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<TITLE>On The Old Plantation: Reminiscences of His Childhood:

Electronic Edition.</TITLE><AUTHOR>John George Clinkscales (1855-1942)</AUTHOR>

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<PUBPLACE>University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, </PUBPLACE><DATE>1997.</DATE>

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<NOTESSTMT><NOTE>Call number F273 .C64 1916 (Davis

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<TITLE>On the Old Plantation: Reminiscences of His Childhood

</TITLE><AUTHOR>John George Clinkscales</AUTHOR><IMPRINT><PUBPLACE>Spartanburg, S.C.</PUBPLACE><PUBLISHER>Band &amp; White</PUBLISHER>

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<ITEM>Clinkscales, J. G. (John George), 1855-1942 -- Childhood and
youth.</ITEM>

<ITEM>Plantation life -- South Carolina -- History -- 19th centur</ITEM>

<ITEM>Slavery -- South Carolina.</ITEM>

<ITEM>South Carolina -- Social life and customs.</ITEM>

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<TEXT>

<FRONT>

<TITLEPAGE><TITLEPART><EMPH REND="bold">On The Old Plantation</EMPH></TITLEPART>

<TITLEPART>REMINISCENCES OF HIS CHILDHOOD</TITLEPART>

<BYLINE>by</BYLINE>

<DOCAUTHOR>J.G. CLINKSCALES</DOCAUTHOR>

<DOCAUTHOR>Author of

&ldquo;HOW ZACH CAME TO COLLEGE&rdquo;</DOCAUTHOR>

<DOCIMPRINT><PUBPLACE>Spartanburg, South Carolina</PUBPLACE>

<PUBLISHER>Band &amp; White Publishers</PUBLISHER>

<DOCDATE>1916</DOCDATE>

</DOCIMPRINT>

<TITLEPART>COPYRIGHTED

<NAME>BY J. G. CLINKSCALES</NAME>

<DATE>1916</DATE></TITLEPART></TITLEPAGE>

<DIV1 TYPE="dedication">

<HEAD><EMPH>DEDICATION</EMPH></HEAD>

<P>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.</P>

<CLOSER><SIGNED>J. G. C.</SIGNED></CLOSER></DIV1>

<DIV1><HEAD><EMPH REND="bold">CONTENTS</EMPH></HEAD>

<LIST>

<ITEM>CHAPTER I

</ITEM>

<ITEM>&ldquo;Unc' Essick&rdquo; - A Nobleman in Black . . . . <REF TARGET="clinksc7">7</REF></ITEM>

<ITEM>CHAPTER II</ITEM>

<ITEM>Dick - A Cripple Slave Boy . . . . <REF TARGET="clinksc37">37</REF></ITEM>

<ITEM>CHAPTER III</ITEM>

<ITEM>Christmas and the Moving Picture . . . . <REF TARGET="clinksc52">52</REF></ITEM>

<ITEM>CHAPTER IV</ITEM>

<ITEM>First Trading Expedition . . . . <REF TARGET="clinksc59">59</REF></ITEM>

<ITEM>CHAPTER V</ITEM>

<ITEM>The Eel and the Skeleton . . . . <REF TARGET="clinksc73">73</REF></ITEM>

<ITEM>CHAPTER VI</ITEM>

<ITEM>The Little Mountain School . . . . <REF TARGET="clinksc78">78</REF></ITEM>

<ITEM>CHAPTER VII</ITEM>

<ITEM>&ldquo;De Baby&rdquo; . . . . <REF TARGET="clinksc98">98</REF></ITEM>

<ITEM>CHAPTER VIII</ITEM>

<ITEM>&ldquo;A Whole Plug O'Manifac&rdquo; . . . . <REF TARGET="clinksc136">136</REF></ITEM>

</LIST>

</DIV1>

<DIV1 TYPE="preface"><HEAD><EMPH REND="bold">FOREWORD</EMPH></HEAD>

<P>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.</P>

<P>Too many of our young people know of the institution
of slavery only what they've learned from

&ldquo;Uncle Tom's Cabin.&rdquo; Knowing only the negro who
has grown up since the Civil War, and knowing nothing
whatever of &ldquo;de ole-time slav'ry nigger,&rdquo; they
cannot have a correct idea of &ldquo;a civilization that is
gone.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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. </P>

<CLOSER><SIGNED>J.G.C.</SIGNED>

<DATELINE><NAME><HI REND="italics">Wofford College,</HI></NAME> <DATE><HI REND="italics">March 30, 1916</HI></DATE></DATELINE></CLOSER>

</DIV1>

</FRONT>

<BODY>

<PB ID="clinksc7" N="7"><DIV1 TYPE="main">

<HEAD><EMPH REND="bold">On The Old Plantation</EMPH></HEAD>

<DIV2 TYPE="chapter"><HEAD>CHAPTER I</HEAD>

<HEAD>&ldquo;UNC' ESSICK,&rdquo; A NOBLEMAN IN BLACK</HEAD>

<DIV3 TYPE="subchapter">

<P>ESSEX was his name, but to all the children on the
plantation he was &ldquo;Unc' Essick.&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>As far back as I can remember, Unc' Essick was
my father's foreman, general director - &ldquo;right-hand
man.&rdquo; On many of the Southern plantations the foreman
was called &ldquo;The Driver,&rdquo; 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

<PB ID="clinksc8" N="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.</P>

<P>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 &ldquo;large
slave-owners,&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>My father's plantation, &ldquo;Broadway,&rdquo; 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

<PB ID="clinksc9" N="9">

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

<P>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: &ldquo;Yas, suh, Boss; yas, suh, I's a ole-time
slav'ry nigger.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Those of us who know the &ldquo;ole-time slav'ry nigger&rdquo;
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.</P></DIV3>

<DIV3>

<HEAD>I</HEAD><P>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.</P>

<P>From our mother and from the old negroes &ldquo;at

<PB ID="clinksc10" N="10">

the quarter&rdquo; - among the cabins - we learned the story
of Unc' Essick's early life. In his young manhood he
had been a &ldquo;runaway nigger.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;runaway
nigger&rdquo;. 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 &ldquo;runaway nigger&rdquo;, 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 &ldquo;runaway nigger.&rdquo; I would
not rest, however, until mother had told me everything
about my hero's checkered career.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc11" N="11">

the negroes as of inferior grade, and the owner thereof
as but slightly removed from the &ldquo;po' buckra&rdquo; 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. </P>

<P>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 &ldquo;tenter&rdquo; kept open
house, and not a few Georgians crossed over the

Savannah to &ldquo;get religion&rdquo; 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

<PB ID="clinksc12" N="12">

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

<P>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 &ldquo;cake-walks,&rdquo; 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

&ldquo;po' white trash&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;I don't mind
camp meetin', ef dey des let me play my fiddle.&rdquo; 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:

&ldquo;Dis is de judgment ob de Lord; I'll nuver tech dat
fiddle ag'in.&rdquo; And he didn't. Other things he would
do - curse, fight, and drink; but play the fiddle - never.</P>

<P>Late one evening, about &ldquo;feed time,&rdquo; 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

<PB ID="clinksc13" N="13">

of the ring, but just old-fashioned &ldquo;fist and skull,&rdquo;
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. </P>

<P>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

<FOREIGN LANG="LAT"><HI REND="italics">sine qua non.</HI></FOREIGN> 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 &ldquo;dead
game.&rdquo; </P>

<P>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, &ldquo;Stop that fighting!&rdquo; the
two combatants lowered their arms, stepped apart, and
stood facing each other like two great wild boars ready
for a death-struggle.</P><P>&ldquo;What does this mean?&rdquo; demanded the master.</P>

<P>Essex was the first to speak, while Griffin simply
showed his pearly teeth.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Dis nigger want my gal, Marster, en 'e kyah git

'er,&rdquo; said Essex, snapping his heavy jaws with bitter
defiance.</P>

<PB ID="clinksc14" N="14">

<P>&ldquo;Dat a lie, Marster,&rdquo; growled Griffin; &ldquo;she' my
gal.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Who is it you are talking about, Essex?&rdquo; asked
my father.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Hit Cindy, suh, Little Cindy.&rdquo;</P>

<P>There were two Cindys on the plantation - Big

Cindy and Little Cindy.</P>

<P>Turning to a young girl who had been a witness to
the fight, my father said: &ldquo;Go tell Little Cindy to come
here.&rdquo;</P>

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

<P>&ldquo;Cindy,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;these boys have been
fighting about you - now which do you want?&rdquo;</P>

<P>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: &ldquo;I wants de one whut kin
whup; I want de bes' man. Dat whut I tell 'em.&rdquo;</P>

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

<P>&ldquo;You know I do not allow the folks to fight,

Cindy,&rdquo; said my father. &ldquo;Now, Essex and Griffin shall
not fight any more, but you may make choice between
them: which one will you take?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Well den, I'll tek Griffin,&rdquo; said Cindy, twisting her
fingers together and blushing a blush that was

<PB ID="clinksc15" N="15">

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

Africa.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Now then,&rdquo; said my father, &ldquo;Cindy has settled
this question, boys; let that decision be final - we must
have no more fighting.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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, &ldquo;I'll tek Griffin.&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>What did Griffin do? Well, not exactly what one
would expect to see the fortunate lover in the

&ldquo;movies&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Dat whut I tell dat nigger,

Marster. Cindy love me. Dat whut make me fight

Essick so hard.&rdquo;</P>

<P>The matter settled, my father made his way back
to &ldquo;De Big 'Ouse,&rdquo; where he related the whole affair

<PB ID="clinksc16" N="16">

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

<P>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: &ldquo;Never mind, my son; after a
while you will be old enough to know that slavery
has its tragedies.&rdquo;</P> </DIV3>

<DIV3><HEAD>II</HEAD>

<P>Essex did not respond to roll-call the next morning
when the big farm bell called the &ldquo;hands&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

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

<P>Essex had not blown out his brains, like some rejected
lovers do, but had &ldquo;jined the bird gang&rdquo; sure

<PB ID="clinksc17" N="17">

enough, and was not seen again on the plantation for
three long years - Essex was now a &ldquo;runaway nigger.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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 &ldquo;nigger dogs,&rdquo; Essex,
like the shrewd old buck of the forest in which he

<PB ID="clinksc18" N="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.</P>

<P>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 &ldquo;pone
of bread&rdquo; for him occasionally, and regularly washed
and mended his scanty supply of clothing.</P>

<P>The position of the runaway was unique. His

<PB ID="clinksc19" N="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

&ldquo;nigger dogs,&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>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 &ldquo;Georgia gal,&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>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. </P>

<PB ID="clinksc20" N="20">

<P>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.</P>

<P>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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: &ldquo;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?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;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'?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;No, Essex; Cindy is dead, and Griffin has married
again.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Gawd, Marster! Is Little Cindy dade?&rdquo; - and

<PB ID="clinksc21" N="21">

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

<P>&ldquo;Yes, Cindy is dead.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;She was a good gal, Marster; I loved dat 'oman.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Then the two men, master and slave, rode many
miles without a word.</P>

<P>When the second day out from Augusta, and they
were within a few miles of home, the black man said
to his owner: &ldquo;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'.&rdquo;</P>

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

<P>&ldquo;Fo' Gawd, Marster, I tellin' de trufe.&rdquo;</P>

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

<P>&ldquo;Now, Essex,&rdquo; said father, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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. </P></DIV3>

<PB ID="clinksc22" N="22">

<DIV3><HEAD>III</HEAD>

<P>Essex redeemed his pledge. He developed into

&ldquo;de bes' nigger on de place&rdquo;; 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 &ldquo;Unc' Essick.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc23" N="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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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: &ldquo;Nuver min', honey, nuver min'; don'

<PB ID="clinksc24" N="24">

you know if dat big gun bodder dis chile, Unc' Essick
chew it up an' spit it out on de groun'?&rdquo;</P>

<P>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, &ldquo;Now, Essex, take care of the
baby?&rdquo; Yes; Unc' Essick would have died that day
for Missus's baby. And the baby knew it, and Missus
knew it.</P>

<P>That evening, when the day's excitement was over
and we were nearing home, Unc' Essick said to my
father: &ldquo;Marster, who gwine fight? I hear dem
ge'men talk 'bout war, en fight, en blood - whut dey mean?

