An Unoficial Patriot Part 7

Griffith drew his hand across his face as if he had lost his power to think.

"You can't take _any_ of'em to Indiana, I tell you," said the attorney insistently, and Griffith seemed dazed. Then he began again: "Can't take them!" he exclaimed, in utter dismay.

"That's what I said twice--can't take them--none of them."

"But I shall pay them wages! Surely I can take my own choice of servants into my own household if they are free and I pay them wages I Surely--"

"Surely you _cannot_, I tell you," said the attorney, and added dryly, "not unless you are particularly anxious to run up against the law pretty hard." He reached up and took down a leather-bound volume. He turned the leaves slowly, and Griffith and Katherine looked at each other in dismay. "There it is in black and white. Not a mere law, either--sometimes you can evade a law, if you are willing to risk it; but from the way you both feel about leaving those two free n.i.g.g.e.rs in Virginia, I guess you won't be very good subjects for that sort of thing--thirteenth article of the const.i.tution of the State itself." He drew a pencil mark along one side of the paragraph as Griffith read.

"Oh! you'll find these free states have got mighty little use for n.i.g.g.e.rs. Came here from one of'em myself. Free or not free, they don't want 'em. You see," he said, slowly drawing a line down the other side of the page, "they prohibit you from giving employment to one! Don't propose to have free n.i.g.g.e.r compet.i.tion with their white labor. Can't blame 'em." He shrugged his shoulders.

Griffith began to protest. "But I have read--I thought--"

"Of course you thought--and you've read a lot of spread-eagle stuff, I don't doubt. Talk is one of the cheapest commodities in this world; but when it comes to acts--" he chuckled cynically, "s'pose you had an idea that the border States were just holding out their arms to catch and s.h.i.+eld and nurture and feed with a gold spoon every n.i.g.g.e.r you Southern men were fools enough to set free; but the cold fact is they won't even let you bring them over and pay 'em to work for you! That is one of the charming little differences between theory and practice. They've got the theory and you've had the practice of looking after the n.i.g.g.e.rs! Your end is a d.a.m.ned sight more difficult than theirs, as you'll discover, if you haven't already. Excuse me, I forgot you were a preacher. You don't look much like one." Griffith smiled and bowed. Katherine had gone to the front window, where Mammy and the baby were enjoying the unaccustomed sights of the street. Griffith and the lawyer moved toward them.

"No, sir, your n.i.g.g.e.rs have all got to stay right here in Was.h.i.+ngton and starve or steal. You can't take'em to Indiana, that's mighty certain.

Why, when that Const.i.tution was pa.s.sed only a year or two ago, there wern't but 21,000 voters in the whole blessed State that didn't vote to punish a white man for even giving employment to a free n.i.g.g.e.r. Public sentiment as well as law is _all_ against you. You can't take those n.i.g.g.e.rs to Indiana--that's certain!"

"Dar now! Dar now! wat I done tole you?" exclaimed Mammy. "What I done tole Mos' Grif 'bout all dis foolishness? Mis' Kate, you ain't gwine ter 'low dat is you? Me an' Judy free n.i.g.g.e.rs! _Town_ free n.i.g.g.e.rs wid no fambly!" The tone indicated that no lower depth of degradation and misfortune than this could be thrust upon any human being.

"I's gwine ter keep dis heah baby, den. Who gwine ter take cahr ob her widout me?" The child was patting the black face and pulling the black ear in a gleeful effort to call forth the usual snort and threat to "swaller her whole."

"Bless yoah hawt, honey, yoh ain't gwine t' hab no odder nus, is yo'?

Nus! Nus! White trash t' nus my baby! Yoh des gwine ter hab yoh ole mammy, dat's wat!"

