The Memories of Fifty Years Part 35

"Our great father, your head chief at Was.h.i.+ngton, sent us a talk by you, which is pleasant to hear, because it promises the red man much--his friends.h.i.+p, his protection, and his help; but in return for this he asks of us much more than we are willing to give even for all his promises. The white man's promises, like him, are white, and bring hope to the red man; but they always end in darkness and death to him.

"The Great Spirit has not given to the red man, as He has to the white man, the power to look into the dark, and see what to-morrow has in its hand; but He has given him the sense to know what experience teaches him. Look around, and remember! Away when time was young, all this broad land was the red man's, and there was none to make him afraid. The woods were wide and wild, and the red deer, and the bear, and the wild turkey were everywhere, and all were his. He was great, and, with abundance, was happy. From the salt sea to the Great River the land was his: the Great Spirit had given it to him. He made the woods for the red man, the deer, the bear, and the turkey; and for these He made the red man. He made the white man for the fields, and taught him how to make ploughs, to have cattle and horses, and how to make books, because the white man needed these. He did not make these a necessity to the red man.

"Away beyond the mighty waters of the dreary sea, He gave the white man a home, with everything he wanted, and He gave him a mind which was for him, and only him. The red man is satisfied with the gifts to him of the Great Spirit; and he did not know there was a white man who had other gifts for his different nature, until he came in his winged canoes across the great water, and our fathers met him at Yamacrow.

The Great Spirit gave him a country, and He gave the red man a country. Why did he leave his own and come to take the red man's? Did the Great Spirit tell him to do this? He gave him His word in a book: do you find it there? Then read it for us, that we may hear. If He did, then He is not just. We see Him in the sun, and moon, and stars.

We hear Him in the thunder, and feel Him in the mighty winds; but He made no book for the red man to tell Him his will, but we see in all His works justice. The sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the ground keep their places, and never leave them to crowd upon one another. They stay where He placed them, and come not to trouble or to take from one another what He had given. Only the white man does this.

A few--a little handful--came in their canoe to the land of the red man, as spirits come out of the water. The red man gave them his hand.

He gave them meat, and corn, and a home, and welcomed them to come and live with him. And the flying canoes came again and again, and many came in them, and at last they brought their great chief, with his long knife by his side, and his red coat, and he asked for more land.

Our chiefs and warriors met him, and sold him another portion of our lands; and his white squaws came with him, and they made houses and homes near our people. They made fields, and had horses and herds, and grew faster than our people, and drove away the deer and the turkeys deeper into the woods. And then they wanted more land, and our chiefs and warriors sold them more land, and now again another piece, until now we have but a little of our all. And you come again with the same story on your forked tongues, and wish to buy the last we have of all we had, and offer us a home away beyond the Great River, and money, and tell us we shall there have a home forever, free from the white man's claims, and in which we shall dwell in peace, with no one to make us afraid.

"Our traditions tell us that our fathers fled before the powerful red men who dwell beyond the Great River, and who robbed us of our homes and made them their own, as you, the white men, have done. Have you bought the home of our fathers from these red men? or have you taken it? that you bid us take it from you, and go back, and make a new home where the fathers of our fathers sleep in death? If you have not, will they not hunt us away again, as you have? How shall we know you will not come and make us sell to you, for the white man, the homes you promise shall always be ours and a home for our children's children?

"We love the land where we were born and where we have buried our fathers and our kindred. It is the Great Spirit which teaches us to love the land, the wigwam, the stream, the trees where we hunted and played from our childhood, where we have buried out of sight our ancestors for generations. Who says it is mean to love the land, to keep in our hearts these graves, as we keep the Great Spirit? It is n.o.ble to love the land, where the corn grows, and which was given to us by the Great Spirit. We will sell no more; we know we are pa.s.sing away; the leaves fall from the trees, and we fall like these; some will stay to be the last. The snow melts from the hills, but there is some left for the last; we are left for the last, like the withered leaf and little spot of snow. Leave to us the little we have, let us die where our fathers have died, and let us sleep where our kindred sleep; and when the last is gone, then take our lands, and with your plough tear up the mould upon our graves, and plant your corn above us. There will be none to weep at the deed, none to tell the traditions of our people, or sing the death-song above their graves--none to listen to the wrongs and oppressions the red man bore from his white brother, who came from the home the Great Spirit gave him, to take from the red man the home the Great Spirit gave him. We are few and weak, you are many and strong, and you can kill us and take our homes; but the Great Spirit has given us courage to fight for our homes, if we may not live in them--and we will do it--and this is our talk, our last talk."