Do dey shoot one nudder?&rdquo; He really understood
but little more of what he heard than the child
that sat upon his knee.</P>

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

<P>&ldquo;Does dey stan' up en shoot one nu'er, Marster?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Oh, yes; and thousands are killed in war, Essex.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

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

<PB ID="clinksc25" N="25">

a broad smile. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I guess you came as
near flying as a man ever did.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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: &ldquo;Gentlemen, it's a
mistake - a terrible mistake - and the South will regret
the day she brings on war.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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: &ldquo;Essex, do watch him

<PB ID="clinksc26" N="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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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: &ldquo;Missus, dis chile
sholy will git kilt ef he don't stop foolin' wid dat
hoss.&rdquo; And the day I slipped off the pole while &ldquo;skinning
the cat&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Fo' Gawd, Missus,
whut I'm gwine do wid dis chile? De debil heself
kyah keep up wid him.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc27" N="27">

heinous in the South in those days than &ldquo;nigger stealing&rdquo;;
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 &ldquo;Fox's Den.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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:

&ldquo;Unc' Essick, who made this rock?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Unc' Essick,&rdquo; I persisted, &ldquo;where is God?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Good Gawd, honey, whut matter'd you? Dey
tell me Gawd live eb'rywhar. Miss Marthy tell me

Gawd inside you.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Miss Marthy,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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

<PB ID="clinksc28" N="28">

fight. No, no, honey, de debil stay in dat kine. He
mean; he love folks whut cuss, en steal, en fight.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Unc' Essick, I wish I could see Jesus.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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?</P>

<P>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.</P>

<PB ID="clinksc29" N="29">

<P>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 &ldquo;ge'man&rdquo; to be unable to shoot accurately, ride
well, and swim with ease.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>Father called for Unc' Essick. &ldquo;Essex,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;</P>

<P>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: &ldquo;Gawd bless

<PB ID="clinksc30" N="30">

you, Marster; ef Gawd spar me, I'll tek kere Missus
an' dese chillun. Gawd knows I will.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

</DIV3>

<DIV3>

<HEAD>IV</HEAD>

<P>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.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Essex,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I'm afraid Sherman's army
will take everything we've got. What shall we do?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Do you think you can hide my silver so they
can't find it?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<PB ID="clinksc31" N="31">

<P>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:

&ldquo;Why, Missus, didn't I promise Marster I would tek
kere you en de chillun?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yes, you did, Essex, and I know you'll do it; when
do you want the silver?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Missus,&rdquo; Unc' Essick said to mother, &ldquo;dem

'lasses in de bar' - I kin fill all dem jugs an' hide 'em
so Marse Sherman kyah nuver find 'em.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;All right, Essex; hide just what you please -
molasses, meat, everything.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Marse Sherman&rdquo; had no chance at &ldquo;dem

<PB ID="clinksc32" N="32">

'lasses&rdquo;; 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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>Pointing her finger at the man, the courageous little

<PB ID="clinksc33" N="33">

woman said with considerable feeling: &ldquo;You are
no gentleman, sir; you are a disgrace to the uniform
you wear.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;You go to hell!&rdquo; was the insolent retort.</P>

<P>Unc' Essick saw and heard what happened.

&ldquo;Missus,&rdquo; he said, when they were gone, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

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

<P>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.</P>

<P>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, &ldquo;Now, baby, you hole tight 'round my
neck,&rdquo; 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

<PB ID="clinksc34" N="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.</P>

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

<P>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 &ldquo;Missus an' de chillun.&rdquo;</P> </DIV3>

<DIV3>

<HEAD>V</HEAD>

<P>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 &ldquo;to the four winds.&rdquo; Some of them

I kept up with for a few years, Unc' Essick in particular.

<PB ID="clinksc35" N="35">

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

<P>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.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Dey dade, suh,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;en dem whut ain't
dade, dun scattered.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;And Unc' Essick, Mack; can you tell me what
became of Unc' Essick?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Unc' Essick dade, suh, long ago; he git drownded.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;What, Unc' Essick drowned, and he the best
swimmer in the county?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yes, suh, he git drownded; I seed him; I he'p
git 'im out. He tuk de cramp.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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 &ldquo;fidelity in one's lot&rdquo; 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,

<PB ID="clinksc36" N="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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

</DIV3>

</DIV2>

<PB ID="clinksc37" N="37">

<DIV2><HEAD>CHAPTER II</HEAD>

<HEAD>DICK, THE SLAVE BOY</HEAD>

<P>&ldquo;WHAT is your name, young man?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Richard Harris, suh, but dey calls me Dick,&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yas, suh, dey calls me Dick,&rdquo; continued the boy;

&ldquo;he say&rdquo; - nodding his head toward the &ldquo;drover&rdquo;
now at the other end of the line - &ldquo;he say Richard
too long name fur a nigger.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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, &ldquo;Come
with me, my boy,&rdquo; 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

<PB ID="clinksc38" N="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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Where did you come from, Dick?&rdquo; he was
asked.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Furginny, suh; us come fum Furginny,&rdquo; was the
prompt reply.</P>

<P>&ldquo;What was your owner's name?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Who dat, suh?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Your master, what was his name?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;O yes, suh, he name Marse John Harris; dat what
he name.&rdquo;</P>

<P>

</P><P>&ldquo;What was your daddy's name?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Me ain' had no daddy, suh; mammy say me ain'

gut no daddy - she say she des find me.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;What made your master sell you?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;My mammy die, suh, en Marse John say 'e do an
need me no mo'; en 'e sell me.&rdquo;</P>

<P>My father was sorry for the little fellow, and said
to him:</P>

<PB ID="clinksc39" N="39">

<P>&ldquo;Well, Dick, I'm taking you to a good home; if
you will be good, you will never be sold again.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yas, suh, I'll be good; I'll be smart, suh.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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 &ldquo;fill the bill.&rdquo;</P>

<P>The next morning Dick was installed as houseboy,
general utility servant. And though so young,
the little negro was so bright and quick and &ldquo;smart,&rdquo;
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.</P>

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

<P>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 &ldquo;field-hand.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Some gentleman from Georgia tried to buy the

<PB ID="clinksc40" N="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.</P>

<P>One of them was so struck with the intelligence of
the boy that &ldquo;waited on&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Dick belongs to my wife, and I know you can't
get him,&rdquo; was the reply he got.</P>

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

<P>&ldquo;Why, that boy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;is worth more to me
than half the negroes on the plantation. You can't buy

Dick, sir.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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, &ldquo;I'll give you three thousand dollars
for Dick.&rdquo;</P>

<P>My mother looked at him in amazement, and, with
considerable feeling, said: &ldquo;Sir, I told you you could

<PB ID="clinksc41" N="41">

not get Dick; now I want to tell you there is not
enough money in Georgia to buy that boy!&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc42" N="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.</P>

<P>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 &ldquo;boss of the pickaninnies.&rdquo;

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

<PB ID="clinksc43" N="43">

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

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

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

<PB ID="clinksc44" N="44">

&ldquo;Miss Sallie, please ma'm, will you tell me whut them
marks is on the wagon body?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Why, Dick, those are the names of the men who
made the wagon. Gower and Markley are <SIC>waggon</SIC> and
buggy makers. Their shop is in Greenville, South

Carolina.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yas, ma'm, thanky, ma'm; I dun make 'em on
de groun'.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>Unwittingly, she gave Dick the very key he so
much needed. Over and over he repeated the words,

<HI REND="italics">Gower and Markley</HI>, and again and again he sounded
each letter. Neither the name nor the sound of a single
letter in those three words escaped him.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc45" N="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.</P>

<P>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:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Miss Jennie, will you please ma'm tell we whut
this is?&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>So &ldquo;Miss Jennie&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc46" N="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 &ldquo;dog-eared&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;joy forever.&rdquo;</P>

<P>When my mother learned that Dick could read, she
said: &ldquo;Poor fellow! I do not know how he learned
to read, but now he shall have access to the best books
in the library.&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;lined out&rdquo; the
hymns, and then all sang with genuine pleasure.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc47" N="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

&ldquo;The Cotter's Saturday Night.&rdquo; Tales of adventure
appealed very strongly to him, and Cooper's
novels he read over and over again.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc48" N="48">
failed to make allowance for the fact that he was a
full-grown man in years; I, but a child.</P>

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

<P>I remember the fun we had trying to parse John's
cap. &ldquo;John's is a proper noun, masculine gender,
third person, singular number, possessive case, and
governed by cap, according to Rule First: &lsquo;The
possessive case is governed by the following noun.&rsquo;&rdquo;</P>

<P>I said: &ldquo;Dick, I don't understand that. I don't see
how John is governed by his cap - I'm not governed by
mine.&rdquo;</P>

<P>With a tantalizing chuckle, Dick replied: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>In further illustration of the meaning of case, Mr.

Smith said: &ldquo;If we say of a horse, he is fat, he is in a
good case; if lean, he is in a bad case.&rdquo; This we both
accepted without protest; we knew horses, and
thought we understood perfectly.</P>

<P>One Friday afternoon, the teacher said to my class:

&ldquo;Now, I want each of you to bring me Monday

<PB ID="clinksc49" N="49">
morning a composition. Write on the subject of

<HI REND="italics">Perseverance</HI>.&rdquo; That seemed to me the culmination
of all my troubles. I knew nothing of perseverance,
and had no idea what she meant by &ldquo;composition.&rdquo; But to my
friend who never failed me I went as soon as I got
home.</P>

<P>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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

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

<PB ID="clinksc50" N="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.</P>

<P>After the Civil War, the negroes were scattered

&ldquo;to the four winds.&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc51" N="51">
of humor was very fine and his power of interpretation
was simply marvelous.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

</DIV2>

<PB ID="clinksc52" N="52"><DIV2 TYPE="chapter"><HEAD>CHAPTER III</HEAD>

<HEAD>CHRISTMAS AND THE MOVING PICTURE</HEAD>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<PB ID="clinksc53" N="53">

<P>I am thinking, too, of the partner of my childish
joys. My little sister Ellen - I called her &ldquo;Rat,&rdquo; but to
all the others she was &ldquo;the baby&rdquo; - was as anxious
to see &ldquo;Old Sandy&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;I'll stay wake wid oo' Bud-John,
and watch for Old Sandy,&rdquo; she left me to do the
watching all by myself.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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, &ldquo;O, Bud-John, don't
do that!&rdquo; 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

<PB ID="clinksc54" N="54">
to make them fight. She didn't say, &ldquo;I'll tell
mama.&rdquo; 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:</P>

<P>&ldquo;O, please, Bud-John, don't do that; don't hurt
my kitty.&rdquo;</P>

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

<P>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, &ldquo;Oo bad old boy.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc55" N="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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>Around the faithful black man I danced in perfect
glee while he made and ironed the body. And when
we went off to the &ldquo;river bottom&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc56" N="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.</P>

<P>I didn't care for the painted wagon any more.

&ldquo;Old Sandy&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;a thing
of beauty and a joy forever.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;de baby,&rdquo; the little queen, who rode in
the luxurious chariot.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<PB ID="clinksc57" N="57">

<P>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.</P>

<P>Mother had no objection to our working the calves,
but it certainly did spoil baby's fun. For mother
said: &ldquo;Mark you, young man, don't put little sister
in that wagon while you have the calves hitched to it.&rdquo;

I said &ldquo;yes 'um,&rdquo; and the baby looked sad. The
children didn't know the danger, but wise, prudent
mother did.</P>

<P>When mother meant to be quite positive, she
sometimes addressed me as &ldquo;young man.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;the baby&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc58" N="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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

</DIV2>

<PB ID="clinksc59" N="59"><DIV2 TYPE="chapter"><HEAD>CHAPTER IV</HEAD>

<HEAD>FIRST TRADING EXPEDITION</HEAD>

<P>FIRST and last, every calf in that pasture was

&ldquo;tried out.&rdquo; Some of them were found to be tame
and lifeless; others were full of spirit, and tried our
mettle as we tried theirs.</P>

<P>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 <FOREIGN LANG="FR"><HI REND="italics">qui vive</HI></FOREIGN>. More
than once they ran away with us and tore things to
pieces, but that just whetted our appetite for other
tests of strength.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc60" N="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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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,

<PB ID="clinksc61" N="61">

we did the &ldquo;milling,&rdquo; hauled the wood - well, the
oximobile was constantly on the go.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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 &ldquo;bed.&rdquo;</P>

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

<PB ID="clinksc62" N="62">

Anxious always to encourage her children in earnest,
honest effort, she said to me:</P>

<P>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>One lovely day in the spring, Mother asked if I
thought Jack and I could take some peas to &ldquo;town&rdquo;
and sell them.</P>

<P>I assured her that we could and was anxious to
make the trip.</P>

<P>&ldquo;We need some salt,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;and I would like
so much to get some coffee.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc63" N="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.</P>

<P>We made the trip to &ldquo;town,&rdquo; 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.</P>

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

<P>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. &ldquo;Sell all these things if you can,&rdquo; she said,

&ldquo;and after you get the salt and coffee, you may buy a
dime's worth of candy.&rdquo;</P>

<PB ID="clinksc64" N="64">

<P>I hadn't seen or tasted real &ldquo;store candy&rdquo; since
the War began. The very thought of it made me
supremely happy.</P>

<P>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:</P>

<P>&ldquo;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?&rdquo;</P>

<P>I struck that bargain instanter.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc65" N="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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<PB ID="clinksc66" N="66">

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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 &ldquo;hands&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc67" N="67">
much tugging and rolling and pulling and sweating,
we won out.</P>

<P>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: &ldquo;Mama's little man; God bless you, my
son.&rdquo;</P>

<P>And I was happy.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>My sisters were indignant. One of them stood
up and stamped her foot and said: &ldquo;If I had that
rascal, I'd - &rdquo; Mother stopped her. The baby cried.

