rock at the big bend of the river beneath which a dozen persons could find shelter from the severest rainstorm. Tradition had it that in the early days of the history of our country Tom Fox, a white man, stole a negro in Virginia and sold him in South Carolina. Few crimes were more

Page 27

heinous in the South in those days than "nigger stealing"; and, if caught, the thief paid the penalty with his life, like the horse thief in the West. Closely pursued, Tom Fox took refuge under this rock and there lived for many months. But Fox was finally caught and executed. Since then his hiding place has been called "Fox's Den."

        One day, while sitting beneath the protecting rock, watching the patter of the raindrops on the millpond as it stretched out before us, I said to my guardian: "Unc' Essick, who made this rock?"

        "Lawdy, chile, whut you bodder 'bout dis rock fur? Gawd mek de rock, honey; He mek everthing; He mek de water out dar; He mek dis tree; He mek me en you; He mek me black en you white."

        "Unc' Essick," I persisted, "where is God?"

        "Good Gawd, honey, whut matter'd you? Dey tell me Gawd live eb'rywhar. Miss Marthy tell me Gawd inside you."

        Miss Martha Crosby, one of the sweetest old ladies I ever knew, boarded in my home, taught the Little Mountain school, and every Sunday afternoon taught my father's slaves the Bible.

        "Miss Marthy," he continued, "say Gawd inside you. I 'spec He is. He in your ma en pa, en Miss Marthy, en Dinah. But, honey, Gawd des couldn' stay in some folks - dey too mean. Now, dar's Kizzy; does you t'ink Gawd could stay in Kizzy? Uh-uh! dat nigger too mean - dat nigger cuss, en steal, en

Page 28

fight. No, no, honey, de debil stay in dat kine. He mean; he love folks whut cuss, en steal, en fight."

        "Unc' Essick, I wish I could see Jesus."

        "Wal, honey, when we git home you look at yo' ma; I t'ink she look lak Jesus - she so good en kind to uverbody."

        My mother has been in heaven forty years. Her picture hangs above my desk. When I see that smile that never passes, and those loving eyes that follow me into every corner of the room; when I think of how she gave her life a willing sacrifice for the good of humanity, white and black, I am fully persuaded that the old man was right. I see reflected in her life more and more the character of my Lord and Master.

        The old, old question of God and heaven, that must come to every normal child, came to me in Fox's Den. The man-child, so full of animal life, was struggling for light - spiritual light. What philosopher, what theologian could have served him better than Unc' Essick did - Unc' Essick, the reformed runaway?

        The war cloud had burst in all its fury. We were not disturbed by the roar of musketry or the booming of cannon, but that our country was passing through a baptism of fire and blood there could be no doubt. The weekly paper brought the mournful, saddening list of wounded and dead, and a dozen neighbor boys had been brought to the graveyard at old Shiloh Church. There were sighing and sorrow everywhere.

Page 29

        My brother, my only brother, was with Lee in Virginia. My father's health was bad, so the plantation was left to mother and Unc' Essick. Besides looking after the varied interests of the farm, Unc' Essick found time to teach me to ride and shoot. He had little patience with carelessness in handling either horse or gun. The old man thought it was a disgrace for a "ge'man" to be unable to shoot accurately, ride well, and swim with ease.

        My father died in the spring of 1864. I stood for the first time in the presence of death. I was staggered by the pale face and intense suffering of my father. I couldn't understand the subdued agony of my mother. Now I know, and have known these many years, what it meant.

        Father called for Unc' Essick. "Essex," he said, "I am going to die. I can't last much longer. It's hard for me to leave Missus and the children. These are terrible times, Essex. William is in Virginia, and may never come back. You have been honest and faithful, Essex, and I want to leave Missus and the children in your care. Will you take care of them, Essex?"

        The big-hearted, broad-shouldered slave had stood by the bed trembling like a leaf and sobbing like a wounded child. Dropping on his knees, he took my father's emaciated hand in both of his, and then pressing it to his lips, said between his sobs: "Gawd bless

Page 30

you, Marster; ef Gawd spar me, I'll tek kere Missus an' dese chillun. Gawd knows I will."

        And no man of any color was ever truer to his promise. Many a night he slept on the piazza, and there I really believe he would have died before any man, black or white, could have entered that door uninvited.

IV

        When Sherman's army was passing through Georgia, there were all sorts of rumors as to the desolation and ruin left in its path. When, leaving Savannah, that army turned toward Columbia, all the lonely women of South Carolina thought they would be robbed of all property and left to starve. Sharing the apprehension with thousands of others, my mother took counsel with Unc' Essick, her only adviser.

        "Essex," she said, "I'm afraid Sherman's army will take everything we've got. What shall we do?"

        "Gawd knows, Missus, but one t'ing sho: ef you gi' me yo' silver en eb'ryt'ing you want hide, I'll put it whar no Yankee kyah git it. An', Missus, ef you let me, I hide some dat meat. Dat meat too good fur dem Yankee to eat."

        "Do you think you can hide my silver so they can't find it?"

        "Yas'm, I kin put it whar nobody kin git it; but dar's one t'ing, Missus: ef dey kill me, den you won't see yo' silver no mo' - hit'll stay right whar I put it."

Page 31

        When assured by mother that they would not kill him, but that they would take him off with them if he would go, the old man said with a troubled look: "Why, Missus, didn't I promise Marster I would tek kere you en de chillun?"

        "Yes, you did, Essex, and I know you'll do it; when do you want the silver?"

        "You put it right here on dis top step tonight, des soon ez all de chillun go to bed. Don't let nobuddy see it."

        The box of silver was placed just where Unc' Essick wanted it, and the next day we ate with pewter spoons and two-pronged forks. Seeing these things, we children concluded that Sherman's army had actually come during the night and stolen away the silver while we slept. Some of us began to ask questions, but a shake of the head and a well-known look from mother reassured us. Somehow, we knew Unc' Essick had a hand in the business.

        That was an unusually busy week for Unc' Essick. Whatever mother prized, either for its intrinsic value or for its association, was turned over to him without a question as to what disposition would be made of it.

        "Missus," Unc' Essick said to mother, "dem 'lasses in de bar' - I kin fill all dem jugs an' hide 'em so Marse Sherman kyah nuver find 'em."

        "All right, Essex; hide just what you please - molasses, meat, everything."

        "Marse Sherman" had no chance at "dem

Page 32

'lasses"; but I am sure Unc Essick was right, for he hid the jugs in the river swamp two miles from home, and no being with less shrewdness than a fox could have followed his own trail through that tangle of long grass and underbrush. A thousands pounds of bacon he buried in another section of the plantation in a pine wood thickly carpeted with springy, spongy needles, over which he could roll the barrels (for he had packed it in barrels) without leaving any evidence by which he could be tracked.

        During that week Unc' Essick seemed to be on the alert day and night. I couldn't catch him in his cabin after supper, and didn't understand when I did find him in daylight why he didn't have time to take me on his knee and answer my questions. They were but the questions of a child, yet throbbing with worlds of interest to that child. With Unc' Essick constantly on the go and my mother so often on her knees in the little shed-room, I felt sure something was about to happen.

        One day a squad of Federal soldiers came by and asked for something to eat. Mother had dinner prepared for them. They were not as polite nor as gentlemanly as they might have been in the presence of a widow whose hospitality they were receiving. They were ruffians. One of them caught me by the ear and twisted it until I cried. I caught my mother's skirt and, sobbing, buried my face in her apron.