The attorney took Mr. Davenport and Katherine to an inner office. It was two hours later when they came out. Both were pale and half dazed, but arrangements had been made, papers had been drawn, by which the nine oldest negroes were, in future, to appear at this office once every three months and draw the sum of twenty-four dollars each, so long as they might live. The younger ones must hereafter s.h.i.+ft, as best they could, for themselves. The die was cast. The bridges were burned behind them. There was no return, and the negroes were indeed, "free, town n.i.g.g.e.rs," henceforth.

"G.o.d forgive me if I have done wrong," said Griffith, as he left the office. "If I have done wrong in deserting these poor black children, for children they will always be, though pensioned as too old to work!

Poor Mammy, Poor Judy! And Mart, and old Peyton!"

He shook his head and compressed his lips as he walked toward the door, with a stoop in his shoulders that was not there when he had entered.

All the facts of this manumission were so wholly at variance with the established theories.

Every thing had been so different from even what Griffith had expected to meet. As they reached the door the attorney took the proffered hand and laughed a little, satirically.

"Now I want you to tell me what good you expect all this to do? What was the use? What is gained? It's clear to a man without a spy-gla.s.s what's _lost_ all around; but it's going to puzzle a prophet to show where the gain comes in, in a case like this. If you'll excuse the remark, sir, it looks like a piece of romantic tom-foolery, to a man up a tree. A kind of tom-foolery, that does harm all around--to black and to white, to bond and to free. Of course if _all_ of 'em were free it would, no doubt, be better. I'm inclined to think that way, myself. But just tell me how many slave-owners--even if they wanted to do it--_could_ do as you have? Simply impossible! Then, besides, where'd they go--the n.i.g.g.e.rs? Pension the whole infernal lot? Gad! but it's the dream of a man who never will wake up to this world, as it is built. And what good _have_ you done? Just stop long enough to tell me that;" he insisted, still holding Griffith's hand. He was smiling down at his client who stood on a lower step. There was in his face a tinge of contempt and of pity for the lack of worldly wisdom.

"I'm not pretending to judge for you nor for other men, Mr. Wapley, but for myself it was wrong to own them. That is all. That is simple, is it not?" The lawyer thought it was, indeed, very, very simple; but to a nature like Griffith's it was all the argument needed. His face was clouded, for the lawyer did not seem satisfied. Griffith could not guess why.

"My conscience troubled me. I am not advising other men to do as I have done. Sometimes I feel almost inclined to advise them _not_ to follow my example if they can feel satisfied not to--the cost is very great--bitterly heavy has the cost been in a thousand ways that no one can ever know but the man who tries it--and this little woman, here." He took her hand and turned to help her into the carriage.

"Ah, Katherine, you have been very brave! The worst has fallen on you, after all--for no sense of imperative duty urged you on. For _my_ sake you have yielded! Her bravery, sir, has been double, and it is almost more than I can bear to ask it--to accept it--of her! For my own sake!

It has been selfish, in a sense, selfish in me."

Katherine smiled through dim eyes and pressed her lips hard together.

She did not trust herself to speak. She bowed to the attorney and turned toward Mammy and the baby as they stood by the carriage door.

"I'm a-goin' wid yoh alls to de hotel, ain't I, Mis' Kath'rine? Dar now, honey, des put yoah foot dar an' in yoh goes! Jerry, can't yoh hol' dem hosses still! Whoa, dar! Whoa! Mos' Beverly, he radder set in front wid Jerry, an' I gwine ter set inside wid de baby, an' yo' alls."

The old woman bustled about and gave orders until they were, at last, at the door of the Metropolitan, where, until other matters were arranged, the family would remain.

Strange as it may seem, to save themselves from the final trial of a heartbreaking farewell, from protests, from the sight of weeping children and excited negroes, three days later Mr. Davenport and his family left by an early train for the west before the negroes, aside from Jerry, knew that they were gone. And in the place of the spectacle of a runaway negro escaping from white owners, the early loungers beheld a runaway white family escaping from the galling bondage of owners.h.i.+p!

CHAPTER IX.

_"One touch of nature."_--Shakespeare.