The dear child could not understand why any boy

<PB ID="clinksc68" N="68">
could be mean enough to make fun of her &ldquo;Bud-John.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Mama, I'll kill that boy some day,&rdquo; I said.</P>

<P>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>That night my mother shook me. When I awoke, I
was in a tremble.</P>

<P>&ldquo;What's the matter, son?&rdquo; she said.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Mama, that boy called me a liar, and I busted
his nose.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;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.&rdquo; And
she put her head on my pillow until I slept and
smiled and dreamed of Dick and the incident at Little's

Hill.</P>

<P>The next day Dick and Jack and I were planning
for another trip to &ldquo;town&rdquo; pretty soon. When we
had agreed upon the plan to be submitted by me to

Mother, Jack brought out the steers to curry them.</P>

<P>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:</P>

<P>&ldquo;I bet you can't ride Buck with a spur.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;I bet I kin,&rdquo; he said.</P>

<P>I ran into the house and brought out a rusty old

<PB ID="clinksc69" N="69">
spur I had found in the &ldquo;lumber room.&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>&ldquo;You jess buckle dat on my foot, en I'll show you

I kin ride 'im wid a spur.&rdquo;</P>

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

<P>&ldquo;Now, Jack, you will have to put it in him good
and strong if you want to wake him up.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Oh, I'll wake 'im up.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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, &ldquo;Put it to him!&rdquo;</P>

<P>He did.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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,

<PB ID="clinksc70" N="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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>&ldquo;What's the matter, Jack?&rdquo; I asked.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Nuttin; I des lookin' fur dat toof what drap out
my mout - 'fo' Gawd, dat cow laken kill me.&rdquo;</P>

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

<P>&ldquo;My son, what in the world does all this mean?&rdquo;</P>

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

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

<P>&ldquo;My son, my son, my son!&rdquo;</P>

<P>But I saw that smile and knew I was safe.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>The negroes reported that they could not keep the

<PB ID="clinksc71" N="71">
cows out of the corn, and Lindsay proposed that we
break the bull to the yoke, and thus keep him out of
mischief.</P>

<P>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 &ldquo;turning the yoke.&rdquo; Now let the youthful reader
ask his father what &ldquo;turning the yoke&rdquo; means.</P>

<P>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.</P>

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

<P>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.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc72" N="72">
determined to keep as far from him as possible the end
of the bull that carried horns on it.</P>

<P>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.</P>

</DIV2>

<PB ID="clinksc73" N="73">

<DIV2 TYPE="chapter"><HEAD>CHAPTER V</HEAD>

<HEAD>THE EEL AND THE SKELETON</HEAD>

<P>I THINK it was old Ben Johnson who said: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

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

<PB ID="clinksc74" N="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.</P>

<P>Monday at school I had fun telling the boys about

George's frolic with the eel - about the new &ldquo;tooth
hold&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>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:</P>

<PB ID="clinksc75" N="75">

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

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

<P>&ldquo;Lawdy, boys, looker there!&rdquo;</P>

<P>Dr. Stiefer had carried his negro into that thicket,

<PB ID="clinksc76" N="76">
boiled all the flesh off his bones, and mounted the
skeleton.</P>

<P>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, &ldquo;O Lawdy, wait for me!&rdquo;
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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>After living over much of the dear departed past,

I said to him:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Joe, do you remember our experience with the

June apples and the skeleton?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Remember it? I can see that nigger now, and
hear George grunt. Great Lord! didn't old George
paw up the earth that day?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Now, Joe, tell me honest, what clothes did you
have on when you got out of those pines?&rdquo;</P>

<PB ID="clinksc77" N="77">

<P>&ldquo;Well, John, I'll tell you, to the best of my recollection,

I had on just one sock and a collar.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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. </P>

</DIV2>

<PB ID="clinksc78" N="78"><DIV2>

<HEAD>CHAPTER VI</HEAD>

<HEAD>THE LITTLE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL</HEAD>

<DIV3><P>THAT was a great school - great in more respects
than one. It was great in purpose, great in discipline,
and great in <SIC>achivement</SIC> when we consider the utter
absence of facilities.</P>

<P>The teacher was a young lady of doubtful or questionable
age (I never use the words, &ldquo;old maid&rdquo;);
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 &ldquo;got his goat.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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,

<PB ID="clinksc79" N="79">
at recess, he said to the teacher: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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 &ldquo;Miss Pendulum,&rdquo; as Gus called her,
went in to win, and she did win. She was Irish to
the core, and showed it without any hesitation.</P>

<P>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.)</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc80" N="80">

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

<P>I had no desire to stand &ldquo;head&rdquo; - I only wanted
to be next to Annie. If Annie was head, I was perfectly
happy in second place; if Annie was next to

&ldquo;foot,&rdquo; 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.</P>

<P>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:</P>

<LG TYPE="poem"><L>ab ba</L>

<L>eb ca</L>

<L>ib da</L>

<L>ob la</L></LG>

<P>Then,</P> <LG><L>cat</L>

<L>rat</L>

<L>mat</L>

<L>fat</L></LG>

<P>And then,</P> <LG><L>rock</L>

<L>mock</L>

<L>sock</L>

<L>tock</L></LG>

<P>With such exercises as these, we moved along
rather lively till we reached <HI REND="italics">baker</HI>. That had been the
goal toward which our faces were set. After that,

<PB ID="clinksc81" N="81">
came <HI REND="italics">ambition</HI> and long columns of words ending in

<HI REND="italics">tion</HI> and <HI REND="italics">sion</HI>.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>I shall never forget when the first day we were
called by the teacher to &ldquo;say your lesson.&rdquo; Standing
around her, she said, pointing with her pencil to the
first letter, &ldquo;Johnnie, what's that?&rdquo;</P>

<P>I said, &ldquo;I don't know, m'm.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;That's <HI REND="italics">a</HI>.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yas, m'm.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;But you say <HI REND="italics">a</HI>.&rdquo;</P>

<P>I said &ldquo;<HI REND="italics">a</HI>.&rdquo;</P>

<P>And so the lesson proceeded until Miss Pendle
thought she had kept us long enough. Then she said,

&ldquo;Now, you children sit down and study your lesson.&rdquo;

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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<PB ID="clinksc82" N="82">

<P>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.</P>

<P>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.</P>

<P>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: &ldquo;Sick 'im,

Tige!&rdquo;</P>

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

<P>&ldquo;Come here to me, sir!&rdquo; commanded the teacher,
and her voice cracked like a whip.</P>

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

<P>&ldquo;What do you mean, sir?&rdquo; asked the teacher,
reaching back for one of the long, ugly switches.</P>

<P>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

<PB ID="clinksc83" N="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 &ldquo;Tige.&rdquo;</P>

<P>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 &ldquo;say a speech.&rdquo; Every one of us must

&ldquo;speak a piece.&rdquo; The next week there was a great
stir among the boys and girls selecting and committing
to memory their &ldquo;pieces.&rdquo;</P>

<P>My piece was thoroughly committed, but all week

I was very nervous. The very thought of the approaching
ordeal made me weak in the knees. Friday
afternoon came, and I was the first boy the teacher
called on for a speech. I didn't know whether my legs
would carry me out on the floor to the spot she
designated or not, but, with a desperate effort, I made
the attempt. I entered the ring marked on the floor
by the teacher, made my bow, which was a short, sharp
jerk of the head, and, instead of delivering my own
speech, started off on one learned by one of the other
boys. I had heard him repeat it so often out of
school I knew it about as well as I knew my own.</P>

<P>That blunder ruined me. The boys laughed, the
teacher frowned, I bit my lip, cleared my throat, stammered,

<PB ID="clinksc84" N="84">
finally started on my own, forgot it after repeating
one line, burst into tears and ran to my seat.</P>

<P>That was a terrible ordeal. My humiliation and
suffering were something fierce. The fact is, no man
can ever know the suffering that failure caused me.

And I am quite sure that grown people do not, can
not, fully sympathize with children in their heartaches.</P>

<P>Every Friday afternoon during that school year I
suffered. I wanted to declaim, was anxious to, but
just couldn't. I would cry in spite of everything I
could do. The other boys spoke their pieces and enjoyed
it. I was humiliated beyond measure because I
couldn't do what the others did. I suffered. Let no
man say that it was an inexcusable weakness. Weakness
it was, to be sure, but one I could not possibly
help. I am now quite sure that my nerves were responsible
for the whole trouble. And I had no way of
getting rid of the nervous affection but by growing
out of it. I was seventeen years old before I could
face an audience with anything like reasonable composure.</P>

<P>I am sure that my mother loved me as tenderly and
devotedly as ever a mother loved her son. I am
equally sure that my recklessness during those years
caused her many a heartache, for which I have many
a time asked forgiveness.</P>

<P>Mother was ambitious for her son. She wanted
me to speak and speak well; she wanted me to do
well everything the teacher demanded of me. Mother

<PB ID="clinksc85" N="85">
did not understand me. She thought I did not make
the proper effort to overcome the weakness. She
switched me regularly every Friday afternoon for several
weeks when, returning from school, my sisters
reported that I would not speak, or that I spoke but
cried the whole time I was on the floor.</P>

<P>My devoted mother made a mistake, as I have done
in the management of my own children. It was not
whipping that I needed, but pity. One of my sisters
understood me better than anybody else. She begged
for me, and, when mother whipped me, seemed to feel
the punishment as keenly as I did.</P>

<P>Early in his school life, my first-born son manifested
the same weakness. I went at once to his
teacher, told her of my own trying experience, and
asked that the child be excused from that exercise.</P>

<P>Some parent whose son has the same trouble may
read these lines. If so, I beg for the child. Don't
scold or switch him. Encourage him to fight the battle
to a finish. Help him to believe he can and will win
in the end.</P></DIV3>

<DIV3>

<HEAD>II</HEAD>

<P>THE children of today may be surprised to know
that with us the school began in January and ran ten
months, with a vacation of two weeks in July. Now,
it is too hot to study in the summer, but not too hot to
play ball almost incessantly during the long summer
months; then, we were glad enough to get to go

<PB ID="clinksc86" N="86">
school in the summer, and many of the pupils walked
three miles every morning.</P>

<P>When I think of the crowded school room, of the
rough seats, of the writing desk, which was a single
plank fastened to wooden pegs driven into the wall,
of the one fireplace, of the poor accommodations
generally, of the one teacher for fifty pupils, ranging in
age from six to eighteen years - when I think of all
these things and the scarcity of books and the
impossibility of getting more, for that was war times, I
sometimes wonder whether, after all, it was worth
while. Maybe it was, for it is extremely doubtful
whether the well-equipped city schools of today turn
out better spellers or better readers than did those old
schools of long ago.</P>

<P>In the Little Mountain School, our pens were made
of goose quills and our ink of balls from the oak tree.

The last lesson every afternoon was a spelling lesson,
and the book used was Webster's School Dictionary.

Nearly the whole school was in that class, and right
royal times we had. The lesson assigned was one page
of the dictionary, and woe betide the fellow that
missed three words! In that class were some splendid
spellers. We were required to pronounce each syllable as
we spelled it, and when finished pronounce distinctly
the word.</P>

<P>The good spellers were ambitious to stand &ldquo;head&rdquo;;
and sometimes when one got that position, he or she,
oftener she, held it for weeks, those below her watching

<PB ID="clinksc87" N="87">
eagerly for the least slip that they might trip her.

My recollection is that I was &ldquo;most ingenerally&rdquo; near
the other end of the class.</P>

<P>During the winter months, we had great times, at
the noon recess, warming our lunch - we called it
dinner - at the spacious fireplace. Some of us had
long sticks sharpened at the end on which we stuck
our biscuits and meat and pies. Holding them before
the red-hot coals, they were soon warmed and browned
to a crisp. I can see the bacon now as the two ends
bent and twisted and came together. And those pies!

Were there ever better ones made? No connoisseur
ever enjoyed viands more.</P>

<P>Speaking of the dinner hour reminds me of an
unique experience I had. With us at school was

Homer, the son of the quaint old physician who
mounted the skeleton in the pines. The old doctor
was looked upon as a freak, a law unto himself, and
seemed to relish that peculiar distinction. He ate rats
whenever he could get them, and never failed to take
home in his buggy the snake that dared to show himself.

He claimed that few kinds of meat were half so
good as snake steak. And Homer, the son, professed
to be as fond of those rare dishes as his father was.

We tried to shame the boy out of it, but not so; he
stood by his guns. &ldquo;Rat meat is just as good,&rdquo; said
he, &ldquo;as squirrel; and if you ate a piece of rat believing
it squirrel, you could never detect a difference, except
that the flavor of the rat is finer.&rdquo;</P>

<PB ID="clinksc88" N="88">

<P>In those days, it was a custom among us to exchange
courtesies. We invited one another to lunch
with us, sometimes, by way of inducement, venturing
to make known what particular article of food we had
brought for that day. A piece of wild turkey, or

'possum, plate of fish, was considered delicacy
enough to tempt the appetite of the most fastidious
boy or girl in school.</P>

<P>One day Homer invited me to dine with him. I
declined at first, but he was very insistent, declaring
that he had in his basket a part of the finest, fattest
young squirrel he had ever tasted.</P>

<P>I accepted the invitation, and enjoyed my dinner
greatly. Finishing, I assured my host of the great
pleasure afforded me and that, in all my life, I had
never tasted better flavored squirrel.</P>

<P>When we had reassembled on the ball ground,

Homer gathered us all around him and said very
calmly: &ldquo;Now, boys, I want to prove by John that
rat meat is just as good as squirrel. He's had a dinner
of rat.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Well, I was caught. I realized that fully, but for
a minute my emotions were very conflicting. My first
impulse was to light right into Homer and blacken his
eye good, but very quickly I remembered that Homer
had never been licked by any boy in school, though he
had had several scraps. There were among us some
who were stronger than Homer - some who had
bruised and blackened him considerably, but not one

<PB ID="clinksc89" N="89">
had ever made him say &ldquo;nuff.&rdquo; With us, a fellow
was fairly licked when he said &ldquo;nuff.&rdquo; Homer never
had said &ldquo;nuff.&rdquo; That fact was a considerable deterrent,
to be sure, and had not a little to do with
determining my course.</P>

<P>I knew it was &ldquo;up to me&rdquo; to say something, or do
something. I wanted to lick Homer, of course, but
doubted my ability to do that just as I thought it ought
to be done; so I concluded it were better to say something
than do something - better to use my tongue
than my fists.</P>

<P>I acknowledged that I was caught, and declared
boldly that it was a mean trick in Homer, but, notwithstanding
that, I was sure the rat I had eaten for
a young squirrel was as fine as any squirrel I ever
tasted. And it was. I have never changed my mind,
but have never hankered after rat meat since then.</P>

<P>A school is a world within itself. In it the inhabitants
learn to give and take as they must do in the
larger world after school-days are over. Among all
the boys, I had perhaps been the most persistent in
teasing Homer about his rat-eating proclivities. Now
the tables were completely turned. I took my medicine.</P>

<P>I do not think the boys of today enjoy the school
sports as much as we did. They don't get as much
out of their games. All one seems to care for is a bat
and a mitt To become a ball player is the height of
his ambition, and he has no further use for the morning

<PB ID="clinksc90" N="90">
paper after he sees the previous day's record of
his favorite among the pitchers in the big leagues.</P>

<P>In our day, we had no baseball, but town-ball, bullpen,
antney-over, and roly-hole galore. And we had
marbles, jumping, wrestling - we called it &ldquo;raslin&rdquo; -
foot-races, something for every kind of weather.