        Pointing her finger at the man, the courageous little

Page 33

woman said with considerable feeling: "You are no gentleman, sir; you are a disgrace to the uniform you wear."

        "You go to hell!" was the insolent retort.

        Unc' Essick saw and heard what happened. "Missus," he said, when they were gone, "dem's no ge'men; dat man whut pull my baby year ain' nuttun but po' buckra - he po' white trash. Ef Marster wuz here, he'd sho mek dat man look down de bar'l o' he shotgun."

        But Sherman's army never came. Only a few stragglers or camp-followers came within a mile of my home.

        When the smoke from the smoldering embers of our once beautiful capital city had cleared away, and all fear of Sherman's army was gone, mother told Unc' Essick he might bring in the silver and other buried treasure. To my inexpressible delight, Unc' Essick said I might go with him to gather up all the things he had so cleverly hidden. I had a picnic.

        First, we went for the silver. The faithful old man took me to the river swamp. At the mouth of Spur Creek, a small tributary to the river, he rolled up his pantaloons above his knees, took me on his back, saying, "Now, baby, you hole tight 'round my neck," and stepping into the stream, he waded up it three hundred yards or more and then stepped out into a jungle that was fit only for the habitat of wild animals and runaways. Slipping his hand under some

Page 34

long fallen grass, he drew out a short-handled spade. Examining very minutely the bark on a willow tree, on which he had made some mark intelligible to him only, he got his direction, and, taking me on his back again, he crawled, climbed, and walked a hundred yards into the heart of the swamp. Seating me on a bending tree, so that I could see all that was done, he pulled away some trash almost underneath me, and, driving the spade into the soft, loamy soil, soon brought up the box of silver and placed it on the tree beside me.

        I was lost; was as helpless as a baby sure enough, but knew the man in whom I had placed my trust.

        After so long a time, we got home. Unc' Essick made other trips to the swamps and fields that day, but I had enough for one day. After a few days everything was brought in; not one thing was lost. Unc' Essick had been true to "Missus an' de chillun."

V

        The War closed, and the negroes were freed. After two or three years of trying experiences in the management of the farm, mother rented the plantation to a white man and moved to a little village in another county in search of educational facilities for her children. The negroes, like those of other plantations, were scattered "to the four winds." Some of them I kept up with for a few years, Unc' Essick in particular.

Page 35

After a while, however, I lost sight of all - even of Unc' Essick.

        A dozen years ago I met Mack, who was but a child when he was set free. All these years Mack had lived in the neighborhood of his birthplace. I tried to learn from him the whereabouts of at least a few of the other freedmen; but he could tell me of only two or three.

        "Dey dade, suh," he said; "en dem whut ain't dade, dun scattered."

        "And Unc' Essick, Mack; can you tell me what became of Unc' Essick?"

        "Unc' Essick dade, suh, long ago; he git drownded."

        "What, Unc' Essick drowned, and he the best swimmer in the county?"

        "Yes, suh, he git drownded; I seed him; I he'p git 'im out. He tuk de cramp."

        Need I blush to confess that I brushed the tears from my cheek when I heard of the tragic death of Unc' Essick? No, reader; if you knew slavery at its best - if you knew the close relationship and the tender feeling existing between master and slave on some plantations - then I need not blush. If true worth consists of "fidelity in one's lot" wherever duty calls, then this colored man - this slave man - was a man of true worth indeed - he was one of the noblemen of the world. He taught the wayward white child to love the truth, to tell the truth; he taught me the names and habits of the birds; he taught me to swim, shoot,

Page 36

and ride. He taught me nothing of books, but much of life. Of all my teachers, from the first to the most cultured at the university, very few impressed my life more profoundly than did this uncultured child of nature.

        In an unmarked grave sleep the ashes of Unc' Essick, the faithful slave, the patient teacher, the colored gentleman. Lovingly, reverently, would I lay this little tribute on the grave of one of the best and truest and noblest men I ever knew - white or black.

Page 37

CHAPTER II

DICK, THE SLAVE BOY

        "WHAT is your name, young man?"

        "Richard Harris, suh, but dey calls me Dick," was the prompt, intelligent reply that came from a bright-eyed little copper-colored negro, as he stood in line with a dozen others while their owner, a slave dealer, was discoursing earnestly on the excellence of the group and the particularly fine points of several individuals.

        "Yas, suh, dey calls me Dick," continued the boy; "he say" - nodding his head toward the "drover" now at the other end of the line - "he say Richard too long name fur a nigger."

        My father was pleased with the intelligence of the child, and, when the owner approached Dick's end of the line, asked him how much he wanted for the boy. The price was named, a check was written, and Dick stepped out of line. When my father said, "Come with me, my boy," the little fellow spread a smile all over his bright face and waved a farewell to his companions still standing in line uncertain as to their destiny - silently, submissively wondering whether they, too, would be bought and kept in South Carolina, or

Page 38

be allowed to go further South, to that region which to them meant sickness and chains and death. They were not all children, and some of them had heard exaggerated stories of the horrors of the Louisiana cane fields. Thus far they had come from the tobacco fields of Virginia.

        It was rather singular that the little darkey, going he knew not where, and with a white man he had never seen before, was disposed to be rather talkative. Nor did the new master restrain him.

        "Where did you come from, Dick?" he was asked.

        "Furginny, suh; us come fum Furginny," was the prompt reply.

        "What was your owner's name?"

        "Who dat, suh?"

        "Your master, what was his name?"

        "O yes, suh, he name Marse John Harris; dat what he name."

        "What was your daddy's name?"

        "Me ain' had no daddy, suh; mammy say me ain' gut no daddy - she say she des find me."

        "What made your master sell you?"

        "My mammy die, suh, en Marse John say 'e do an need me no mo'; en 'e sell me."

        My father was sorry for the little fellow, and said to him:

Page 39

        "Well, Dick, I'm taking you to a good home; if you will be good, you will never be sold again."

        "Yas, suh, I'll be good; I'll be smart, suh."

        Just a few days before this momentous event in the life of Dick, the twelve-year-old slave boy, my father heard my mother express the wish that she could have a bright, quick boy whom she could train up to suit herself. The butler she had was so stupid she feared she could never develop him into a satisfactory servant. So father purchased Dick for the purpose of presenting him to mother as a boy he felt sure would "fill the bill."

        The next morning Dick was installed as houseboy, general utility servant. And though so young, the little negro was so bright and quick and "smart," he soon won the confidence and admiration of the entire household and proved to be one of the most satisfactory servants my mother ever owned.

        Dick grew rapidly, and, being all the time about the house, soon learned to talk as correctly as the average white child.

        When he was fifteen years old, Dick's uncommon intelligence made him quite notorious throughout the neighborhood. He felt the importance of his position, picked up, and could use words that were utterly meaningless to his fellows. Indeed, he looked with a kind of contempt upon the ordinary "field-hand."

        Some gentleman from Georgia tried to buy the

Page 40

precocious lad. Five of them were guests in our home for a week. They had come from beyond the Savannah to attend the sale of a large estate just three miles from home. One of the wealthiest men in the county had died, and to sell his property, including lands, stock of all kinds, and 350 negroes, required more than a week. These gentlemen, wealthy Georgia planters, had come over to attend the sale.

        One of them was so struck with the intelligence of the boy that "waited on" them, he determined to take him back to Georgia if money could buy him. So he asked my father to put a price on Dick.

        "Dick belongs to my wife, and I know you can't get him," was the reply he got.

        Not satisfied, however, with that, he tried my mother, who laughed at the idea of selling Dick.