He folded back the blanket he had thrown from his shoulders, and, followed by his band, he stalked majestically away. They had broken up their camp and returned to their homes upon the Tallapoosa.

Unawed by the defection of the Tuscahatchees, the band attached to Hopothlayohola, McIntosh went on to complete the treaty. This chief, because he had been the friend of the United States in the then recent war, a.s.sumed to be the princ.i.p.al chief of the nation, as he held the commission of a brigadier-general from the United States; a commission, however, which only gave him command with his own people.

This a.s.sumption was denied by Hopothlayohola, chief of the Tuscahatchees, Tuskega, and other chiefs of the nation, who insisted upon the ancient usages, and the power attaching through these to the recognized head-chief of the nation. Strong representations and protests against the treaty were sent to Was.h.i.+ngton, and serious complications were threatened, very nearly producing collision between the State of Georgia and the General Government. The hostility to McIntosh and his party culminated in a conspiracy for his a.s.sa.s.sination. Fifty warriors were selected, headed by a chief for the purpose. These received their orders, which were that on a day designated they should concentrate at a given spot, and at night proceed to the house of McIntosh, in secret, and surrounding it at or near daylight, call him up, and as he came forth, all were to fire upon him. His brother, his son, and son-in-law, Rolla and Chillie McIntosh, and Hawkins, were all doomed to die, and by the hands of this executory band. That there might be no mistake as to the day, each warrior was furnished with a bundle of sticks of wood, each of these represented a day--the whole, the number of days intervening between the time of receiving them, and the day of execution. Every night upon the going down of the sun one of these was to be thrown away--the last one, on the night of concentration and a.s.sa.s.sination.

It was death to betray the trust reposed, or to be absent from the point of rendezvous at the time appointed.

The secret was faithfully kept--every one was present. The house of McIntosh stood immediately upon the bank of the Chattahoochee River, at the point or place now known as McIntosh's Reserve. It was approached and surrounded under the cover of night, and so stealthily as to give no warning even to the watch-dogs. McIntosh and his son Chillie were the only victims in the house, the two others were away.

Hawkins was at his own home, Rolla McIntosh no one knew where.

Hopothlayohola had accompanied this band, but not in the character of chief. The command was delegated to another. This chief knocked at the door, and commanded McIntosh to come out and meet his doom. The Reverend Francis Flornoy, a Baptist preacher, was spending the night with the chief, and was in a room with Chillie. The chief McIntosh knew his fate, and, repairing to the apartment of his guest and son, told them he was about to die, and directing his son to escape from the rear of the house, and across the river, said he would meet his fate as a warrior. Taking his rifle, he went to the front door, and throwing it open, fired upon the array of warriors as he gave the war-whoop, and, in an instant after, fell dead; pierced with twenty b.a.l.l.s. Chillie, at this moment, sprang from the window, leaped into the river, and made his escape, though fired at repeatedly. A detachment was immediately sent to execute Hawkins at his home, which was successful in effecting it.

Soon after this tragic occurrence, the McIntosh party, consisting of fully one-half the nation, emigrated to the lands granted them west of the State of Arkansas, and made there a home. The remainder of the Creeks retired to the district of country between the Chattahoochee and Line Creek, only to learn that to remain upon this circ.u.mscribed territory was certain destruction.

The whites soon populated the acquired territory, and the Chattahoochee was no barrier to their aggressions upon the helpless Indian beyond. Feuds grew up: this led to killings, and in the winter of 1835-6 active hostilities commenced. This war was of short duration. Before the nation was divided, Hopothlayohola was opposed to war. In his communication with General Jessup, he told him: "My strength is gone; my warriors are few, and I am opposed to war. But had I the men, I would fight you. I am your enemy--I shall ever be; but to fight you would only be the destruction of my people. We are in your power, and you can do with us as you will." But the chiefs of the lower towns would not yield, and made the fight. In a short time this was concluded by the capture of their leading chief, Nehemathla. He was decoyed by treachery into the power of General Jessup, who detained him as a prisoner, and almost immediately his band surrendered.