With us, the game of marbles was a fine art; today,

<FOREIGN LANG="LAT"><HI REND="italics">non est</HI></FOREIGN>.</P>

<P>A while ago I saw some boys playing marbles. The
exhibition was positively pitiable. They played like
babies, or rather like the girls used to play.</P>

<P>What fine fun it was in our day to drive at the &ldquo;middle
man&rdquo; from &ldquo;taw,&rdquo; and how large John

Black looked when he knocked it clear of the ring
seven times in succession. And that day Dave McCullough

&ldquo;busted&rdquo; his &ldquo;taw&rdquo; into two pieces he hit the
middler so hard. Dave was the hero that day sure.</P>

<P>Our teacher was an advertiser of the first water.

At the close of the first half-year, we had what she
called an Exhibition. Nowadays, when a school, whatever
its size, gives a public entertainment, the &ldquo;function&rdquo;
is called the Commencement, and spelled always
with a big C. Our Exhibition lasted two days. On
the first day, all the classes were examined publicly on
the studies pursued during the term. More than five
hundred people, mostly women and children, witnessed
that exercise.</P>

<P>We had been thoroughly drilled for a month, and
knew what questions to expect. Our parents must

<PB ID="clinksc91" N="91">
have thought their children were prodigies. The way
those large girls parsed &ldquo;Mary had a little lamb&rdquo; was
an eye-opener to them.</P>

<P>The second day was given to declamations and
compositions. The boys and girls under fifteen years
of age, from a platform erected in the large church
near the &ldquo;academy,&rdquo; spoke their pieces, ranging all
the way from &ldquo;My bird is dead&rdquo; and &ldquo;The boy
stood on the burning deck&rdquo; to &ldquo;Sparticus to the

Gladiators.&rdquo;</P>

<P>The young ladies read high-sounding compositions,
some of them written by other people. O that was a
red-letter day in the history of the Little Mountain

School, and people came &ldquo;from far and near.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Now the school commencements close with a game
of baseball, usually with a neighboring school; our

Exhibitions closed with a game of town-ball, or

&ldquo;sting-a-miree.&rdquo; The boys who read this may ask their
fathers or grandfathers to explain that last game to
them. It was great.</P>

<P>The balls we used were made of thread wrapped around
a piece of cork. There were only two or three
with rubber in the center. One of these was mine,
sent to me from Virginia by my brother. He found
piece of rubber and trimmed it down to the size of
walnut. When mother put the thread round that
rubber, I had a ball that money couldn't buy. What
could do for a fellow with that ball in &ldquo;sting-a-miree&rdquo;

<PB ID="clinksc92" N="92">
was a plenty. That was one game which the
girls took no part in.</P>

<P>Now, school children use scratch-pads; then, we
used slates and pieces of slates, and pencils made of
broken bits of slates that were gathered up from old
desks and from under the house - slates that had done
service before the war. If a boy found a piece of real
slate pencil an inch long, he was considered extremely
fortunate. By sticking that bit of pencil in the end
of a quill or a small cane, he could have a pencil as
long as he desired it. I had one - kept it a whole
day - then &ldquo;kissed it good-bye,&rdquo; as I did most of my
other possessions. </P>

</DIV3>

<DIV3><HEAD>III</HEAD>

<P>When the war ended in 1865, there came to the
neighborhood of Diamond Hill, just four miles from

Little Mountain, a Confederate soldier, a Scotchman.

He was a very handsome man and a scholar. He
graduated from Edinburgh University, and came
to the United States and to South Carolina in 1859.

In Beaufort, South Carolina, he taught school a year
before the war began. Enlisting as a soldier in the

Confederate army at the beginning of the war, this
young Scotchman fought through the four years, and,
at its close, came to Diamond Hill with two of his
messmates.</P>

<P>His two comrades in arms loved the gallant scholar,
and invited him to come with them to their impoverished
homes and take his chances with them. He

<PB ID="clinksc93" N="93">
came, and after a few weeks the people of that community
asked him to teach their children.</P>

<P>Prof. Hugh Train took charge of the Diamond Hill

School and taught the remainder of the year. For that
work he got but little pay, for there was next to
no money in the country; but he did a monumental
work and made a reputation for teaching thoroughly
and extensively, and almost without books.</P>

<P>The following January, Professor Train took
charge of the Little Mountain School. A few books
could be bought then and as many slates as we needed.</P>

<P>The new teacher was a thorough disciplinarian,
and it was well that he was. He had in that school
all kinds and grades of pupils. Some of the young
men had been in the army, and felt that they were
men indeed. They soon found that an ax-soldier sat
behind that desk, and that in that school there was but
one master. The teacher was six feet two inches tall,
weighed about one hundred and ninety pounds, and
had not a pound of surplus flesh. I saw him one day
bend a young man across a bench, hold him with one
hand, and whip him until he begged like a child. We
soon learned that when he assigned a lesson he meant
that we get it. Notwithstanding his rigid, uncompromising
discipline, he was not cruel or unreasonable.

He simply meant to be master of the school, and we
were to &ldquo;do business.&rdquo;</P>

<P>One of his soldier friends, James Latimer, with
whom Professor Train came South, entered the school

<PB ID="clinksc94" N="94">
in January and began the study of Latin, Greek, and
mathematics. I said he entered school. He came
every day at noon and spent the whole of what we
called &ldquo;big recess&rdquo; reading Greek and Latin and
demonstrating propositions in geometry. Mr. Latimer
had a brilliant mind, and afterwards took the doctor's
degree at Leipsic. Returning to America, the maimed

Confederate soldier, the Rev. James F. Latimer, D.D.,

Ph. D., was called to the chair of Greek in Davidson

College, North Carolina. The country boy who became
the profound theologian and scholar carried in
his body to his grave a bullet fired from a Yankee
rifle.</P>

<P>Mr. Train was one of the most energetic teachers I
ever knew. He had to be. With forty pupils of all
sizes and ranging in age from seven to twenty-five
years, with few books and fewer blackboards, there
was no time for loafing. From morning till night he
was astir.</P>

<P>We boys used to think he had eyes in the back of
his head. Though busy teaching a class, he seemed to
be able to detect instantly any pranks we tried to play.

I have known him to stop a class reading Cesar, lick
a boy for some infraction of the rules, and then go on
with the lesson as if nothing had happened.</P>

<P>Even while we played at recess, he seemed to have
his eyes constantly on us. One day, two little fellows,
eight years old, quarreled. We encouraged them to
fight. They didn't need much encouragement, but we

<PB ID="clinksc95" N="95">
supplied it in abundance, and the little chaps went at
it in dead earnest. They were both game and well
matched. Never did two bantam roosters fight with
greater persistency. It was great sport for us who
were a little larger, but, for once, we forgot and became
too hilarious. The bell rang, and then there was
consternation in the camp. We knew that another
fight was on.</P>

<P>There is much in the influence of a crowd. It is

&ldquo;the mind of the mob.&rdquo; We walked into the school
house with considerable boldness. Surely, the teacher
wouldn't whip all of us just for laughing. That's the
way we felt about it, but not for long.</P>

<P>The two young pugilists were not punished, but
were told that if they fought again they would be. All
the spectators were ordered to come out in front of
the desk. Did he flog us? The reader will please
allow me to forget that if I can. We took our medicine,
and Gus Williams declared it was a &ldquo;dost.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Mr. Train did not require us to declaim, and for that
one thing I loved him. Every Wednesday afternoon,
however, he devoted to mental arithmetic - not
thirty minutes or sixty minutes, but two solid hours.

That was a great exercise, and one for which I shall
ever be grateful. I am teaching mathematics today
because maybe of the drilling and grilling he gave me
in arithmetic.</P>

<P>We used Smith's English Grammar. We had no
other - could get no other. Those numerous rules were

<PB ID="clinksc96" N="96">
committed to memory and many hundred sentences
parsed &ldquo;to a finish.&rdquo; Not only that: we were required
to write on our slates from memory the whole of the
verb &ldquo;To Love&rdquo; in all of its voices, moods, tenses,
numbers, and persons. I repeated and wrote the words

&ldquo;might, could, would or should&rdquo; so often that
they fairly racked my brain at night. The little I
know of my own language, I learned from Hugh Train
during that one year at Little Mountain. At college,
very little attention was paid to the study of English.</P>

<P>But the Little Mountain School could not hold a
man with Mr. Train's attainments and worth. He was
loved by pupils and patrons, but seemed to have a
longing for the seashore. At the end of the school
year, he went to Beaufort and then to Savannah, Georgia,
where he taught successfully until his death about
three years ago.</P>

<P>I owe much to the sturdy Scotchman whom the
fortunes of war threw across my path early in my life.

His inborn fidelity to trust and habit of doing things

&ldquo;to a finish&rdquo; had great influence over me.</P>

<P>Among all my teachers, from Little Mountain
through high school and college to university, not one
of them impressed my life more profoundly than did
the virile Scotchman, Hugh Train. Like the peerless

Carlisle, his love of truth and fidelity to it was all
pervasive. &ldquo;Tell the truth if it costs your life,&rdquo; he
used to say; and, though Dr. Carlisle did not put it

<PB ID="clinksc97" N="97">
just that way, there was never any mistaking his attitude
toward that cardinal virtue.</P>

<P>Indeed, in looking back over my student life, I have
often compared these two men. They were both cast
in large mold. They were, in many respects, alike;
and, yet, were very unlike. The one, Dr. Carlisle, was

Scotch-Irish; the other, a Scotchman thoroughbred.

Each tried to give his pupils high ideals.</P>

<P>The Scotchman was gruff and brush at times,
uncompromising in his demands upon his pupils, and
very aggressive; the Scotch-Irishman was as faithful
always to his trust, but in his intercourse with students
had much more of the <FOREIGN LANG="LAT"><HI REND="italics">suaviter in modo</HI></FOREIGN>.</P>

<P>When any man that ever sat at Dr. Carlisle's feet
thinks of his college and university instructors, the
venerable Doctor stands out like a mountain peak in its
solemn and isolated grandeur. I see him always as

Hawthorne's &ldquo;Great Stone Face,&rdquo; and near him Hugh

Train, a little smaller, but, withal, magnificent. <FOREIGN LANG="LAT"><HI REND="italics">Par noble fratum.</HI></FOREIGN></P>

<P>Each of these great teachers has gone to his reward.

Each left the world better and richer for having
lived in it; and each left behind him a host of men to
bless his memory.</P>

<P>Such men pass away; they never die.</P>

<LG TYPE="stanza"><L>&ldquo;Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie,</L>

<L>But that which warmed it once can never die.&rdquo;</L></LG> </DIV3>

</DIV2>

<PB ID="clinksc98" N="98"><DIV2 TYPE="chapter"><HEAD>CHAPTER VII</HEAD>

<HEAD>&ldquo;DE BABY&rdquo;</HEAD>

<DIV3><P>MY thoughts are wandering far afield tonight.

They take me back to the time beyond that when Jack
and Pete and I broke the steers, annoyed the cats, and
fought pitched battles with green apples and mollypops.