        "Why, that boy," she said, "is worth more to me than half the negroes on the plantation. You can't buy Dick, sir."

        Even that did not satisfy him. He made one offer after another, until the figure reached was twice as much as the market value of a full-grown man. Finally, the morning they were to start on the return trip to Georgia, he said, "I'll give you three thousand dollars for Dick."

        My mother looked at him in amazement, and, with considerable feeling, said: "Sir, I told you you could

Page 41

not get Dick; now I want to tell you there is not enough money in Georgia to buy that boy!"

        When the guests had gone, Dick slipped out into the back yard and danced a jig, cut the pigeon wing, and walked on his hands, all to the delight of a group of pickaninnies, who looked upon him as a kind of wonder. Dick was in fact a pet on the plantation. Every white person from the oldest to the youngest trusted him implicitly, and every negro either admired him or looked upon him with a kind of suspicious awe.

        Six months after the Georgian had made the large offer for Dick, the boy was stricken with typhoid fever. Despite everything that could be done by the best physicians in the county, the fever left Dick with drawn limbs, and he never walked again. Ever after, he was a cripple. He could use his hands and arms a little, but had no control over his legs and feet, and sat on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest.

        Dick's body grew, his head grew, and his mind grew, but the power of locomotion he lost completely. Now, he could do nothing but sit wherever placed, look about him, and talk to any one who came within reach of him.

        Though Dick's body was a wreck, his mind seemed to be brighter than ever. His unfailing good humor and ready wit won for him many kindnesses from his fellow slaves. The men carried him from place to place on their backs. Though the poor fellow had

Page 42

but little use of his hands and arms, and none whatever of his legs, by persistent effort, he learned after a while to move himself about over the house and over the yard when the ground was dry and hard. By lifting his feet with his hands as far out in front of his body as he could, and then raising his body just a little by pressing his knuckles down on the ground, he would move himself forward. The process was slow and tedious at first, and not without pain, but after some months the rapidity and ease with which he could get across the yard was amazing. Dick was a slave, but in that condition he could do no work, of course. His owners, my parents, were glad to make life for the poor fellow as happy as possible.

        Somebody was needed to have general oversight of the little negroes, half a hundred of them. Dick's intelligence and enforced confinement to the yard seemed to point to him as the proper one for that task. So he was duly commissioned "boss of the pickaninnies." And right well did he discharge the duties of his office. The little negroes from ten to fourteen years of age, left by their mothers in charge of the babies, needed some-one of keen eye and ear to see that they did not neglect their charges. The little ones of all ages from infants of a few weeks to those of nine or ten summers needed pretty constant attention. Some one was needed to keep the larger ones out of mischief and the helpless ones from suffering for lack of food

Page 43

and water. Dick was by common consent made commander-in-chief of the entire kingdom of little darkies.

        Though constantly on the alert till the mammies came in the evening to relieve him of their little ones, Dick had plenty of leisure, and became anxious to get a peep into that other world that seemed to be locked up in the words on the scraps of paper that occasionally blew across the yard, and on the printed page of the books he saw in the hands of the white children.

        It was against the law in our State to teach a slave to read or write, and Dick knew it. He had heard it from the lips of the white folks. That very fact possibly increased his curiosity to taste of the forbidden fruit.

        Sitting one warm day in the shade of a large tree in the yard, with a dozen little darkies sleeping around him, Dick noticed on a wagon body that hung under a shed the names, Gower and Markley. Brushing the dust from the hard ground before him, he began making the letters with a sharpened stick. Persistently he worked away at the self-appointed task until thoroughly tired out. The next day he repeated his work, and kept it up day after day until he succeeded in making on the ground a creditable copy of the names, though he knew not the sound of a single letter.

        To one of my sisters passing near him, Dick said:

Page 44

"Miss Sallie, please ma'm, will you tell me whut them marks is on the wagon body?"

        "Why, Dick, those are the names of the men who made the wagon. Gower and Markley are waggon and buggy makers. Their shop is in Greenville, South Carolina."

        "Yas, ma'm, thanky, ma'm; I dun make 'em on de groun'."

        The astonished girl looked on the ground in front of the cripple and saw a perfectly legible copy of the names. Using her riding whip as a pointer, she gave him the name of each letter and the sound of each according to the rules in Webster's Blue Back Speller, the book used possibly in every school in America at that time.

        Unwittingly, she gave Dick the very key he so much needed. Over and over he repeated the words, Gower and Markley, and again and again he sounded each letter. Neither the name nor the sound of a single letter in those three words escaped him.

        Toward evening, a gust of wind blew a newspaper across the yard. Dick had one of the negro children to bring it to him, and that proved to be a veritable store house of good things for him. There he found the friends whose acquaintance he had made on the wagon body, and with them some strangers that were to him no less interesting. To make their acquaintance, to learn their names and sounds, was the problem

Page 45

before him. So all the next day he patiently, laboriously, picked out on that paper all the letters found in the names on the wagon body, and assiduously studied and made others whose names and sounds he did not know.

        The third day, another young lady of the house crossing the yard gave him the opportunity for which he had been watching. Lifting his cap, he said:

        "Miss Jennie, will you please ma'm tell we whut this is?"

        My sisters were old enough to know that there was a State law against teaching a slave to read. They knew it, but somehow not a member of the family regarded Dick as a slave, and neither of the girls thought of the law, or cared for it, when the helpless cripple asked for assistance.

        So "Miss Jennie" sat down by Dick, and for an hour taught him the letters, the words, and their meaning. And that hour meant emancipation for Dick - emancipation from the bondage of ignorance and superstition. Every sentence on that paper he spelled out and repeated until it became literally a part of him.

        But Dick's greatest joy was to come yet. About the time his precious sheet of paper was worn to shreds, Ida, the youngest of my six sisters in school, was laying aside her Blue Back Speller to begin McGuffie's series of readers. Hearing of Dick's unremitting

Page 46

efforts to learn to read, she determined to make him a present of the book that had given her so much trouble. The book was "dog-eared" and torn, but to Dick it was a treasure indeed. The columns of words to be spelled and the passages to be read were to him a delight, but the pictures and stories in the back of it were a "joy forever."

        When my mother learned that Dick could read, she said: "Poor fellow! I do not know how he learned to read, but now he shall have access to the best books in the library." And that very night Dick became the proud possessor of a New Testament, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and a Methodist Hymnal. She knew that Dick had a good voice, was fond of singing, and would appreciate the hymnal as much as any other book. Dick spent the long winter evenings reading to the other slaves. Sometimes a score or more of them would assemble in his cabin to hear him. And many of those grand old hymns written by Watts and the Wesleys were sung, if not with professional skill, at least with unction. Dick, the leader, "lined out" the hymns, and then all sang with genuine pleasure.

        After some months, when Dick had learned to read well, my mother put into his hands a copy of Robert Burns' Poems, and one of Tennyson's. These were her favorites, and very naturally the first she would hand to Dick. Tennyson became to him a perennial well-spring of happiness. The Charge of the Light

Page 47

Brigade he committed to memory, and never tired of repeating it. Many passages of Enoch Arden, too, he knew by heart, but he could never do a great deal with Burns. The dialect puzzled him, though he persevered until he thoroughly mastered and appreciated "The Cotter's Saturday Night." Tales of adventure appealed very strongly to him, and Cooper's novels he read over and over again.