Nehemathla was an Onchee chief. This was the remnant of a tribe absorbed into the nation of the Creeks or Muscogees, and was probably one of those inferior bands inhabiting the land when this nation came from the West and took possession of the country. Their language they preserved, and it is remarkable it was never acquired by white or red man, unless he was reared from infancy among the tribe. It was guttural entirely, and spoken with the mouth open, and no word or sound ever required it to be closed for its p.r.o.nunciation. They had dwindled to a handful at the time of his capture, but more obstinately determined to remain and die upon their parental domain, than any other portion of the nation.

Nehemathla was more than eighty years of age at the time of his capture. When brought into the presence of General Jessup, he expected nothing short of death. The General told him of his crimes, upbraided him with bad faith to his great father, General Jackson, and drawing his sword, told him he deserved to die.

The chief, seeing the sword lifted, s.n.a.t.c.hed the turban from his head, and fiercely and defiantly looking the General in the face, as the wind waved about his brow and head the long locks white as snow, said firmly and aloud: "Strike, and let me sleep here with my father and my children! Strike, I am the last of my race! The Great Spirit gave me seven sons--three of them died at Emucfaw, two at Talladega, and two at Aletosee. General Jackson killed them all, and you call him my great father! When did a father wash his hands in his children's blood? When did a father rob his children of their homes? When did a father drive his children in anger into the wilderness, where they will find an enemy who claim it as the gift of the Great Spirit, and who will fight to retain it? Strike, and let me die--no time, no place like this! The mother of my sons, their sisters, perished for food, when I with my sons was fighting for our homes. I am alone; and not afraid to die! Strike: eighty winters are on my head--they are heavier than your sword! They weigh me to the earth! Strike, and let me go to my squaw, my sons, and my daughters, and let me forget my wrongs!

Strike, and let my grave be here, where all I have is in the ground!

Strike: I would sleep where I was born--all around me are the graves of my people, let mine be among them; and when the Great Spirit shall come, let Him find us all together, here with our fathers of a thousand winters, who first built their wigwams here, and who first taught their children to be more cautious than the panther--more watchful than the turkey!"

"I will not strike you," said the General. "No, I will not strike my foe, a prisoner; but here is my hand in friends.h.i.+p."

"No," said the chief; "you have put your sword in its pocket, put your hand in its pocket; do not let it reach out to blind me, or to take my home. I am the white man's enemy; his friends.h.i.+p I fear more than his anger. It is more fatal to the red man. It takes away his home, and forces him living to go away and grieve for his country, and the graves of his fathers, and to starve in a strange land. In his anger he kills, and its mercy shuts his eyes and his heart away from the wrongs and the miseries of his people. I have lived and I will die the white man's enemy. I have done you all the harm in my power. If I could, I would do you more. My tongue is not forked like yours, my heart has no lies to make it speak to deceive. Strike, and let me go to the happy hunting-grounds where all my people are."

He sat down upon the ground, and, in a low, monotonous, melancholy tone, chanted the death-song.

"Who-ah-who-allee! wait for me, I am coming. Who-ah-who-allee! prepare the feast, the great warrior's feast. Who-ah-who-allee! let my boys and my braves come down to welcome me. Who-ah-who-allee! those who went before me, tell them the old warrior is coming. Who-ah-who-allee!

the white man has come, he treads on their graves, and the graves of their fathers. Who-ah-who-allee! the last of the Onchee is coming, prepare--his bow is broken, his arrows are all gone. Who-ah-who-allee!"

Concluding his song with one shrill whoop, he dropped his head and lifted up his hands--then p.r.o.ne upon the earth he threw himself, kissed it, rose up, and seemed prepared for the fate he surely expected.

Nehemathla spoke English fluently, and all his conversation was in that language. He was informed that there was no intention of taking his life, but that he would be kept a close prisoner, until his people could be conquered and collected--when they would be sent to join their brethren, who had gone with the Cussetas and Cowetas and Broken Arrows, beyond the Great River of the West. Tamely and sullenly he submitted to his confinement, until the period approached, when all were collected and in detachments forwarded to their future homes.