And, in the pictures I see, the principal figure
is &ldquo;the baby,&rdquo; the bundle of sunshine that came into
the home with its softening, mellowing, saving influence.</P>

<P>I was just out of my dresses, and was glorying in
my first pair of pantaloons and red-top boots. I was
as restless and reckless as a boy could well be, and
where I was there was something doing, and - not
always the right thing. &ldquo;De baby,&rdquo; as the negroes
called he - &ldquo;Rat,&rdquo; I called her - was my shadow, and
her innocence and perfect confidence made her follow
me at times when it had been better for both of us if
she had declined my leadership.</P>

<P>After a while, when I realized that her quiet
influence was interfering with the full play of my
mischievous instincts or inclinations, or, to be more
charitable to myself, my love of fun, I began to dodge
her. When I did, she called me in a plaintive, tearful

<PB ID="clinksc99" N="99">
voice that echoes and re-echoes through the chambers
of my heart down to this good day.</P>

<P>Failing to find her brother, the dear child went to
her mother, as we all did with our troubles - as I did
with every pain from a &ldquo;stumped toe&rdquo; to a broken
collar-bone.</P>

<P>With troubled face and tear-dimmed eyes, she said,

&ldquo;Mama, w'ere Bud-John?&rdquo; Then came mother's time
to soothe and comfort. How often she did it, and
how lovingly, only God and the angels know.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Never mind, darling,&rdquo; said mother, kissing back
the tears, &ldquo;never mind; Bubber is a bad boy to run
away from little sister. Mama 'll have to whip

Bubber.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;No, no, Mama; oo musn't w'ip Bud-John - he
good boy.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Precious child! In her distress because of my
absence, she was loving and forgiving still. And every
good thing that fell into her hands, every apple, every
cooky that Aunt Charlotte, the cook, gave her (and
the best of everything had to go to &ldquo;dat baby&rdquo;) -
everything that fell into those precious hands had to
be put away and shared with the ungrateful brother
who had run away from her.</P>

<P>But there was one amusement, or exercise, from
which the little sister was never absent. We needed
her and had to have her. She had a sweet voice, and
was fond of singing. So. on funeral occasions her

<PB ID="clinksc100" N="100">
presence was indispensable. And in the spring-time
these occasions were right frequent.</P>

<P>Our cemetery was in the rear of the garden. When
a little chicken was found dead, a grave was dug
according to my own directions. This done, a funeral
procession consisting of half a hundred pickaninnies
was formed. Led by my sister and me, following
close upon the heels of the four pallbearers, we proceeded
to the grave.</P>

<P>There, mounted upon a pulpit consiting of box or
barrel, I delivered the funeral oration, outlining the
peculiar virtues of the dead and bemoaning the great
loss entailed upon humanity by the sudden demise of
our departed friend, and wound up by assuring the
mourners of a better day beyond, where every chicken
would be allowed to live until he was ready for the
frying pan.</P>

<P>And we didn't fail to have music. A song and a
prayer preceded the oration. How wonderfully imitative
are children!</P>

<P>Our songs were selected with no particular regard
for the fitness of things. Sometimes it was &ldquo;Am I a

Soldier of the Cross?&rdquo; Sometimes, &ldquo;Abide with

Me,&rdquo; and sometimes &ldquo;Dixie,&rdquo; or &ldquo;'Way Down upon the

Suwanee River.&rdquo; From my sisters we had caught Dixie
and the Suwanee River; and from the grown-up
negroes, &ldquo;Am I a Soldier of the Cross?&rdquo;</P>

<P>Young as I was, I knew that what we were doing
would not meet the approval of my mother, so the little

<PB ID="clinksc101" N="101">
sister was pledged to secrecy. Our fun went on, therefore,
till one day one of my grown sisters discovered
us - caught us in the very act - and kept perfectly
quiet until the benediction was pronounced and orders
issued to look for another corpse.</P>

<P>The matter was duly reported to mother, and the
leading culprit was ordered to &ldquo;come into court.&rdquo;

There was no use denying the charge - we had been

&ldquo;caught with the goods on.&rdquo; I pleaded guilty. Then
the Judge - God bless her memory! - drew me to her
and kissed my forehead; then she told me of death
and of the resurrection, and of what it means to bury
the dead. After she saw that I had caught somewhat
of the meaning of that solemn rite, she showed me the
wrong of what we were doing and asked me to
promise that I would do it no more.</P>

<P>I was full of remorse. Mother told me of how they
had buried my sister Mary three years before, and, as
she talked, I noticed that her eyes were filled with tears,
and a lump came into my throat. I promised. And I
kept that promise. Mother kissed me again, and I ran
out, a more thoughtful, and, I trust, a better boy.</P>

<P>Thank God for the wise and prudent mothers who
know how to talk to wayward boys in such a way as
to bring them &ldquo;up standing on their feet!&rdquo;</P> </DIV3>

<DIV3><HEAD>II</HEAD>

<P>IT was a beautiful afternoon in the late spring. I
heard a jolly, contagious laugh. I knew that laugh,

<PB ID="clinksc102" N="102">
there was no mistaking it, and ran around the house
to see Sister Barbara, who had just returned from the
postoffice. She had dismounted from her pony, Sancho,
and thrown the reins to Henry, whose duty it was to
attend to any horse that came to that gate. Henry
was a negro lad of fourteen summers.</P>

<P>On Southern plantations, before and during the

Civil War, many of the young ladies could ride as
well as their brothers, and not a few of them could
handle firearms with great accuracy and skill. The
long &ldquo;riding skirt,&rdquo; the &ldquo;upping block,&rdquo; and the

&ldquo;horse rack&rdquo; - hitching rack, really - were familiar objects in front
of most Southern homes.</P>

<P>Sister Barbara had thrown her riding-skirt across
her arm and was going toward the house, when Henry
said: &ldquo;Miss Barbry, afar dat ole sow whut been eatin'

Missus' chickens.&rdquo;</P>

<P>A long-nosed sow, whose habitat was the river
swamp, made occasional excursions into the barnyard
and carried off a whole brood of little chickens. An
ant-eater is not more destructive of ants, nor a shark
of little turtles than is an old sow of biddies when her
taste runs in that direction.</P>

<P>&ldquo;All right, Henry; we'll attend to her.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Running into the house, the vivacious girl brought
out my father's muzzle-loading shotgun, and, placing it
to her shoulder, emptied a load of bird-shot into the
anatomy of the notorious chicken-eater.</P>

<P>The old rogue left precipitately, and in a manner

<PB ID="clinksc103" N="103">
not at all dignified, but to my very great delight. When,
some months after, she reappeared upon the scene, she
brought with her nine beautiful pigs, and was dubbed
by the negroes &ldquo;de ole nine sow.&rdquo;</P>

<P>My father was a martyr to sick-headache. Just
why it was called &ldquo;sick-headache&rdquo; I do not know.

Indeed, I do not know that there is any other kind,
but this I do know: he suffered excruciatingly. I did
not know then, of course, but now sometimes I think
that overwork and great anxiety for his wife and
children and native Southland caused his collapse. He
died at the age of fifty-two.</P>

<P>He was from early morning till late afternoon constantly
in the saddle or in his buggy. Besides his own
plantations with varied interests, he had four others to
supervise. Their owners were following the Confederate
flag. My mother knew when father turned the
bend in the road as he neared the house whether he
was suffering with the terrible headache.</P>

<P>About an hour after Sister Barbara had returned
from the postoffice and sent the chicken-eater back to
the swamp in such a hurry, father drove up from

Abbeville. Mother saw him coming, and said to Henry:

&ldquo;Run to the gate; your master is very sick.&rdquo;</P>

<P>The sufferer was assisted up the steps, put to bed,
and ministered to by the same loving hands that had
done it so often before. Ah, I can see now the pale
face as it lay on the pillow, and see my mother as she
rubbed his forehead and temples so gently, while Aunt

<PB ID="clinksc104" N="104">

Charlotte and Henry were bathing his feet in water
as hot as he could bear it. And I can hear again that
low groan that came from the lips of the patient sufferer.</P>

<P>An hour passed, and mother was still pressing the
brow of my father, who had fallen into a fitful, uneasy
sleep. Dear Aunt Charlotte knew, when master was
suffering, not to ring the bell. So she came in as
silently as a cat and whispered:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Missus, supper ready.&rdquo;</P> </DIV3>

<DIV3>

<HEAD>III</HEAD>

<P>WHEN mother, after a few moments, slipped away
to the dining room, she found the high chair at her
elbow vacant.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Where is baby?&rdquo; she inquired.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Rachel has gone to look for her,&rdquo; one of the
sisters replied.</P>

<P>In another minute, Rachel, one of the house-girls,
came in, saying, &ldquo;Missus, I can't fine de baby.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;What! Rachel, you can't find her? Run upstairs -
she may be asleep; Sooky, run up to Dinah's
house; go to every house at The Quarter and ask all
the women if they've seen the baby.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Sooky, Rachel's companion, made off to The Quarter
as fast as she could go, and Rachel, a nimble-footed
girl of sixteen, darted up the stairs. Directly she ran
down with:</P>

<P>&ldquo;She not up dar, Missus. I look in uver room.&rdquo;</P>

<PB ID="clinksc105" N="105">

<P>Then mother, with her tea untouched, pushed back
her chair and went to the back portico. And we all
followed.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Run, Rachel,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;run to all the houses in

The Quarter, and then go to the gin-house and the
barn - the little thing may be asleep there.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Two of my sisters started to the barn, and two to
the cotton-house. We children were accustomed to
playing in both houses, and they, too, thought perhaps
little sister had fallen asleep in one.</P>

<P>I was standing by my mother, holding to her skirt.

Putting her trembling hand on my head, she said:

&ldquo;Johnnie, my son, have you not seen little sister since
dinner?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;No, mama,&rdquo; I sobbed; and I felt guilty, for in
the early afternoon I had slipped away from the baby
because Jack and I had planned to go fishing for
minnows with our pin-hooks in the spring branch. I
didn't tell mother that.</P>

<P>The &ldquo;hands&rdquo; were now coming in from the fields.

They came from several directions, and were singing
one of those mellow plantation songs, one squad on one
road answering another on another road, and singing
as only negroes could sing - a song that the boys and
girls of today can never know and never hear in all its
sweetness. Compared with it, the miserable, effervescent
ragtime of today is as sounding brass.</P>

<P>Uncle Griffin, the wagoner, had already driven his
wagon under the shed, and was putting the mules in

<PB ID="clinksc106" N="106">
their stalls. Aunt Charlotte, his wife, the cook, was
astir in the yard, looking here and there for &ldquo;de baby,&rdquo;
running over a little darky here and jolting a grown-up
one yonder, and all the time threatening dire punishment
upon any &ldquo;nigger dat would dar hu't dat chile.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Seeing her spouse in the lot, she yelled out:

&ldquo;Griffin! You, Griff!!&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;W'ut you want, nigger?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Does you see nuttin' dat chile down dar? De
baby dun loss.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Naw, me doan see her; you crazy lunatic, doan
you know dese mules kill dat chile ef she come een
dis lot? Dat chile not here.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Mother sent a runner to tell Aunt Charlotte she
would wake her master, but the messenger was too
late. Father had heard the words, &ldquo;de baby dun loss,&rdquo;
and was sitting up in bed when mother ran into the
room.</P>

<P>&ldquo;What is it, my dear? What is it?&rdquo; he asked, all
the time pressing his hand to his temple.</P>

<P>Poor mother! That was a trying time for her.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Do lie down,&rdquo; she said, in her sweetest tones;

&ldquo;it will not do for you to get excited. The baby is
asleep somewhere; we'll find her directly. Lie down
now, won't you, please?&rdquo;</P>

<P>Father threw his head back on his pillow, and said
with a groan: &ldquo;M y b a b y l o s t?&rdquo; He seemed to
be dazed.</P>

<P>Rachel and Sooky had made a thorough search of

<PB ID="clinksc107" N="107">
the cabins. And now, bursting into the room, Rachel
blurted out:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Missus, dat chile ain't nowhar up dar, en Tempy's

Hannah en Aunt Susan's Anaky missin' - all two uv

'em missin'.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Father got out of bed, despite the pleadings of my
mother.</P>

<P>&ldquo;I can't remain in bed, Eliza, with my baby lost,&rdquo;
he said. &ldquo;I must get up. I must.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Mother knew him. We all knew him. Mother
knew that he would be in his boots till the baby was
found, or until he fell from exhaustion. She got his
clothes as quickly as possible.</P>

<P>Turning to Rachel, he said: &ldquo;Tell Essex to come
to me.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Unc' Essick was at that very moment directing the
negroes in searching every nook and corner of the
premises. When he came to the door, hat in hand,
father was sitting in his large chair and mother was
standing behind him bathing his throbbing head. I
noticed that mother was careful to stand where father
couldn't see her face, and then I saw her now and
then brush a tear from her cheek and saw her lips
moving. I knew too well what that meant, and slipped
away to a corner of the room to cry.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Come in, Essex; come close to me, it hurts my
head to raise my voice. Now, listen: Three of the
children are missing - the baby, Hannah, and Anaky.

We must make a thorough search for them. First, we

<PB ID="clinksc108" N="108">
must inform the neighbors and find out whether
they've seen or heard of them.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Now, you call the men, Alex, Monday, Harvey,

Mose, and Tom; put each one on a mule and send one
to Joel Cunningham's, one to Boss', one to Cox's, one
to Martin's, and one to Ben Williams'. Tell them not
to spare the mules.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Two of my sisters, Sallie and Barbara, who had
been leading searching parties about the place, came in
just in time to hear father's directions to Unc' Essick.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Let us go to Cunningham's and to Boss', father,&rdquo;

Barbara said. &ldquo;I'm afraid the negroes won't go fast
enough. Let us go.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Very well then; maybe that's best. Essex, have
the horses brought for the girls.&rdquo;</P>

<P>The faithful black man bowed himself out, and in
a few minutes could be heard giving commands with
the sharpness and precision of a major-general.</P>

<P>The two young ladies were soon in their saddles,
and, leaning against a post on the piazza, I listened to
the clatter of their horses' hoofs on the hard road
leading to Cunningham's till it died away in the distance.