        I was younger than my sisters who inadvertently taught Dick to read. So when I began to wrestle with the difficulties in Webster, I found in the cripple slave a most willing helper. Over many hard places he helped me in the afternoon when I returned discouraged from the school room. And he was so patient, so gentle, so sympathetic that my love for him grew with every victory over the long, hard words.

        Dick had never studied or even heard of English Grammar, of course; so when I reached that point in the school curriculum, he and I studied together. Dick learned the thirty-four rules in half the time that I required. I didn't like that. I didn't see why a negro should beat me learning grammar. But he did, and I was sore over the fact for a long time, though I didn't let Dick know it. Many a sentence we parsed together. Sometimes we disagreed in our analysis of a sentence, and, consequently, in the parsing of it. And that's what piqued me - Dick usually got the best of me in our argument over a disputed point. I

Page 48

failed to make allowance for the fact that he was a full-grown man in years; I, but a child.

        We studied Smith's Grammar, and, despite its many shortcomings as viewed by present-day grammarians, we both learned to speak with passable correctness.

        I remember the fun we had trying to parse John's cap. "John's is a proper noun, masculine gender, third person, singular number, possessive case, and governed by cap, according to Rule First: 'The possessive case is governed by the following noun.'"

        I said: "Dick, I don't understand that. I don't see how John is governed by his cap - I'm not governed by mine."

        With a tantalizing chuckle, Dick replied: "I understand it; you are all the time losing your cap and spend half your time looking for it. Yes, you are governed by your cap."

        I could not deny the allegation, but was an unwilling witness, and didn't at all like the smile that played over Dick's face.

        In further illustration of the meaning of case, Mr. Smith said: "If we say of a horse, he is fat, he is in a good case; if lean, he is in a bad case." This we both accepted without protest; we knew horses, and thought we understood perfectly.

        One Friday afternoon, the teacher said to my class: "Now, I want each of you to bring me Monday

Page 49

morning a composition. Write on the subject of Perseverance." That seemed to me the culmination of all my troubles. I knew nothing of perseverance, and had no idea what she meant by "composition." But to my friend who never failed me I went as soon as I got home.

        Dick assured me that we two could manage the difficulty, and very soon with slate and pencil we were settled down to business. One sentence after another was dictated to me till nearly the whole of one side of my slate was filled. I amused the composer very much, I remember, by saying: "Hold on, Dick; you are making it too good. Don't do that; if you do, Miss Pendle will know I didn't write it."

        The big-hearted fellow laughed heartily at the thought of its being too good. However, with the expenditure of much energy on my part, the work was continued until both sides of my slate were filled. Then said my co-laborer in a manner that I can never forget: "Now, Bubber, don't you think it would be wrong to take that to your teacher? Miss Pendle might not know I helped you, but, anyhow, would it be right to fool her? I think you better rub out everything on your slate and go over yonder under that tree and write it yourself. You'll feel better about it, and you won't be afraid to look your teacher right in the eye."

        Child as I was, I felt the force of his plea and did

Page 50

as he suggested. Candor compells me to confess, however, that down to this good day, after fifty years, I have a distinct recollection of trying to reproduce Dick's sentences as he had framed them. But the lesson was a good one, and did credit to the head and heart of my colored teacher, - Richard Harris was my teacher in the best and truest sense.

        After the Civil War, the negroes were scattered "to the four winds." They had to change homes in order to realize that they were really and truly free. My mother moved to a neighboring town to get school facilities. Dick found a home with Pleasant Watts, a kind-hearted colored man who had a large family and needed some one to look after his younger children.

        After I had finished my college course, it became necessary for me to spend one winter on the plantation. Learning that Dick was in the home of Watts, just seven miles away, I sent for him. My object was to make him perfectly comfortable and to have the benefit of his company in the long winter evenings I was shut up in my bachelor quarters. Dick read to me papers, magazines, and books, and the evenings passed most pleasantly. He had a mellifluous voice and perfectly modulated. How the crippled, unassisted country negro could so perfectly modulate his voice and so beautifully and clearly express the meaning of the sentences he read, I could never understand. His sense

Page 51

of humor was very fine and his power of interpretation was simply marvelous.

        Though the unfortunate fellow could get his hands on but few books and papers, he read these few so thoroughly that he kept pretty well posted and knew much more than the average white man of questions of public interest.

        Unlike most men of his race, Dick had decided views on all questions that concerned the conduct, character, and possibilities of the negro, and did not hesitate to express them freely.

        Richard Harris died at the age of fifty, and was buried in a box specially constructed for him, - his legs were never straightened. He had a brown skin, but a golden heart, and, I believe, sleeps the sleep of the righteous.

Page 52

CHAPTER III

CHRISTMAS AND THE MOVING PICTURE

        I AM thinking of a time in the long ago, when to me Santa Claus was a great reality. The bells, the reindeer, the sled were no dream. My faith in their existence was as intense as my childish nature could make it. And now at the hour of midnight - for this is Christmas Eve - when everything is quiet save the occasional roar of a cannon cracker thrown by some boy who has grown beyond the age of watchful waiting for Santa Claus, now while millions of precious eyes are hard to keep closed and as many millions more are closing despite all efforts to keep them open, now I wish to register a protest against the cruelty of any man or woman who would, purposely or inadvertently, tear this precious idol from the heart of an innocent, happy child.

        Yes, I am thinking of the long ago, when I slept in the trundlebed from which I could see so well in the glow of the dying embers of the spacious fireplace, and could see so plainly the horns and the hoofs of the reindeer as they came cautiously down the chimney. O. the imagination of little children when deeply, vitally interested! And the joy of anticipation that can never be equalled in maturer years.

Page 53

        I am thinking, too, of the partner of my childish joys. My little sister Ellen - I called her "Rat," but to all the others she was "the baby" - was as anxious to see "Old Sandy" as I was, but those dear, loving eyes, two years younger than mine, could not stand the strain so long, and closed in sleep, a smiling sleep, provokingly soon, and, notwithstanding her oft- repeated promise, "I'll stay wake wid oo' Bud-John, and watch for Old Sandy," she left me to do the watching all by myself.

        I am thinking of her tonight, and see her not as she is, a thoughtful, sympathetic grandmother, and at this very moment, perhaps, playing the role of Santa Claus, but as the precious, gentle, clinging, loving little sister whose gentleness and sweetness meant so much in its restraining influence over the rough, boyish, sometimes brutal, nature of her brother. O what a flood of precious memories! They stir my soul while the clock strikes twelve and the cannon crackers on the street cease firing one by one.

        Yes, thank God for these memories that make life worth living and the past, the buried past, a part of our very selves. I see my little sister now with both hands raised and hear the very intonations of her baby-voice when she pleaded, "O, Bud-John, don't do that!" I can see now her little lips quiver and the big tear steal out on her long eyelashes. She was pleading for the kittens. I was tying their tails together

Page 54

to make them fight. She didn't say, "I'll tell mama." Oh, no; she knew what that meant. It would bring to her brother an unpleasant association with mother's slipper. More than once, she had shed tears because of the music produced by that association, and she would not by a word jeopardize the pantaloons of her cruel brother. But, like others of her sex of maturer years, she resorted to tears and to gentle pleading:

        "O, please, Bud-John, don't do that; don't hurt my kitty."

        And, like many another bigger boy, her brother, yielding to the pressure, loosed the cats, kissed away the sister's tears, and said: "Now, run along, like a sweet girl." Did she go? Not on your life. Not until the cats were out of reach. And they lost no time, you may be sure.

        When they were safe beyond the barn or hid away in the woodhouse and no longer in immediate danger of Bud-John and his dog, she slyly tapped her brother on the cheek and said coquettishly, "Oo bad old boy."