It was my fortune to be in New Orleans when the old chief and his little band arrived at that place. It was winter, and the day of their debarkation was cold and rainy. The steamer chartered to take them to Fort Smith, upon the Arkansas, from some cause did not arrive at the levee at the time appointed for their leaving, and they, with their women and children, were exposed upon the levee to all the inclemencies of rain and cold, through a protracted winter night. Many propositions were made to give them shelter, which were rejected. One warm-hearted, n.o.ble spirit, James D. Fresett, the proprietor of an extensive cotton-press, went in person to the aged chief, and implored him to take his people to shelter there. He declined, and when the importunity was again pressed upon him, impatient of persuasion, he turned abruptly to his tormentor and sternly said:

"I am the enemy of the white man. I ask, and will accept, nothing at his hands. Me and my people are children of the woods. The Great Spirit gave them to us, and He gave us the power to endure the cold and the rain. The clouds above are His, and they are shelter and warmth enough for us. He will not deceive and rob us. The white man is faithless; with two tongues he speaks: like the snake, he shows these before he bites. Never again shall the white man's house open for me, or the white man's roof shelter me. I have lived his enemy, and his enemy I will die." The grunt of approval came from all the tribe, while many rough and stalwart men stood in mute admiration of the pride, the spirit, and the determination of this white-haired patriarch of a peris.h.i.+ng people. The next day he went away to his new home, but only to die. About this time a delegation from both the Tuscahatchees or Hopothlayohola band and the McIntosh band met by private arrangement, in New Orleans, to reconcile all previous difficulties between these parties. Hopothlayohola and Tuskega, or Jim's Boy, and Chillie McIntosh and Hawkins, const.i.tuted the delegations. I was present at the City Hotel, and witnessed the meeting. It was in silence. McIntosh and Hopothlayohola advanced with the right hand extended and met. The clasping hands was the signal for the others: they met, clasping hands, and unity was restored, the nations reconciled and reunited, and Hopothlayohola and his people invited to come in peace to their new homes.

It was evidently a union of policy, as there could be no heart-union between McIntosh and Hopothlayohola; and though the latter placed his conduct upon the broad basis of national law and national justice, yet this was inflicted upon the parent of the other, who denied the law, or the power under the law, supposing it to exist, of the other to adjudge and to execute its sentence. In the meeting of these chiefs, and their apparent reconciliation, was to be seen, a desire that the nation should reunite, and that there should be amity between the bands, or divided parties, for the national good, and for the good of all the parties or people. But there could never be between the two representative chiefs other than a political reconciliation. There was no attempt on the part of either to deceive the other. Both acted from the same high motives, while their features told the truth--personally they were enemies. The son held the hand of his father's executioner, red with the life-blood of him who gave him being--a father he revered, and whose memory he cherished. The filial and hereditary hatred was in his heart. The feeling was mutual. Both knew it, and the cold, pa.s.sive eye, and relaxed, inexpressive features but bespoke the subdued, not the extinguished pa.s.sion. Chillie McIntosh is only one-fourth Indian in blood. Hopothlayohola is a full-blooded Indian.

His features are coa.r.s.e and striking. His high forehead and prominent brow indicate intellect, and his large compressed mouth and ma.s.sive underjaw, terminating in a square, prominent chin, show great fixity of purpose, and resolution of will. Unquestionably he was the great man of his tribe.

Tuskega, or Jim's Boy, was a man of herculean proportions. He was six feet eight inches in height, and in every way admirably proportioned.

He was the putative son of a chief whose name he bore, and whose t.i.tles and power he inherited. But the old warrior-chief never acknowledged him as such. The old chief owned as a slave a very large mulatto man, named Jim, who was his confidant and chief adviser, and to him he ascribed the parentage of his successor, and always called him Jim's boy. His complexion, hair, and great size but too plainly indicated his parentage. He was not a man of much mark, except for his size, and would probably never have attained distinction but through hereditary right.

In their new home these people do not increase. The efforts at civilization seem only to reach the mixed bloods, and these only in proportion to the white blood in their veins. The Indian is incapable of the white man's civilization, as indeed all other inferior races are. He has fulfilled his destiny, and is pa.s.sing away. No approximation to the pursuits or the condition of the white man operates otherwise than as a means of his destruction. It seems his contact is death to every inferior race, when not servile and subjected to his care and control.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

FUN, FACT, AND FANCY.

EUGENIUS NESBITT--WAs.h.i.+NGTON POE--YELVERTON P. KING--PREPARING TO RECEIVE THE COURT--WALTON TAVERN, IN LEXINGTON--BILLY SPRINGER, OF SPARTA--FREEMAN WALKER--AN AUGUSTA LAWYER--A GEORGIA MAJOR--MAJOR WALKER'S BED--UNCLE NED--DISCHARGING A HOG ON HIS OWN RECOGNIZANCE --MORNING ADMONITION AND EVENING COUNSEL--A MOTHER'S REQUEST-- INVOCATION--CONCLUSION.