At the same time, four mules were racing in
other directions just as fast as big, strong men could
make them go.</P>

<P>With his accustomed thoughtfulness, Unc' Essick
had made them mount the very best, fleetest mules in
the barn.</P>

<P>It was not long before all the riders returned, none

<PB ID="clinksc109" N="109">
bringing news of the lost children. In the meantime,

Unc' Essick had interviewed every &ldquo;mammy&rdquo; at The

Quarter, and Aunt Lucinda, the oldest woman on the
place, said to him: &ldquo;'Bout two hours ber sun, I see
dem chillun gwine toads de huckleberry patch.&rdquo; This
he reported to father just as my sisters rode up to the
gate.</P>

<P>&ldquo;O God!&rdquo; father exclaimed, and then was silent.</P>

<P>My mother was still behind him, and I saw her sink
into a chair and bury her face in her hands. I leaned
against her and slipped my hand into hers. She was
shaking with emotion, but there was no outcry; not a
sound escaped her lips.</P>

<P>After a moment, which seemed an hour, father
spoke again.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Essex,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I was afraid of that. They
have gone toward Penny's Creek. You know, the
streams have been full several days. The children
may try to cross it; if they do&rdquo; - here his voice failed
him and his hand dropped to his side. My mother
sprang to her feet and ran to him. But, by that sheer
force of will for which he was always noted, he recovered
his poise, and, taking my mother's hand in
both his, said very calmly:</P>

<P>&ldquo;But we mustn't get excited; there is work to be
done. Essex, gather all the hands together, men and
women. Leave five or six of the oldest women to
take care of the children in the cabins. Divide them
into squads of six or eight. Give Griffin one squad,

<PB ID="clinksc110" N="110">

Big Lon another, Tom another, and then pick out the
other best men for leaders. Tell them where to go -
not too close together - tell them to search that side of
the plantation first next to Penny's Creek.&rdquo; ( My
father's plantation was divided into pretty nearly
equal parts by the main thoroughfare running from Abbeville
to Anderson.)</P>

<P>&ldquo;Get every horn on the place and give one to
each of the leaders. And tell them not to let a horn
be blown until the children are found. Tell them to
search that side of the plantation first and do it thoroughly,
some going as far down as the bridge over the
creek at the Prince place and others as far up the
creek as the Williams place. If the children are
found, let the horns be blown loud and long. And tell

Henry to saddle Sam and bring him to the door.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Then my mother pleaded: &ldquo;Oh, you must not go;
you must not go - it will kill you.&rdquo; Pressing her hand
to his lips, he turned his pale face to hers and said:</P>

<P>&ldquo;My darling, don't you know I'd rather die in the
effort to save my baby than live and die later of remorse
if she should be drowned? I must go.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Child as I was, I was struck by the grim
determination that shone in his eyes.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Marster, you kyah stan' it - you stay and let me
go,&rdquo; begged the faithful black man. But a wave of
the master's hand sent Unc' Essick out to his task.</P>

<P>Unc' Essick was not long in executing his orders.

A half-dozen horns of various sizes were found and

<PB ID="clinksc111" N="111">
placed in the hands of the leaders. My father was
fond of the chase, kept a pack of trained fox hounds,
and, before the Civil War, often enjoyed the sport.

Hence the horns.</P>

<P>Five of my sisters fell in with the searchers, and
soon they were all off toward the west and toward

Penny's Creek, some of the women weeping as they
went. </P>

</DIV3>

<DIV3>

<HEAD>IV</HEAD>

<P>WHEN mother saw that father was determined to
go, she made one request. &ldquo;Let Lindsay go with
you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He can ride Fan, and bring you
back if anything happens.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yes, he may go.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Lindsay was one of the shrewdest negroes on the
place, and possibly the strongest of the bunch. Mother
knew that if father fell from his horse, Lindsay could
literally carry him home in his arms. Fan was a little,
round-bodied mule, fleet of foot and active as a kitten.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Little Sam,&rdquo; as the negroes called him, was a

Kentucky thoroughbred. He weighed about a thousand
and fifty pounds, was as clean of limb as a fawn, and
as agile as a Texas pony. Nobody but the master was
allowed to ride or drive him. The little sorrel knew
every whim of the master, and the master knew his
horse.</P>

<P>Unc' Essick wanted to lead one of the searching
parties, but father ordered him to remain on the

<PB ID="clinksc112" N="112">
premises, take care of those of us left behind, and give
directions to the searchers as they returned.</P>

<P>&ldquo;If any of the folks come back before daylight,
send some to the river, at Fox's Den; send some to
the Wesley place, but we must search thoroughly the

Penny's Creek side of the plantation before we go to
the other side. I shall remain on that side all night, if
the children are not found, and, after daylight, I shall
examine the creek banks for tracks from the Prince
bridge up as far as the Williams crossing. But the
moon is so bright we may be able to see tracks
tonight.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Fortunately, it was a bright, moonlit night, not
cold, but the atmosphere was crisp and sharp.</P>

<P>While father was giving final directions to Unc'

Essick, mother was talking to Lindsay aside.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Lindsay,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am depending upon you.

Your master is very sick and weak. I want you to
promise me that you will stay with him tonight. No
matter where he goes, nor how fast, will you stay
with him and bring him back to me if he falls?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yas, mam, Missus; yes, mam, I'll stay wid 'im en
fetch 'im back, ef Gawd spar me. You know ole Fan
kin go whar Little Sam go; 'fo' Gawd, Missus, dat
ole mule kin mos' clam a tree en kin run lak a rabbit.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Then master and man started on their long ride -
longer than either of them dreamed it would be.</P>

<P>Left in the home besides my mother and me were
my sister Ida and old Mrs. Cobb. Mrs. Cobb was a

<PB ID="clinksc113" N="113">
neighbor, a very old lady, and lived three miles up

Penny's Creek. The old soul was a privileged character.

Everybody knew her and respected her and
humored her. When she felt like it, she came to our
home and remained as long as she pleased, sometimes
several days.</P>

<P>That night she was a veritable Job's comforter.

Soon after my father had gone, while mother was
walking the floor and wringing her hands, the old lady
refilled her pipe, raked it in the ashes, and said:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yes, that thar Penny's Crick is a mighty dangerous
crick; ef the baby goes in thar, she'll sholy git
drownded. You know, 'Liza, Joe Spence's little gal
was drownded in that same crick three years ago. Hit
was up, and the little gal tried to walk a foot-log and
hit turned with her. Yes, hit's a dangerous crick,
hit is.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Mother made no reply, but continued to pace the
floor; Sister Ida, a ten-year-old girl, slipped into an
adjoining room and sobbed herself to sleep.</P>

<P>After the old visitor had smoked her pipe of
tobacco, she knocked out the ashes and said: &ldquo;Well,

'Liza, I'll lay down; I can't do no good a-settin' here.&rdquo;</P>

<P>She did lie down, and in two minutes was snoring
quite lustily.</P>

<P>I sat in my little chair, and had one hand on my
little sister's, now vacant. But keep a healthy boy
perfectly quiet a little while and he'll go to sleep. It

<PB ID="clinksc114" N="114">
was not long before I began to nod. Mother saw it,
and said, very tenderly:</P>

<P>&ldquo;My son, you must go to bed now; you are
sleepy.&rdquo;</P>

<P>I protested, and said: &ldquo;I want to sit up with you,
mother.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Then she knelt down by me, put her arms around
my neck, and prayed. I shall not attempt to write
that prayer. Verily, I believe it is written on high.

Then mother kissed my forehead and said: &ldquo;Darling,
go to bed now, mother's little man must sleep;

Jesus will take care of mama and bring little sister
back to us.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Then I did go to bed, perfectly satisfied that Jesus
would take care of Mama, and that, somehow, some
time, He would bring little sister back to us.</P>

<P>Only my mother and her Lord ever knew her
agony of soul during that long, terrible night. When

I fell asleep, she was walking the floor, and when, at
two o'clock, I awoke, she was standing in the door
talking to Unc' Essick, who sat on the steps. The
kind-hearted slave, unlike Mrs. Cobb, was trying to
comfort the distressed mother.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Missus,&rdquo; I heard him say, &ldquo;you needn't be
a-skeerdt dat chile gwine git drownded. Dem chillun
ain't gwine een de water - dey skeerdt o' water.

'Sides, little chillun git sleepy when dey walk long
time, speshly when night come. Dey lay down en go

<PB ID="clinksc115" N="115">
to sleep. Dem chillun sleep right now somewhar een
de leaves.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Again the old man was right. At that very moment
the little ones were sleeping soundly by a log in the
leaves. More than once, searching parties had passed
very near them, but failed to disturb their slumbers.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Missus, I think Marster mek a mistake. He
sick. He oughter stay here en let me go. I know de
woods better'n he do, en I know 'em better'n dem
yudder niggers. When I wuz a runaway, I sleep
menny night in de leaves. Now, I think dem
chillun, when dey fine dey loss, jis keep walkin', en
keep walkin', tel night ketch 'em, den dey lay right
down en sleep. Ef dey fine dey loss 'fo' night, dey
turn eder down tru de Prince plantation to de Martin
place, else dey turn de yudder way tru de Cox place
to de Pratt's. After daylight, I kin fine der tracks - I
wish Marster let me go.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Then mother put her handkerchief to her face and
said, with tears in her voice: &ldquo;You shall go, Essex,
and I believe you'll bring my baby back to me.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yas'm, I'll fetch her back, en don't you be oneasy

'bout dat chile, Missus. Dat chile got sense; she ain't
gwine een no ribber ner crick. Yas'm, I'll fetch dat
baby back; she shan't sleep anudder night in de
woods.&rdquo;</P>

<P>About daylight, the hunters began to straggle in,
one by one, and then by twos and threes, but they
brought no tidings of the lost children.</P>

<PB ID="clinksc116" N="116">

<P>&ldquo;Did you see your master?&rdquo; mother asked.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yas'm, we seed him two or t'ree time. He wuz
er ridin' Little Sam, en Lindsay right terhin' 'im on
ole Fan. Dem hosses wuz gwine ober fences en ditches
same ez deer.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Very soon my sisters came, tired and worn and
hungry. Their skirts were bedraggled and torn, and
their hands bleeding from brier scratches.</P>

<P>Aunt Charlotte had breakfast ready, and the five
sisters, discouraged but still hopeful, went at once to
the dining room.</P>

<P>Unc' Essick came out of his cabin, blowing the
ashes from his hot ashcake and shifting it from one
hand to the other. He was ready to redeem his
promise to &ldquo;Missus.&rdquo; He went through the kitchen
into the dining room and outlined his plan to my sisters.

To the eldest he said:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Miss Sallie, you git on old Bill; he sho-footed
en fast, en you go straight toads Fox's Den en sweep
round toads Martin's Mill en de Martin Quarter. En,

Miss Sallie, you let Henry ride behine you to pull
down fences. Miss Cassie, you en Miss Jennie an

Miss Julia ride Dick en Sancho en Mollie. Miss

Barbry, you ride ole Blaze. Now, you mind, Miss

Barbry, dat ole fool is tricky en ain't got no sense,
but kin go lak de wind, en I b'lieve you kin ride de
debil ef you could git your saddle on 'im.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Despite their depression, the young ladies had to

<PB ID="clinksc117" N="117">
smile at Unc' Essick's opinion of Barbara's horsemanship.</P>

<P>&ldquo;You chilluns is all tired out now, en must ride -
you musn't walk no more.&rdquo;</P>

<P>To Unc' Essick, the young ladies were just &ldquo;Marster's
chillun.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;One uv you better go ter de Premium bottom,
one ter de Wesley Key place, en one ez fur down ez
de Miller place. Let de folks down afar know de
chillun loss. We must look good down dis a-way fust,
en den we must beat up toads de Cox place ez fur ez
de Little Mountain.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Assured that they would carry out his directions,

Unc' Essick went out into the yard and ordered a half-
dozen negro boys to saddle the horses for &ldquo;de young

Misses.&rdquo; Then turning his face southward and
munching his ashcake as he went, he began his long
tramp looking for &ldquo;dat blessed chile.&rdquo;</P>

<P>By eight o'clock nearly all the searchers had returned,
breakfasted, and gone again to the east and
south side of the plantation. Father and Lindsay
were still absent, and mother's anxiety for father increased.

At nine o'clock they were still out. A few
moments later one of the men straggled in and told
mother he had seen father after sun up. &ldquo;He tole me
to tell you,&rdquo; said Starling, &ldquo;not to worry 'bout him,
en tell Unc' Essick send de folks down on tudder side
de plantation. He say he gwine up toads de Bob Bell
place.&rdquo;</P>

<PB ID="clinksc118" N="118">

<P>This somewhat relieved mother's anxiety. She
surmised then that father believed the children had
gone farther and farther from home. He had, in
reality, determined to make a long swing around a
semi-circle of many miles north of home to enlist the
sympathies and aid of the people.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Missus, Marster gwine kill Little Sam; dat hoss
didn't had a dry hair on him,&rdquo; said Starling.</P>

<P>The people were kind and sympathetic and by
midday there were a thousand people, mostly colored,
looking for the lost children.</P> </DIV3>

<DIV3><HEAD>V</HEAD>

<P>BY two o'clock, Unc' Essick had satisfied himself
that the children were not south of home, and had
pretty well rounded up his forces ready for a start in
another direction.</P>

<P>He would eat no dinner himself, for he had
promised Missus to fetch her &ldquo;de baby&rdquo; before sundown,
and now the sun had turned toward the west.

Standing in front of the house, he gave directions
with an air that inspired confidence and hope.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Miss Sallie,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you go right up de road
tel you come to de gin-house at Marse William Black
place, den turn round de cornder of de gin-house en
ride straight toads Spur Crick, en when you git dar,
come right down de crick en watch fur little tracks
een de san'. Ef you fine tracks, mek Henry git down
en follow 'em same ez a houn'. I'll go tru de woods

<PB ID="clinksc119" N="119">
en fields. Miss Sallie, ride Bill hard tel you git to de
crick, den tek it slow en watch fur de tracks.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Old Bill was not accustomed to the saddle, being
one of the carriage horses, but that day he had a new
experience, and made the two miles to Black's ginhouse
in shorter time than he had ever done it before.