As time wore on the family had, in some sort, at least, adjusted itself to the new order of things. The dialect of the strapping Irish-woman who presided over the kitchen of the small but comfortable new home, and the no less unaccustomed speech of the natives, themselves, were a never failing source of amus.e.m.e.nt to the children and, indeed, to Griffith himself. His old spirits seemed to return as he would repeat, with his hearty laugh, the village gossip, couched in the village forms of speech.

Each day as he opened his _Cincinnati Gazette_ he would laugh out some bit of town news which he had overheard at the post-office or on his way home. The varying forms of penuriousness exhibited in the dealings between the fanners and the villagers impressed him as most amusing of all. The haggling over a few cents, or the payment of money between neighbors for fruit or milk or services of a nature which he had always looked upon as ordinary neighborly courtesy, filled him with mirth. One day, shortly after their arrival, Beverly had brought his mother a dozen peaches from a neighbor's yard. The boy had supposed when asked if his mother would not like them that they were intended as a present. He thanked the owner heartily and said that he was sure his mother would very greatly enjoy.

"After he gave them to me," the boy said, indignantly, "'Six cents wuth, an' cheap at that!' says he, and held out his hand! Well, I could have fainted! Selling twelve peaches to a neighbor! Why, a mountaineer wouldn't do that! And then he had _asked_ me to take them! I had ten cents in my pocket and I handed it to him and walked off. He yelled something to me about change, but I never looked back."

His father enjoyed the joke, as he called it, immensely. He chuckled over it again and again as he sat in the twilight.

One day late in that summer--the summer of '57--the children were attracted by a great uproar and noise in the street. A group of school children, some street loafers, and a few mature but curious, grown citizens were gathered about an object in the middle of the street.

Hoots and shouts of derision went up. A half-witted girl circled slowly about the outskirts of the crowd making aimless motions and pa.s.ses with her hands toward the object of interest. Voices clashed with voices in an effort to gain coherent sound and sense. Was it a bear or a hand organ? The children ran to see. Beverly followed more slowly. Beverly seemed a young man now, so sedate and dignified was this oldest son.

"What is it?"

"Look out there! Look out there! It's going that way!"

"What? What you say? Who?"

"Who is Mosgrif? No man by that name don't live here."

"n.i.g.g.e.r, n.i.g.g.e.r, pull a trigger, never grow an inch a bigger!"

"Get her some soap! Let's take her and give her a was.h.!.+"

"What? Who? Shut up your noise there, will you, Dave Benton. She's askin' fer somebody--some feller she knows. Who?"

There was a pause in the progress of the procession as it reached Mr.

Davenport's side gate. Beverly was craning his neck to see over the heads of the crowd. His two brothers took a surer method. They dodged under arms and between legs and were making straight for the center of the crowd where they had heard an accustomed voice.

"What I axes yo' alls is, whah's my Mos' Grif! Dey done tole me down yander dat he lib down dis a-way. Whah's my Mos' Grif's house? I got ter fine my Mos' Grif!"

"Aunt Judy! Aunt Judy!" shrieked the two younger boys, in mad delight.

"It's Aunt Judy! Oh, Beverly, come quick! She's hurt! She's been struck with a rock! Come quick--quick!"

LeRoy had reached the old woman, who began to tremble and cry as soon as she felt that friends were indeed near. She threw her arms about his neck and half-sobbed with joy. Then she tried to pick up the younger boy in her arms, as of old, but her strength gave way, and she fell on her knees beside her bundle and stick. A laughing shout went up. Dave Benton s.h.i.+ed a small stone at her.

"How dare you! How dare you! you common loafers!" shrieked LeRoy, white with rage. He struck out with both fists at those who were nearest. "How dare you throw at Aunt Judy! How dare you, you low-down--!"

Words failed him, and he was choking with rage, but both fists were finding a mark on the visage of the prostrate Dave. His fists and the astonishment felt at the sight of white children caressing and calling the old black creature "aunty" had served to clear a s.p.a.ce about them.