        But these were war times, and Santa Claus is wonderfully handicapped in war times, as the children of Belgium so well know. But mother said he'd come, and he did. He never failed us. The Yankees bothered him, mother said, and he couldn't get rich, fine candy and beautiful dolls as he wished to do. So he did the next best thing: he brought us candy made of

Page 55

sorghum syrup and rag dolls that were as beautiful as deft, loving fingers could make them. The wagon painted red and with iron wheels he could not bring. Mother said he tried very hard, but couldn't.

        My disappointment was very great. I wanted to hitch Jack and Peter, two negro boys to the wagon and have them pull it, while little sister did the riding and I did the driving. Mother assured me that Old Santa would do better in the future, but that for the present I must be content with the wagon she would have Unc' Essick make for me. I promised. The wagon was made, and right well did it serve its purpose.

        Around the faithful black man I danced in perfect glee while he made and ironed the body. And when we went off to the "river bottom" to get the wheels, I was happiness personified. Unc' Essick carried me on his back, and, with my childish fingers run into his kinky hair to make my position more secure, I plied him with many a question until we reached the river swamp.

        There in that body of splendid timber on Little River, just above the Premium bottom, we selected the black gum tree from which were to be sawed the wheels for my wagon. In the one-horse wagon Tony had brought the long, cross-cut saw with which he and Unc' Essick soon cut off the wheels from the black gum after it had been felled. From this round tree blocks two inches thick were sawed. In the

Page 56

centre holes were bored, and we had wheels as nearly perfect as untrained, unskilled hands could make them. And the joy and happiness I got out of that wagon only the country boy who has had one of his own can ever know.

        I didn't care for the painted wagon any more. "Old Sandy" might keep his old red puny wagon so far as I was concerned. I loved the heavy, hard timber that was in the running-gear of my own, and the solid, round wheels that made it to me "a thing of beauty and a joy forever." I hitched Jack and Pete to it for a fact drove them with cotton lines my mother made for me - the softest and prettiest I ever saw. I cracked over the backs, and sometimes on the backs, of my two-legged horses a whip that Uncle Griffin, the wagoner, platted for me, while they kicked and reared and snorted like real horses, giving infinite delight to "de baby," the little queen, who rode in the luxurious chariot.

        The Christmas holidays were gone before I got my wagon completed, but, though the candy was all gone and the rag dolls were considerably the worse for wear, when that wagon was finished it brought with it joy unspeakable. We had Christmas all the time.

        But little children, like larger people, want a change. So my two horses, Jack and Peter, suggested that we hitch two calves to the wagon. We did it, selecting two strong, burly fellows we had already been accustomed to riding to and from the pasture.

Page 57

        The calves were unruly and protested against such treatment, but Unc' Griffin made us a little yoke and bows (he was just enough of a blacksmith to do the ironing also), and we continued the fight until we broke them in and could drive them anywhere.

        Mother had no objection to our working the calves, but it certainly did spoil baby's fun. For mother said: "Mark you, young man, don't put little sister in that wagon while you have the calves hitched to it." I said "yes 'um," and the baby looked sad. The children didn't know the danger, but wise, prudent mother did.

        When mother meant to be quite positive, she sometimes addressed me as "young man." So, I looked into her eye and saw that that bill had passed its third reading and was as unchangeable as the law of the Medes and Persians. And "the baby" got to ride no more, except when Jack and Pete put their own necks under the yoke and gave her a dash or two across the yard. Their jumping and kicking were just as amusing as the antics of Charley Chaplin are to the city child today.

        But, while the baby could not ride now, there was one thing we could do - we could ride ourselves, taking turn about. A neighbor boy, too, and kinsman, was frequently with us, entering heartily into our sports. There were so many calves in that pasture that when one pair was so well broken that they ceased to be exciting, we brought out another. One

Page 58

morning after a rain, when we had in harness a pair of specially frisky little bulls, we offered the seat of honor to our visitor from the neighboring plantation.

        George seated himself with that deliberate, determined air that has characterized him ever since, and gave the signal to proceed. We did. When I came down on the backs of the cattle with that platted whip, those little bulls thought a cyclone had struck them. Their heads were turned down a long red hill. What they did in the way of running, bawling, and kicking was a plenty. And what our guest did in the way of flying was also a plenty. When I see the Judge now, presiding over a court in all his dignity, I see two pictures, the one before me and that other fifty years ago - I see a head in the mud, two heels in the air, two arms and hands clutching at anything and everything, and I smell sulphur.

        Did he cuss? Well now, reader, that's been more than fifty years ago; don't ask me to strain my memory. Did he want to fight? Now, I left about that time. I was peeping from behind the barn, and down to this good day I can't think of the incident without a good, hearty laugh. The city boy of today has his moving picture show. I had mine fifty years ago and more.

Page 59

CHAPTER IV

FIRST TRADING EXPEDITION

        FIRST and last, every calf in that pasture was "tried out." Some of them were found to be tame and lifeless; others were full of spirit, and tried our mettle as we tried theirs.

        Finally, we settled down on two that were well matched in size, strength, and gait, and with spirit enough to keep us constantly on the qui vive. More than once they ran away with us and tore things to pieces, but that just whetted our appetite for other tests of strength.

        When we had finally chosen among the little steers, we found great pleasure in raking the ticks off the pair selected and in giving them extra food, so that they might grow more rapidly. In this we were not disappointed. The fact that we curried them so persistently and fed them so regularly, gave them a start which ended in their developing into a pair of magnificent animals.

        One was white with red spots, and the other was black with white spots. We named them Buck and Dick. Buck was our leader, and as game an ox as ever responded to the crack of a whip. When full

Page 60

grown, what a splendid picture he made. And what a powerful animal. Many a time I saw him pulled to his knees, and occasionally saw him overloaded, but never did I see him fail to respond to a call for business. The very persistence of that calf was an object lesson to the proud boy who called him his own.

        The calves grew rapidly, much more rapidly, of course, than did their drivers. The little yoke that Uncle Griffin first made for us was scarcely larger than our legs at the ankle, and, one day, to our great discomfort, broke at the centre. At first we were badly upset, but our old friend, the wagoner-blacksmith, came to our rescue in this our time of dire need, and very soon had us a larger, stronger, and prettier one.

        This one lasted six months, but yielding, at last, to the increasing strength of the steers, parted in the middle as the other had done. But for this emergency we were prepared. Exploring one day in a lumber house, Jack and I ran across a splendid yoke my father had thrown in there a few years before, when he had discarded the use of oxen on the plantation.

        Buck and Dick, now well grown, were no longer amusing, but became to us a source of no little pleasure and pride. We found that they and we were getting to be considerable factors in the promotion of farm work. When the mules were busy with the plowing,

Page 61

we did the "milling," hauled the wood - well, the oximobile was constantly on the go.

        Searching among the abandoned and broken farm implements in the lumber house that yielded us the yoke, Jack and I found the front part of a two-horse wagon, axle, wheels, hounds, bolster, and tongue. That was a great find. It was speedily rigged up and greased, and then we saw there was but one thing lacking - there was no body for the cart.

        For a time this new problem was somewhat perplexing, but we had so often been forced to rely upon our own resources that we determined to find a way out of this trouble. We had both learned the use of carpenters' tools. So we set to work determined to make a frame for our cart. With hammer and chisel and saw, we made the frame with standards of regulation size and height. It was no fine piece of work. There was nothing beautiful about it. Indeed, it was rough and uneven, but the making of it brought out the best that was in the boys, and therein lay its worth.