Turning towards the creek, he was allowed to take it
more leisurely. Reaching the stream, my sister turned
the horse's head down the bottom and rode very
slowly, while she and Henry looked closely in the sand
or plowed ground for children's tracks. Three-quarters
of a mile down, they came to Cox's bridge and
crossed it, as Unc' Essick had suggested. That near its
source, Spur Creek was but little more than a spring
brand, and they knew that the children would not
hesitate to cross it.</P>

<P>A few minutes after my sister crossed the bridge,

Unc' Essick crossed. She kept the road, but he
turned sharply up stream and kept to the soft, alluvial
soil, in which little bare feet could easily make tracks.</P>

<P>A half-mile from the creek, my sister met Dr. John

Cunningham, a neighbor. He had been for two days
several miles away with a desperately ill patient, and
was returning home. She told him of our distress.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Any little negroes with the baby, Miss Sallie?&rdquo;
he asked.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yes, two - one just her size, and the other larger.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Why, bless your life! those were the children I
saw just about a mile back - the very children.&rdquo;</P>

<PB ID="clinksc120" N="120">

<P>&ldquo;Oh, Doctor!&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yes, they were about a hundred yards from the
road, and the little ones were crying and the largest
one was quarreling at them for not keeping up with
her.&rdquo;</P>

<P>My sister brushed a tear from her cheek.</P>

<P>&ldquo;I thought they were Cox's children, and told that
girl that if she didn't wait for the little ones, I'd get
down and thrash her with my buggy whip. They
were on that side of the road and going toward

Cox's. You go up the road till you come to a
gate - it's nearly a mile - turn in there. About two
hundred yards from that gate and one hundred
from the fence, I think you'll find their tracks, for
they were crossing a bare, red spot. I'll drive over to
the house beyond the creek, get a saddle, and hurry
back to help you, Miss Sallie. It will require but a
few minutes.&rdquo;</P>

<P>In the meantime, Unc' Essick had found the children's
tracks in the bottom, and no hound ever followed
his quarry with keener eye or better judgment.

They zigzagged across the bottom and then to the edge
of the sedge field, where he found they had peeled the
bark from a sassafras bush and had sat down to
chew it.</P>

<P>To say that my sister was overjoyed would be to
express it very mildly. Old Bill made that mile to the
gate in short order, and in a manner somewhat hazardous
to the riders. They turned in through the gate,

<PB ID="clinksc121" N="121">
and at the bare, red spot found the tracks for which
they had so long looked. They got the direction the
children were going.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Now, Henry,&rdquo; my sister said, &ldquo;we must ride
slowly and listen for their voices.&rdquo; After going a few
hundred yards through an old pine field, they fell into
an old, unused farm road, and there found the tracks
again.</P>

<P>Another hundred yards, the horse walking very
slowly and making but little noise, Henry whispered:

&ldquo;Stop, Miss Sallie, I hear 'em.&rdquo; They both listened
intently, and sure enough they heard the children talking.

They were some fifty yards from the road, and
above some underbrush my sister saw the top of

Anaky's head.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Now, Henry,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;you see where they
are; run back down the road a piece and go around on
the other side of the children, and when I call Ellen,
if they start to run away you catch Ellen.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yas'm, I sho ketch dat baby dis time,&rdquo; and

Henry was off like a rabbit.</P>

<P>When he had had time to get beyond the children,
my sister called:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Ellen! Ellen! Come here, darling; here's sister.&rdquo;</P>

<P>To her great delight, the long-lost child recognized
her voice, and, instead of running from her in fright,
ran to her.</P>

<P>Henry was so excited he didn't wait to see if the
children would take fright and run away, but just as

<PB ID="clinksc122" N="122">
soon as he heard the first call he made for the baby,
and by the time she reached the road Henry was there
lifting her to the arms of her sister.</P>

<P>The little thing ran with both hands up and tears
streaming down her face.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Come to sister, darling, we've been looking so
long for the precious baby.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Mama, I want mama,&rdquo; the little one sobbed, as
she nestled on her sister's bosom. &ldquo;I want my
mama.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Ah! during all these many years, I've noticed that
the cry of the troubled child is, &ldquo;I want my mama.&rdquo;

Others may soothe and calm the shattered nerves, but
only the touch of mother's hands and mother's lips
can cure the aching heart.</P>

<P>&ldquo;You shall go to mama, darling; you shall go to
mama right now,&rdquo; said Sister Sallie, covering the baby
with kisses.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Henry,&rdquo; she called, &ldquo;jump up on that log and
blow the horn just as loud as you can.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Henry had blown that horn many a time to call the
hands from field to dinner. He mounted a large log
near the road, and leaped from that to the tall stump
from which it had been cut. Putting the horn to his lips,
he blew first two short and then one long blast -
toot! toot! to-o-o-ot! Filling his lungs, he repeated,
but before the second blast could be blown, another
horn a mile away rang out over the hills, then another
farther on, and another, and another, until the hills

<PB ID="clinksc123" N="123">
and valleys for miles around were reverberating with
the joyous, mellow sound, mingled with the spontaneous
shouts from a thousand throats.</P>

<P>Then everybody made for home.</P>

<P>Unc' Essick had just found where the children had
stopped to chew the sassafras bark, when his sharp ear
caught the first blast from Henry's horn. He didn't
wait for the second - he knew what it meant. &ldquo;T'ank

Gawd!&rdquo; he said, and, reaching up for his old hat, he
made a bee line for home, regardless of fences, ditches,
briers, or creek. He cleared the creek at a bound, and
like a frightened buck went over logs and bushes in
the body of the woods through which he passed. He
knew that Sister Sallie would test Bill's wind before
she got home with the baby, but knew she'd have to
ride three miles around, and determined to beat the
old horse if possible. As he ran, he soliloquized:</P>

<P>&ldquo;I tole Missus I gwine put dat chile een her arms
before sundown, en, 'fo' Gawd, I'm gwine do it.&rdquo;</P>

<P>It was a close race, but the old man, who hadn't
forgotten all his runaway stunts, had just slung the
perspiration from his brow and put on his hat when
old Bill, flecked with foam and bearing his precious
burden, dashed up to the gate.</P>

<P>It was four o'clock in the afternoon when mother
and I, walking the piazza, heard the first blast from

Henry's horn. &ldquo;Listen, mama!&rdquo; I cried.</P>

<P>Ah! those ears that had listened so long and so

<PB ID="clinksc124" N="124">
eagerly for that sound did not need to be told that it
had blown.</P>

<P>Instantly she dropped to her knees, and, with hands
clasped, cried out: &ldquo;Blessed Jesus!&rdquo; I leaned my
head against her heaving bosom, and felt the warm
tears falling on my face.</P>

<P>When Henry had blown his horn and others had
taken it up, my sister commanded him to bring the
two little negroes home, and cautioned him not to
walk too fast, as they were very tired. Then she turned
the horse's head towards home.</P>

<P>The old horse seemed to realize that something was
up, but didn't catch its full meaning until they had
passed through the gate and out into the road. With
one keen cut across his flank with her cowhide, the
rider said:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Now, Bill, to mama with the baby!&rdquo;</P>

<P>That the old carriage horse made full proof of his
mettle was often declared by those who saw him coming
down the last half-mile stretch of the long three-mile
run.</P>

<P>There were many black men and women at that
front gate anxious to get their hands on &ldquo;de baby&rdquo;
and place her in Missus' arms; but Unc' Essick knew
just where to stand, and, grasping the rein of the
bridle, he said: &ldquo;Gimme de baby, Miss Sallie, gimme
de baby, chile, en you jump down.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Out of the arms of my sister he lifted the baby and
ran toward the piazza, where my mother sat with

<PB ID="clinksc125" N="125">
her arms outstretched. I am not surprised that she
could not stand on her feet at that moment.</P>

<P>Running up the steps with a half hundred colored
women at his heels, Unc' Essick said: &ldquo;Here, Missus,
here de baby - I tole you I'd fetch de baby,&rdquo; and he
laid the little one in her mother's arms.</P>

<P>I did not need a kodak to take that picture for me.

Oh, no. I have it in my heart, and the lines are
growing sharper and sharper as the years are going
by. It is faceless - as faceless as the memory of my
mother's love.</P>

<P>Mother's eyes were radiant, even through her tears,
and, clasping to her bosom the little one that Jesus
promised to bring back to her and me, she said softly:

&ldquo;Thank God! thank God!&rdquo; And the baby murmured,

&ldquo;Mama,&rdquo; and slipped her little arms around her
mother's neck. </P></DIV3>

<DIV3><HEAD>VI</HEAD>

<P>BY half-past four o'clock, my father had swung
around the long semi-circle as he had planned in the
early morning, and he and Lindsay were making their
way back to the plantations lying northeast of our
own - the very territory into which Unc' Essick and

Sister Sallie had gone.</P>

<P>Father knew now that the children must be in that
territory, as no trace of them had been found in all
the other sections over which it was possible for them
to travel since they were lost. They could not cross

Johnson's Creek or Little River, and he felt sure that

<PB ID="clinksc126" N="126">
if the Cox and Pratt plantations could be searched
before sundown the children would be found.</P>

<P>They had reached a point four miles from home,
when father said to his faithful attendant: &ldquo;Lindsay, I
am very sick and the horses are tired - we must
stop a minute and let them rest.&rdquo;</P>

<P>He stopped his horse by a tree, and, without dismounting,
leaned his head against it. Worn out, the
poor brutes were perfectly willing to stand quite still
in their tracks.</P>

<P>Not more than a minute elapsed, when Lindsay
said excitedly:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Hear dat, Marster!&rdquo;</P>

<P>Quickly father raised his head and both listened
intently. They heard in the distance, &ldquo;Toot! toot!

to-o-o-ot!&rdquo;</P>

<P>'Twas Henry's horn.</P>

<P>Without a word, but with a significant glance at
his slave, the master turned his horse's head toward
the nearest farm road, leaned forward in his saddle
and pressed both heels to Little Sam's throbbing
flanks. The little sorrel responded without a protest,
and was in an instant going over cotton rows and
ditches as if fresh from his stall.</P>

<P>After a dash of two hundred yards over such obstacles,
he leaped the fence into a cross-country road
which ran nearly a mile at right angles to the direction
home and then into another which was fairly good and

<PB ID="clinksc127" N="127">
ran two miles before opening into Broadway, the
thoroughfare on which we lived.</P>

<P>Sick and exhausted as my father was, he knew the
danger of killing his horse. So, on the two-mile road,
he steadied Little Sam to a fast gallop; but, when he
turned the sharp corner at Cunningham's shop and
nearly a mile down the road saw a great crowd of
people and heard their shouts, he leaned forward still
more and, putting both hands on the little horse's neck,
said:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Now, Sam, I want your best, your very best.&rdquo;</P>

<P>He got it.</P>

<P>The little sorrel, already covered with foam, laid
back his ears and, with neck outstretched and nostrils
distended, came down Broadway like a cyclone.</P>

<P>In the long, hard run, Lindsay was distanced nearly
a mile. As they measured off quarter after quarter,

Lindsay could hear more and more distinctly the
shouts of the jubilant negroes. He tried to answer,
but was too busy belaboring old Fan on one side with
a stout hickory switch, and on the other with his old
hat. The old mule was game, but her rider said with
a grin: &ldquo;Little Sam bus' ole Fan's win'.&rdquo;</P>

<P>When the splendid little sorrel reached the gate
from which he had been ridden just twenty-two hours
before, the master was unable to dismount. Twenty-
two hours in the saddle without one mouthful of food,
when relief came, he was unable to throw his leg over
the horn of the saddle.</P>

<PB ID="clinksc128" N="128">

<P>But Unc' Essick, as usual, was ready for the emergency.

Calling Big Lon to his assistance, the two
lifted their master off of his horse. With Unc' Essick
under one arm and Big Lon under the other, he walked
to the piazza.</P>

<P>At the top of the steps, he was able to walk unassisted.

Making his way to mother and the baby, he
pressed his lips to the cheek of the little one, kissed my
mother tenderly, and murmuring, &ldquo;Thank God!&rdquo;
went over to a long bench and, with a heavy groan,
threw himself upon it. One of my sisters ran for a
pillow and, with a deftness possible only for a woman,
lovingly placed it under his head.</P>

<P>Mother motioned Unc' Essick to clear away the
noisy crowd. This he did very quickly, and when he
returned, she directed that he assist the master to his
room. My sisters attended their father, and when
they insisted that he eat something, he shook his head
and said:</P>

<P>&ldquo;No; sleep, give me sleep.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Aunt Charlotte and mother tried to persuade the
baby to eat, but she said: &ldquo;No, I want mama.&rdquo; The
mother knew that she, too, needed sleep, and that her
nerves were strained almost to the breaking point.

They gave her a good warm bath, and then she fell
into a dreamy, fitful sleep. All night long, mother sat
with the baby in her arms, quieting her nerves and
soothing her to sleep again when, now and then, she
awoke with a start and a scream.</P>

<PB ID="clinksc129" N="129">

<P>The next morning, the baby took some food. The
tired mother smiled, for she knew now that the little
one was safe.</P>

<P>I have often been amazed at my mother's power
of endurance. Though tired and worn and nervous,
and without sleep for forty-eight hours, she turned her
attention to my father, and stood over him until her
ankles were swollen and her whole body racked with
pain. She found my father's condition very much
more serious than that of the baby. He was in a semi-
conscious condition. She had hoped that the sleep for
which he had begged would calm his nerves and give
him a desire for food. In this she was mistaken. Ever
and anon he was giving explicit directions to Unc'

Essick and speaking quieting words to Little Sam:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Essex, tell the boys they must not spare the
mules - we must find the baby before sundown.