To-day I parted from Eugenius Nesbitt and Was.h.i.+ngton Poe, two of only four or five of those who commenced life and the practice of law with me in the State of Georgia. We had just learned of the death of Y.P.

King, of Greensboro, Georgia, who was only a few years our senior. The four of us were young together, and were friends, but I had been separated from them for more than forty years. Yet the ties of youthful attachment remained, and together we mourned the loss of our compeer and companion in youth.

I was a member of the Legislature when Judge Nesbitt, by act of the Legislature, was admitted to the Bar, he having not attained his majority, and by a rule could not be admitted in the ordinary manner.

Nesbitt, though so young, was known through the up-country of Georgia as a young man of more than ordinary promise. The same was the case with Poe. They had so deported themselves as to win the confidence and affection of the wise and the good. There were some in the Legislature who were lawyers, and who conscientiously believed that no one so young as Nesbitt was could be sufficiently matured mentally to properly discharge the duties of the profession. These men themselves were naturally dull, and ignorantly supposed all minds, like their own, were weak in youth, and could only be strengthened and enlightened by time and cultivation. They honestly opposed the bill admitting the applicant. There was one though, who held no such ridiculous notions--himself an example to the contrary--but from some cause he strenuously opposed the bill. It was the celebrated Seaborne Jones, one of the very ablest lawyers the State ever produced. It seemed ever a delight to him to bear heavily upon young lawyers. It would be difficult to divine his motives. He was at the head of the Bar, unapproached by compet.i.tion, especially by any young man.

I was young and ardent, and felt offended at this opposition, and gave all the aid I could to the pa.s.sage of the bill. Fortunately for our cause, there were many young lawyers in the Legislature, and these were a unit, and we succeeded in carrying the measure. From that day Nesbitt seemed nearer to me than any other of the Bar in our circuit.

We have been separated over forty years, he remaining in his native State, while I have wandered away to the West. Still that warmth of heart toward him has never died out. And now, when both are on the grave's brink, we meet, not to renew, but to find the old flame burning still. King, Nesbitt, and myself were born in the same county, and our ancestors wors.h.i.+pped at the same church--Old Bethany--and to-day we recalled the fact as we mourned the death of our early friend and compeer at the Bar.

Time has swept on. Our children are gray with years. One by one, all who were at the Bar with us are gone, save two or three, and to-morrow we shall be gone. But the oblivious past has not curtained from memory yet the incidents and the men of that past, and while I may I will bear testimony to these, and to the men who were their chief actors.

Nesbitt justified in his subsequent life all that his friends and the public hoped from him. In every relation of life he has done his duty ably, honestly, and purely. As a member of the Legislature, of Congress, as a judge of the Supreme Court, as a worthy member of the Presbyterian Church, and, above all, as a father, husband, and citizen, he has been good, wise, and faithful. Is not his measure full? Who deserves it more? We were sad to-day. One said, "King is dead." "Yes," answered the other, and we were silent. Memory was busy.

We could not talk. In his office, where yet he wears the harness of the law, surrounded by musty, well-thumbed books, and piles of papers with hard judicial faces, we sat and mused. Perhaps we thought of the past, when those to whom eternity is a reality were with us and joyous. At such times the mind turns quickly back to youth's joys, nor lingers along the vista of intervening time. All of that day will revive, but these memories sadden the heart, and we are fain to think, but not to talk. Perhaps we wondered what were the realizations of the dead. What are they? Who knows, except the dead? Do the dead know?

Unprofitable thought! Faith and hope only buoy the heart, and time brings the end. Well, time has whitened our heads, but not indurated our hearts, and time is now as busy as when in the joyousness of youth we heeded not his flight, and to-morrow may bring us to the grave. Ah!

then we shall know the secret, and we will keep it, as all who have gone before. Oh, what a blessed hope is that which promises that we shall, forgetful of the cares and sorrows of time, meet those whom death has refined, and be happy as they in eternity! But the doubt, and then the fear! But why the fear? We come into time without our knowledge or consent, fulfil a destiny, and without our knowledge or consent die out of time. This is the economy of man's life, and was given him by his Creator. Then why should he fear? If it is wise for him to be born, to live, it is surely wise that he should die, since that is equally a part of his economy. Then why fear? Reason is satisfied, but instinct fears.