        It represented sweat, mashed and bleeding fingers, tears, and - some ugly words; ugly words when Jack's hammer flew off the handle and hit me on the nose, bringing the blood. But the work done was a triumph. We had won. We could now haul wood, rails, or anything that did not require a body or "bed."

        My mother was not a little gratified when she saw the persistency with which I worked at that job.

Page 62

Anxious always to encourage her children in earnest, honest effort, she said to me:

        "My son, you have done well; you shall have a body for your cart. Go up to Cunningham's shop and ascertain what they will charge to make you one."

        Within a week we had a nice, neat, poplar body for our cart, and were ready to haul anything. The steers were fat and strong and docile, and the boys were as happy as a Kentuckian driving his thoroughbreds.

        One lovely day in the spring, Mother asked if I thought Jack and I could take some peas to "town" and sell them.

        I assured her that we could and was anxious to make the trip.

        "We need some salt," she said; "and I would like so much to get some coffee."

        My mother, like thousands of other Southern gentlewomen, had been drinking coffee made of parched wheat, dried potatoes, and acorns. No wonder she wanted to taste once more the genuine article. The reader may laugh at the idea of using such things as substitutes for pure Java. Ask your father about it; if born in the South and living on a plantation in those dark days, he knows the trials through which we passed.

        That was in 1866. My father had died in '64. The war had ceased. The Confederate soldiers, those that survived that fearful cataclysm, had returned, some

Page 63

of them maimed but magnificent, to their broken, desolated homes. They were freed from the dust and danger of mortal combat to be shrouded by the darkness of the Reconstruction period. Only those who lived through that period can have any proper conception of it. And only those who lived through the last days of the great Civil War can ever know the self-denial and personal sacrifices many were called upon to make.

        We made the trip to "town," Abbeville - Jack and I - and carried five bushels of peas to trade for salt and coffee. Accustomed to go with us to the mill, Dick, the cripple, asked Mother's permission to accompany us on our first trading expedition. Jack and I, a little doubtful as to our ability to pull off the trading stunt just right, were glad to have Dick with us. Though he could not walk, he was unusually clearheaded, and could advise us in case of emergency.

        Things went well, however. We had no trouble in swapping our peas for salt and coffee.

        When we left home, Mother placed in the cart a few dozen eggs, three pounds of butter, and two bottles of pepper pickles. She had grown the pepper, and made the vinegar from apple cider, and, like most boys when they think of their mother's good things, I'm sure I have seldom since then tasted pickles half so fine. "Sell all these things if you can," she said, "and after you get the salt and coffee, you may buy a dime's worth of candy."

Page 64

        I hadn't seen or tasted real "store candy" since the War began. The very thought of it made me supremely happy.

        We found ready sale for everything but the pickles. For these there seemed to be no market. After I had tramped about considerably, trying to persuade somebody that the pickles were fine, one of the merchants said to me:

        "Bub, I don't think I can handle your pickles, but you bought the salt and coffee from me, so I'll give you ten cent's worth of stick candy for one bottle. What do you say?"

        I struck that bargain instanter.

        On the way to town, I had walked much of the way in order to throw stones at the birds. I am sorry that I was not less cruel than the average boy. The road was dusty, I was barefooted, and, when we reached Abbeville, my bare feet were by no means as clean as they might have been.

        Dick remained in the cart while Jack and I did the shopping. When our last purchases were made, the pretty candy was stored away in my pants pocket, the boy's receptacle for everything, and our faces were turned homeward.

        As we went from the store to the cart, a well- dressed boy, about my size, with a smile of derision, called the attention of three of four companions to my feet, and possibly to my coarse clothes and jeans cap my mother had made for me. I was stung to the

Page 65

quick. I clenched my fist and felt like lighting on that fellow then and there, but had heard of policemen and a calaboose, and concluded it were better to leave the settlement of that affair to another day. Besides, I reasoned it would not be prudent to tackle him on his own ground when he was backed by so many of his friends. So I bit my lips and got into the cart, resolving that if ever I met that boy again I would spoil that pretty coat for him. If ever I've seen him since then, I didn't recognize him.

        We were hungry as wolves, and, when well out of town, turned our attention to the lunch Mother had prepared for us, and never did food taste sweeter to hungry boys.

        I gave each of the negroes a stick of candy, took one myself, and carefully wrapped the remaining pieces for Mother and the sisters. The delicious fried chicken, the bottle of pepper pickles, and the candy gave us a feast royal, while the cattle had their way.

        The return trip was uneventful until we reached Little's Hill, just three miles from home. That was a noted hill, on which many a team had stalled and many an ugly oath been sworn. It was not long, but very steep and very rough.

        When we reached the foot of the hill, Jack and I got out, not because it was necessary, but that the load might be somewhat lighter and the pull easier for the steers. Jack cracked his whip, and the oxen started up the hill with a rush.

Page 66

        We had not noticed that the chain which fastened the front end of the body to the tongue of the cart had worked loose. When about half the way up the hill, the front end of the body flew up, the rear end went down, and the sack of salt, the coffee, and Dick all tumbled out in a heap among the rocks.

        With no little difficulty, Jack and I succeeded in extricating Dick from beneath the sack of salt. The good-natured fellow was laughing, and though considerably skinned and bruised, was not seriously hurt.

        But this was an emergency for which we were not wholly prepared. Two ten-year-old boys could not easily handle a sack of salt, nor could we lift Dick into the cart.

        We waited a half-hour, hoping that some man might come along and help us reload. Finally, I proposed that Jack and I should go home with the coffee, and let one of the "hands" come back with the one-horse wagon for Dick and the salt. Dick demurred. He suggested that we roll the salt down to the foot of the hill, said he would crawl down himself, and by fastening the body securely in front and putting the ends of three or four rails on the rear end of the cart, we might be able to roll the sack of salt up to its place, and, with some assistance from us, he thought he could crawl and roll up himself.

        Something had to be done. The sun was sinking behind the hill, and to us it appeared to be later than it really was. So we made the attempt, and, after

Page 67

much tugging and rolling and pulling and sweating, we won out.

        We drove in home just as the sun was setting. I think I must have been as proud of my possessions and as proud of my day's work as Mr. Carnegie was of his first million. I made a detailed report of the business transactions and counted out the change to Mother. When I finished, she kissed me on the cheek and said: "Mama's little man; God bless you, my son."

        And I was happy.

        During supper and after supper the entire day was lived over again. I could scarcely eat for talking. When we left the dining room, my sisters asked questions, and I continued to talk. I told them everything except that I killed a bluebird with a rock. They loved birds, and I remembered that I had been licked once upon a time for throwing at them.

        Mother listened calmly, thoughtfully, and, it seemed to me, seriously, to everything I said. When I reached the episode at Little's Hill, she broke into a hearty laugh. Then I told about the boy with the fluffy shirt front, pretty red cravat, and nice hat making sport of my bare feet and jeans cap.

        My sisters were indignant. One of them stood up and stamped her foot and said: "If I had that rascal, I'd - " Mother stopped her. The baby cried. The dear child could not understand why any boy

Page 68

could be mean enough to make fun of her "Bud-John."

        "Mama, I'll kill that boy some day," I said.

        "My son, my son, you must not say that; you must not have such wicked thoughts. That's wrong, it's ugly, it's sinful. That boy didn't hurt you, my son; he only hurt himself. You forget it just as soon as you can. You may have misjudged him. Don't think of it any more."

        That night my mother shook me. When I awoke, I was in a tremble.

        "What's the matter, son?" she said.

        "Mama, that boy called me a liar, and I busted his nose."

        "Oh, no, my son, he didn't; it's only a dream, a bad dream. I'm glad it's just a dream - go to sleep." And she put her head on my pillow until I slept and smiled and dreamed of Dick and the incident at Little's Hill.

        The next day Dick and Jack and I were planning for another trip to "town" pretty soon. When we had agreed upon the plan to be submitted by me to Mother, Jack brought out the steers to curry them.

        I wanted some real good fun that morning. So when Jack rode up on Buck, urging him along with his cloth cap, I said banteringly:

        "I bet you can't ride Buck with a spur."

        "I bet I kin," he said.

        I ran into the house and brought out a rusty old

Page 69

spur I had found in the "lumber room." The wheel was so clogged with rust that it would not turn. All the long teeth but two or three had broken out, and one of these stood straight out an eighth of an inch. It was long and sharp and ugly.

        "You jess buckle dat on my foot, en I'll show you I kin ride 'im wid a spur."

        The patient ox was very still and quiet while I buckled the spur on Jack's bare foot.

        "Now, Jack, you will have to put it in him good and strong if you want to wake him up."

        "Oh, I'll wake 'im up."

        I stepped back, and by way of encouragement, pulled the foot away from the side of the ox. Freeing it, with a shove, I said, "Put it to him!"

        He did.

        Buck's head and tail went up, there was a bawl and a twist, the steer's body bent into a bow, he went up into the air and then came down with all four feet together. The rider went over the fence clear light and came down on his head, while Buck went out through the gate with a snort and a kick, and, with tail in the air, tore down toward the pasture where the other cattle were.

        This sudden commotion - Buck's bucking and snorting - startled his yoke-fellow, and he tore off through another gate, while two mules lazily biting at the lot fence ran snorting around the barn. Buck ran over an old sow and pigs in the lane, the pigs squealed,

Page 70

the sow grunted, startled chickens cackled and flew in every direction, while picaninnies screamed, some in fright, others with pure delight. Oh, that was a circus! But it didn't last long enough.

        I fell over on the ground to laugh. I just couldn't do justice to that show while standing up. When I got up, after laughing till my side hurt, I saw Jack turning round and apparently looking for something at his feet.

        "What's the matter, Jack?" I asked.

        "Nuttin; I des lookin' fur dat toof what drap out my mout - 'fo' Gawd, dat cow laken kill me."

        Mother heard the commotion, and naturally came to the door to investigate. As soon as her voice could be heard, she said:

        "My son, what in the world does all this mean?"

        I told her, told her the truth, the whole truth, and, after fifty years, I am persuaded, nothing but the truth.

        Mother was Irish, and her son knew it. She just couldn't help laughing. Controlling herself with a powerful effort, she said:

        "My son, my son, my son!"

        But I saw that smile and knew I was safe.

        In the pasture was a beautiful Durham bull, just the size of our steers. The animal was not vicious, but became very mischievous. With his horns he threw down the fences, and, now and then, led the cattle into the crops.

        The negroes reported that they could not keep the

Page 71

cows out of the corn, and Lindsay proposed that we break the bull to the yoke, and thus keep him out of mischief.

        I thought that promised more fun, and persuaded Mother to let us try the experiment, two of the negro men having promised to help us handle the bull. We had considerable trouble in catching the animal, but succeeded finally in drawing his head up to a tree, to which we tied him hard and fast. Then we drove Buck up to his side and yoked them together. Lindsay suggested that we tie their tails together to keep them from "turning the yoke." Now let the youthful reader ask his father what "turning the yoke" means.

        When their tails were platted and tied together securely, the word was given and the bull's head freed from the tree. He was a very powerful animal and now thoroughly mad.

        Freed from the tree, he made one vicious lunge and burst his end of the yoke into splinters.

        Buck, not accustomed to that kind of procedure, must have concluded that we meant to try the spur on him again. Badly frightened, he made for the gate, while the bull started in the other direction. But there was a temporary halt. Their tails were securely tied, and it became a question as to whose tail would prove the stronger.

        The infuriated bull was disposed to wreak vengeance on Buck and fight the thing to a finish, but for this old Buck was wholly unwilling; indeed, he seemed

Page 72

determined to keep as far from him as possible the end of the bull that carried horns on it.

        For a very short interval there was a straining and stretching of hair, a cracking of tail joints, and then a parting of the beasts. When the dust had cleared away and the wild animals rounded up again, we found that Buck's tail was broken in three places and the bull's was minus hair.

Page 73

CHAPTER V

THE EEL AND THE SKELETON

        I THINK it was old Ben Johnson who said: "When you see three boys together, get you a stick: they need flogging for what they have done, for what they are doing, or for what they are planning to do."

        A boy just my age, living on an adjoining plantation, was frequently with Jack and me in our escapades, and often when I think of the fun we had, I think of Dr. Johnson's remark.

        One day after a rain, we concluded that we would go fishing in a creek about a mile from home. It was a tributary to Little River, and was well stocked with catfish and eels. We found the creek somewhat swollen, and against a large tree which had fallen across the stream and was only partially submerged was banked a considerable quantity of foam and trash. Our experience had taught us that if fish would bite anywhere, we would find them there. Baiting our hooks well and stuffing the remaining worms into our pants pockets, we walked out on that tree, Jack first, I next, and George after me.

        George's hook was immediately taken by an eel eighteen inches long. At first, it looked as if George

Page 74

would be jerked over into the water, but he pulled manfully, and at last succeeded in bringing the eel to the top of the water and on the log. He grasped the slick, slimy thing with both hands and started toward the bank of the creek with it. But the eel slipped through his hands as fast as he could catch fresh hold on him, and in the tussle freed his mouth from the hook. Seeing that he would lose his snake-like fish before he could reach the land, George quickly nailed it with his teeth, carried it, wriggling and twisting about his head and face, fifty feet out in the bottom, then stamped it to death in the plowed ground. George had all the fish he wanted now, and he spent the balance of the evening trying to clean his mouth.

        Monday at school I had fun telling the boys about George's frolic with the eel - about the new "tooth hold" and how it worked, and how he spent the remainder of the day trying to clean his teeth. I had carried an old tooth-brush to school in my pocket, and tried to present that to him in behalf of the entire school to be preserved for special use on fishing excursions. More than once that day I had to dodge behind the school house to keep out of the way of George's fist.

        George was a splendid fellow - every inch a man. He would scrap with us any time and on short notice, but was never much on a foot race. Only once was he ever accused of exceeding the speed limit. And that came about in this way:

Page 75

        In 1864, a negro was hanged about six miles from the Little Mountain school. He was not lynched, but legally executed. Just why he was hanged way out there so far from the county seat, I have never known. In the neighborhood lived a quaint, queer old doctor.

        In some way, the old physician got possession of the corpse. About a half-mile from the school building was a body of young pines, possibly two acres in area. The saplings ranged from two to six inches in diameter and from twelve to twenty feet in height. They were very thick, making an ideal place for hiding. One day we boys, about a dozen of us, at the noon recess (usually two hours long) went foraging for apples. We were quite successful that day. Every one of us had not only his pants pockets, but his loose blouse, stuffed with the beautiful, odoriferous, red June apples.

        We knew if we carried them to the school house, we would have to give an account of ourselves - we'd have to tell where we got them. That we were not just then prepared to do. So we concluded to go into the pines, where nobody could see us, and have us one good, satisfactory, perfect and complete bait of mellow June apples.