Yelverton P. King never removed from the county of his birth, nor abandoned his profession, remaining upon the soil of his nativity and among those with whom he had been reared, maintaining through life the character of an upright man. Many memories are connected with his name. When we were young at the Bar, there were as our a.s.sociates very many who attained eminence as lawyers, and fame as politicians; but these distinctions are not connected with the endearing attributes which make them so cherished in memory--the incidents of social intercourse, the favors, the kindnesses of good neighborhood, the sympathies of young life, the unity of sentiment, the sameness of hopes, little regarded at the moment; but oh! how they were rooting in the heart, to bear, away in the coming time, these fruits of memory, in which is the most of happiness when age whitens the head, and the heart is mellowed with the sorrows of time.

Though all were affectionate and social in their intercourse with each other, yet each had his favorites, because of greater congeniality in nature, more intense sympathies, and more continual intercourse.

Little incidents were of frequent occurrence which drew these continually closer, until friends.h.i.+ps ripened into confidences--some more special favorites of some, and some more general favorites of all. This latter was Y.P. King; and yet this favoritism was never very demonstrative, but perhaps the stronger and more permanent for this.

Such, too, was Nesbitt; the older members of the profession loved him, and those of his own age were unenvious and esteemed him.

Our circuit consisted of seven counties, and the ridings were spring and fall, occupying about two months each term. In each courthouse town was a tavern or two. These houses of entertainment were not then dignified with the sonorous t.i.tle of hotel. The proprietors were usually jolly good fellows, or some staid matronly lady, in black gown and blue cap, and they all looked forward with anxious delight to the coming of court week. Every preparation was made for the judge and lawyers. Beds were aired and the bugs hunted out. Sat.u.r.day previous to the coming Monday was a busy day in setting all things to rights, and the scrubbing-broom was heard in consonance with calls to the servants to be busy and careful, as Sally and Nancy sprang to their work with a will. With garments tucked up to their knees, they splashed the water and suds over the floors, strangers to the cleansing element until then for months ago. A new supply of corn and fodder was arriving from the country; stables and stable lots were undergoing a sc.r.a.ping eminently required for the comfort of decent beasts, who gave their lives in labor to exacting man. The room usually appropriated to the Bench and Bar was a great vagabond-hall, denominated the ball-room, and for this purpose appropriated once or twice a year. Along the bare walls of this mighty dormitory were arranged beds, each usually occupied by a couple of the limbs of the law, and sometimes appropriated to three. If there was not a spare apartment, a bed was provided here for the judge. And if there were no lawyers from Augusta, this one was distinguished by the greatest mountain of feathers in the house. Here a.s.sembled at night the rollicking boys of the Georgia Bar, who here indulged, without restraint, the convivialities for which they were so celebrated. Humor and wit, in anecdotes and repartee, beguiled the hours; and the few old taverns time has spared, could they speak, might narrate more good things their walls have heard, than have ever found record in the _Noctes Ambrosianae_ of the wits of Scrogie.

There are but few now left who have enjoyed a night in one of these old tumble-down rooms, with A.S. Clayton, O.H. Prince, A.B.

Longstreet, and John M. Dooly. Here and there one, old, tottering, and gray, lives to laugh at his memories of those chosen spirits of fun.

Yes, that is the word--fun--for these _ancients_ possessed a fund of mirth-exciting humor, combined with a biting wit, which, in the peregrinations of a long life, I have met nowhere else. Were I to select one of these inns, it would be the old Walton Tavern, in the mean little hamlet of Livingston in Oglethorpe County, or the old house, kept long and indifferently, by that mountain of mortal obesity, Billy Springer, in Sparta, Hanc.o.c.k County. It was here, and when Springer presided over the fried meat and eggs of this venerable home for the weary and hungry, after a night of it, that all were huddled to bed like pigs in a sty.

This bulky Boniface was polite to all, but especially to an Augusta lawyer. Freeman Walker, of that ilk, usually attended this court, and was the great man of the week. A man of splendid abilities and polished manners, dressed and deporting himself like a gentleman, as he was, he shone among the lesser lights which orbed about him, a star of the first magnitude. The choice seat, the choice bed, and choice bits at the table, were ever for Major Walker. Big Billy, with his four hundred and ten pounds of adipose flesh, was always behind Major Walker's chair. He was first served; the choicest pieces of the pig were pointed out, cuts from the back and side bones and breast were hunted from the dish of fried chicken, a famous Georgia dish, for Major Walker. It was a great thing in those days in Georgia, to live in a little town of three thousand inhabitants, and wear _store clothes_. It was this and these which made a Georgia major.