        When we were near the centre of the pine thicket, being pretty well bunched, some one cried out:

        "Lawdy, boys, looker there!"

        Dr. Stiefer had carried his negro into that thicket,

Page 76

boiled all the flesh off his bones, and mounted the skeleton.

        We were right on it before any of us saw it. When we did see it, the reader may be sure that it was not many seconds before that negro's bones had the whole field to themselves. Apples flew in every direction. There was no outcry - just a scramble among the pine needles, one thud after another, a whine or half-cry, a grunt, a fall, an occasional, "O Lawdy, wait for me!" and then, after thirty seconds, the emerging from the pines of a dozen half-clad, bruised, bleeding, sniffling, frightened boys. It was ever afterwards contended that George, who was not until then noted for his sprinting stunts, was the first to emerge from the pines.

        A few years ago I met a gray-bearded gentleman who shared that thrilling experience with us. Indeed, he was a big-hearted sharer of all the joys and sorrows of our school days at Little Mountain school.

        After living over much of the dear departed past, I said to him:

        "Joe, do you remember our experience with the June apples and the skeleton?"

        "Remember it? I can see that nigger now, and hear George grunt. Great Lord! didn't old George paw up the earth that day?"

        "Now, Joe, tell me honest, what clothes did you have on when you got out of those pines?"

Page 77

        "Well, John, I'll tell you, to the best of my recollection, I had on just one sock and a collar."

        "Ah, Joe, old boy, that won't do - you know as well as I know that you never wore collars in your life till you were nearly grown, and they were paper collars, and you gave ten cents a box for 'em."

        The dear fellow uttered a characteristic chuckle that carried me back over a half century to a day that is gone; to a day that was full of sunshine and shadows - a day that links the glories of the ante-bellum past with the joys and sorrows of the present.

Page 78

CHAPTER VI

THE LITTLE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL

        THAT was a great school - great in more respects than one. It was great in purpose, great in discipline, and great in achivement when we consider the utter absence of facilities.

        The teacher was a young lady of doubtful or questionable age (I never use the words, "old maid"); and she didn't mind lickin' a fellow at all. Indeed, she seemed rather to enjoy it. I have seen her tip-toe while putting the timber on Gus Williams, and with every lick of the seasoned birch she brought the dust from his coat. In the winter Gus didn't mind it; but in the summer, when he was thinly clad, she "got his goat."

        Miss Pendle had one very great weakness. She licked Gus because she didn't like him; and she didn't lick me because she did like me. I was just as mischievous as Gus, but somehow she didn't see my mischief. But there was this difference, I must admit: I did study some; Gus, none at all. Gus and I were devoted friends. He knew I was as mischievous as he was, and couldn't understand how it was that I escaped the birch when he got it every day. One day,

Page 79

at recess, he said to the teacher: "Mis Pendulum, if you'll give John ten good licks like you put on me, you may give me one hundred. I want to see old John bounce one time."

        The first morning of school, when we entered the door, we saw three long switches standing in the corner behind the teacher's table. That was a challenge that was promptly accepted by more than one boy among us. But "Miss Pendulum," as Gus called her, went in to win, and she did win. She was Irish to the core, and showed it without any hesitation.

        How well I remember the first day I trotted off from home to school! There were five of us, I the youngest. On my back I carried a jeans satchel, made by my mother, and in it was one book - Webster's Blue Back Speller. And just here I want to doff my hat to that old speller. It's a long shot better book than some people think it is. If Noah Webster had just put those pictures in the first part of the book instead of at the close of it, he would have had the greatest speller of all the ages. (Now laugh, you blasted coxcombs who think you carry in your cocoes all the wisdom of the twentieth century! Laugh! as much as you please. The fools are not all dead yet.)

        Somehow, Miss Pendle succeeded in teaching us the names of all the letters. There were four of us in class - Mollie, Annie, George, and John. Mollie was George's sister; Annie was my sweetheart. I don't know that I ever would have learned those letters had

Page 80

I not seen that Annie was learning them, and I knew that I had to, in order to stay in class with her.

         I had no desire to stand "head" - I only wanted to be next to Annie. If Annie was head, I was perfectly happy in second place; if Annie was next to "foot," I was more than willing to stand at the lower end of the class. A single smile from Annie was worth more to me than a thousand words of commendation from my teacher.

        Somehow, we learned those letters - first, the small ones, then the capitals. That done, we were allowed to begin to spell, and this is what we had:

                         ab         ba
                         eb         ca
                        ib         da
                         ob         la

         Then,          cat
                        rat
                        mat
                        fat

        And then,

                        rock
                        mock
                        sock
                        tock

        With such exercises as these, we moved along rather lively till we reached baker. That had been the goal toward which our faces were set. After that,

Page 81

came ambition and long columns of words ending in tion and sion.

        The succeeding pages were made more difficult, until we came to incomprehensibility. And right there, I'm free to confess, I've been ever since.

        I shall never forget when the first day we were called by the teacher to "say your lesson." Standing around her, she said, pointing with her pencil to the first letter, "Johnnie, what's that?"

        I said, "I don't know, m'm."

        "That's a."

        "Yas, m'm."

        "But you say a."

        I said "a."

        And so the lesson proceeded until Miss Pendle thought she had kept us long enough. Then she said, "Now, you children sit down and study your lesson." We sat down, but she was badly off if she thought I was studying about those crooked characters. I was too busy thinking about Annie.

        The rule of the teacher was that we had to have our book before our eyes all the time. I held my book in its place all right, but Annie sat diagonally across the room from me, thus enabling me to fool the teacher easily.

        After a while, sitting on that backless seat, swinging my feet that could not reach the floor, I got very tired. Turning cautiously the leaves of my speller, I came to the pictures near the back.

Page 82

        The first appealed strongly to me. A boy stealing apples was caught in the very act - caught in the tree by the owner of the orchard. I wondered why the silly-looking fellow didn't tumble out of that tree and try a foot-race with the old gentleman. He looked as if he might be fleet enough to outrun the farmer.

        The milkmaid with the spilled piggin of milk amused me greatly, though deep down in my heart I resented the unkindness of the boys who tied the long grass across the path.

        When I came to the mastiffs about to fight, I was delighted beyond measure. They were splendid looking animals and, I thought, ought to make a battle royal. I forgot where I was, forgot Annie for a moment, forgot everything but the dogs, and, in my eagerness to see them fight, yelled out: "Sick 'im, Tige!"

        I was startled by the sound of my own voice. The boys and girls around me looked at me in amazement, some laughing out.

        "Come here to me, sir!" commanded the teacher, and her voice cracked like a whip.

        I walked up with fear and trembling, like a criminal to the electric chair.

        "What do you mean, sir?" asked the teacher, reaching back for one of the long, ugly switches.

        I thought I was gone for a fact, and could feel the flesh quivering all up and down my back. But, mustering all the courage I had left, I showed her the

Page 83

picture and frankly confessed that I was so anxious to see the dogs fight, I forgot where I was. The cold- natured teacher smiled just a little, cautioned me to be more careful in the future, and sent me back to my seat, blushing and ready to burst into tears because of my humiliation. And it was a long time before I heard the last of "Tige."

        That was not the last severe trial I had during that year at school. After a week, Miss Pendle announced that on the following Friday afternoon all of us would have to "say a speech." Every one of us must "speak a piece." The next week there was a great stir among the boys and girls selecting and committing to memory their "pieces."

        My piece was t