Steady, Sam, now steady; can we make that fence, my
boy? Good boy, Sam - that's well done.&rdquo;</P>

<P>My mother and sisters began to fear that that long,
terrible ride would prove to be his last, but, to their
great delight, on the third day his mind was clear,
perfectly clear, though he was distressingly weak.</P>

<P>I saw my mother's countenance brighten, and that
day I caught a snatch of the song she was accustomed
to sing when she was perfectly happy.</P>

<P>Then I went out in search of fun. I wanted to see
two dogs or two roosters fight, or I wanted to get two
cats and make the fur fly. When mother was happy, I

<PB ID="clinksc130" N="130">
could enjoy any kind of sport; but if she, for any
reason, was sad, and I knew it, nothing amused me.</P>

<P>Now, though very weak, my father's mind was
clear, and he could take a little nourishment; he improved
rapidly.</P>

<P>The third day, the baby crawled up on her father's
bed, and, pressing her soft cheek against his, said:

&ldquo;My papa.&rdquo;</P>

<P>A grateful smile played over the father's face, the
first since the terrible ordeal that came so near costing
his life.</P>

<P>When Unc' Essick called the fourth morning at
the door to inquire after his master, my father asked
that he come to his bed.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Gawd, Marster! I'm powerful glad to see you's
better dis mornin' - you been mighty bad off - you sho
does look spryer dis mornin',&rdquo; said the old man.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yes, Essex, &lsquo;Missus&rsquo; tells me I've been right
sick; but I'll be out soon.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;You sho is been sick, Marster, and, Little Sam,
you laken kilt dat boss.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;How is my little horse?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Oh, he all right now, suh; he all right, en ready
fur anudder ride. But when you git back here dat
evenin', dat hoss sho wuz dun up. He des drap his
head down en stan' dar wid de water runnin' off him.

En de blood runnin' down his legs whar de brier bin
scratchin' 'em.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Did you have him rubbed well, Essex?&rdquo;</P>

<PB ID="clinksc131" N="131">

<P>&ldquo;Yas, suh, en rub uver day since.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Did I break his wind?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;No, suh, you kyah break Little Sam win'; you
mought kill 'im, but you won't break dat hoss win'.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Take care of Little Sam, Essex; he's the best
piece of horseflesh I ever owned.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Oh, yes, suh; dat hoss all right.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;And old Fan, is she alive?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yas, suh; oh, yes, suh; but dat ole mule ain't
gwine do much mo' plowin', Marster; she so stiff she
ain't git out de stable yit.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Poor old Fan! She's game, and tried her best to
keep up with Sam, but, after five or six hours, she
couldn't do it. When you get her out of the stable,

Essex, turn her in the pasture, and see that she has
plenty of water and is fed three times a day. Fan
gave her life almost for the baby; we must take good
care of her till she dies.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Fan, though called &ldquo;ole Fan&rdquo; by the negroes, was
not old in years - she was really in her prime, but
father knew that the long ride of twenty-two hours
had ruined the faithful animal. He determined she
should have a well-earned and undisturbed rest.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Essex, how are things moving on since I've been
sick?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;All right, Marster, all right; de plows is all runnin'

en de hoe hen's coin' putty wuk. All uv 'em
behave good cepin Mose. Dat a triflin' rigger, Marster,
dat Mose. He give Missus some slack jaw

<PB ID="clinksc132" N="132">
yistiddy, en I taken git on 'im, but Missus wouldn't
let me. She say wait tel you git well. But Marster,
ef dat nigger do it agin, I'm sho gwine tan his hide.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;All right, Essex, if Mose is impudent to Missus,
you put it on him.&rdquo;</P>

<P>But Mose was too sharp - he gave Unc' Essick no
further opportunity to &ldquo;tan his hide.&rdquo; </P></DIV3>

<DIV3>

<HEAD>VII</HEAD>

<P>But most things have their humorous side, and all
my life I've had an eye and ear for the ludicrous.

This distressing episode in the life of my childhood
home was no exception to the rule.</P>

<P>The next day after the children were found,
mother was rocking her baby, and rubbing the little
arms and legs where the bugs and insects had bitten
her the night she slept in the woods. Aunt Charlotte
came in, and, looking down at the little spotted, bitten
limbs, said:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Missus, ain't you gwine whup dat nigger? Ain't
you gwine whup dat Anaky fur tekin' my baby off in
de woods, whar de skeeters en yudder bugs chew 'er
up lak dat?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;No, Charlotte, I shall not whip Anaky. I'm too
glad to have my precious baby back. I'll not whip

Anaky.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Anaky was the oldest of the three children lost.

My little sister and Hannah were about the same age -
about three and a half years - while Anaky was nine

<PB ID="clinksc133" N="133">
or ten. Anaky had a flat nose, very thick lips, an
ugly countenance, and a still more ugly disposition.</P>

<P>Aunt Charlotte held Anaky responsible for taking
the two little children off into the woods, and felt that
she ought to be punished. She was not at all satisfied
with my mother's reply, and walked out of the room
with poorly concealed disgust.</P>

<P>The next day, she came again, and her wrath was
still more deeply stirred after holding the baby a few
minutes in her arms and rubbing with her own hands
the bumps on the legs of &ldquo;dat blessed chile.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Missus, ain't you gwine whup dat nigger?&rdquo; she
asked again.</P>

<P>&ldquo;No, no, Charlotte, I'll not whip Anaky; she
won't do it any more.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Never min', honey, I'm gwine git dat nigger fur
let de skeeters chew my baby up dis away,&rdquo; and she
stalked out of the room muttering vengeance upon

Anaky.</P>

<P>It was not many minutes before we heard a wail
from the orchard. Dear Aunt Charlotte had taken

Anaky down there, and, stripping three or four good,
strong switches from one of the trees, was &ldquo;tannin'

Anaky's hide,&rdquo; as Unc' Essick said, in fine shape.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Run, Rachel, run; tell Charlotte not to hurt

Anaky,&rdquo; cried mother.</P>

<P>Rachel went out of the house and over the fence
like a bird, but she was too late. Aunt Charlotte had
done the work, and done it well.</P>

<PB ID="clinksc134" N="134">

<P>When Rachel delivered her message, the black mammy
shook her head and said:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Dat all right; you tell Missus Anaky sho won't
do it no mo'.&rdquo;</P>

<P>That night, when Anaky's mother came in from the
field, it looked for a time as if we would have a tornado
or cyclone. I had seen negro women scrap a few
times, and was expecting a great time, but was disappointed.

The women were not allowed to fight. But
it did do me good to see Aunt Charlotte shake her
fist at Susan and hear her say:</P>

<P>&ldquo;You fool wid me, nigger, en I'll bus' you open.

You think I gwine let dat ugly Anaky tek my baby
off whar de skeeters chew 'er up? No, nigger, I tan
your hide same lak I did Anaky's.&rdquo;</P>

<P>Aunt Charlotte was now satisfied. She had tanned

Anaky and bullied her mother, and was now ready to
scrap with anybody, big or little, who would dare take
her baby off in &ldquo;de bushes en mek her sleep whar
de skeeters en yudder bugs chew on 'er.&rdquo;</P>

<P>When the baby and her father had both recovered
from the suffering entailed by the terrible ordeal
through which we had all passed, many were the anecdotes
told of the experiences had by the searchers
during the long child hunt. Some were pathetic; others,
quite amusing.</P>

<P>I want to say that the terrible episode in the life of
my little sister had a softening influence upon the
whole household. I am sure that it made me a more

<PB ID="clinksc135" N="135">
thoughtful boy. And now, after nearly three score
years, if my life has been worth anything to humanity,
not a little of it is due to the refining influence of my
little sister - my precious &ldquo;Rat&rdquo;.</P>

</DIV3>

</DIV2>

<PB ID="clinksc136" N="136">

<DIV2 TYPE="chapter"><HEAD>CHAPTER VIII</HEAD>

<HEAD>&ldquo;A WHOLE PLUG O' MANIFAC&rdquo;</HEAD>

<P>AFTER fifty years of freedom, the ranks of the old
slaves are growing rapidly thinner and thinner. The
vast majority of them are dead, and those still living
are scattered to &ldquo;the four winds.&rdquo;</P>

<P>A few days ago, a gentleman declared that he
could not locate one of his father's negroes, though
he owned more than four hundred of them. Of my
father's slaves, I know where to find only two - Jack,
with whom my readers have already become acquainted,
and Mack, his brother.</P>

<P>If by chance you meet one of your &ldquo;ole time
niggers,&rdquo; he expects some gift. It may be of little
value, but something it must be, just to remind him
that you haven't forgotten him - a cast-off coat, or
cravat, or, in the absence of these, a few pieces of
silver. He seems not to care so much for the value of
the gift, but the evidence it furnishes of the fact that

&ldquo;Marse John&rdquo; has not forgotten him makes him smile
with gladness.</P>

<P>Some fifteen years ago, I was invited to deliver
an address at Shiloh, the old home church where my
fathers are buried. My, what a flood of melancholy

<PB ID="clinksc137" N="137">
memories swept over my soul when I stood before
that great crowd! It's an old box church with many
windows and two large brick pillars in front; in its
day, a fine country church. (And how much longer

&ldquo;it's day&rdquo; will last I cannot tell.) The old gallery, too,
built for the slaves, was there, and covered with dust
and dirt till it was pitiable to behold.</P>

<P>I looked over that audience, and was pained to
find that I could recognize only three faces. The people
that I knew there years ago, sleep in the large
graveyard just beyond the brook, while the church
they built is filled to overflowing by their children and
grandchildren and the children of others.</P>

<P>On my right, I saw in the amen corner the seat
which my father occupied, and saw myself in my first
pair of pants as I sat by his side. On my left, I saw
where my mother sat, and, through my tears, I saw by
her side the smiling face of &ldquo;Rat,&rdquo; my baby sister.</P>

<P>In a language all our own, &ldquo;Rat&rdquo; and I communicated
to each other our thoughts till we both got
sleepy. Again, I felt the pressure of my father's hand
as he pulled me over on his lap and whispered with
loving tenderness and sympathy, &ldquo;Now, go to sleep,
my son.&rdquo; And I know now that while he worshiped
there went up from his heart a prayer for the tired,
sleepy, trusting child on his lap.</P>

<P>That was a hot day in September. While I was
speaking, I noticed through the door at the left of the
pulpit a colored man standing with bare head through

<PB ID="clinksc138" N="138">
the whole of my talk. I recognized him at a glance,
and, I'm sure, his respectful attitude and intense earnestness
were very helpful to me. He was one of my
father's old slaves. As soon as the services were
concluded, I stepped out of the door and took the
rough, hard hand of the black man in my own. The
poor fellow was thin and wrinkled, but a broad grin
attested his abiding good nature and revealed his
pearly teeth, as white and sound as ever. With his
tattered hat in left hand and with sincerity that was
unfeigned, he said, holding on to my hand:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Bless Gawd, Marse John, I so glad to see you.

I heerd you wus here yistiddy, en I walked five miles
dis mornin' des to put my eyes on you one mo' time.

En thang Gawd, I lived to hear you preach, en - &rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;No, no, Mack; no, no, I'm no preacher.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Well, bless Gawd, ef dat ain't preachin' whut
you bin doin' een dar, whut you call it? True, I
didn' hear none de white folks shout, but when you
sorter flung yourself back on your hunkers, en shake
your head, en begin to fling it out at 'em good en
strong, bless Gawd, I wus speckin dem people to tar
loose shoutin' any time, en I wus des stanin out here
ready to hit a few licks all by myself. Yas, suh, dat
sounded powerful lak preachin' to me.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;And you expected to hear the people shout?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yas, suh.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Do you black folks shout whenever you have
preaching?&rdquo; I asked. </P>

<PB ID="clinksc139" N="139">

<P>&ldquo;Yes, suh; Lawd, yes, suh; tain't no preachin'

cepin we shout some. En Parson Skinem, he say he
doin' powerful po' preachin' cepin we shout.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Is Parson Skinem a good preacher?&rdquo; I asked.</P>

<P>&ldquo;Yas, suh; oh, yes, suh; you kin hear 'im clean
down to Martin's Mill - he sho is powerful. When
he git warmed up good, he preach des lak he callin'

hogs. Des lak you done een dar. When you git to
callin' dem hogs right good dis mornin', I sho spec
to hear dem white folks squeal some. Marse John,
you sho would mek a good nigger preacher.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;But how are your wife and children, Mack?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Dey all kickin', suh, thang Gawd, but not high;
my ole 'oman pestered mightly wid de rumatiz in her
jints, en Sarah Ann, she got a misery in her lef' side
dis mornin'. Little Joe - das Joe Rogers, you know,
named arter Marse Joe - he fell down dis mornin'

comin' frum de spring en skin he knee; en John, named
arter you, suh, he got married las' Sunday, ole fool,
en fotch his gal to my house fur me to support,
but - &rdquo;</P>

<P>Hoping to break his narrative and give him one
long breath, I said:</P>

<P>&ldquo;And what kind of wife did John get?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;She right good sort o' nigger, I spec,&rdquo; he continued,

&ldquo;but whut I doan lak 'bout dat gal, she ain't
black en she ain't a yaller gal; but her color is des a
cross betwixt a terra-cotta and ginger-cake, en din
again, she talk too much wid her mouf. She bin to

<PB ID="clinksc140" N="140">
school some, en she think she edicated rigger. She
put up her har des lak de white womens, en she try
to talk mighty proper.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Well, you don't object to her proper talk, do
you?&rdquo; I asked.</P>

<P>&ldquo;No, suh; oh, no, suh, not cepin she git too bigitty.

Now, le'me tell you whut she say yistiddy. Settin'

afar at de table eatin' my bakin en greens, she lowed:

I'm sorry fur you, but all you peterbaptists, white en
black, will be lost onless you be &lsquo;mersed.&rsquo;&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Well, Marse John, dat des flewed all over me
same ez pisen.&rdquo;</P>

<P>By this time I was considerably interested in the
little family quarrel, and, though my friends had dinner
ready and were waiting for me, I ventured to ask:</P>

<P>&ldquo;And what did you say to that, Mack?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Lawd bless your soul, I des push back my cheer,

I did, en look dat gal straight een de eye en say, &lsquo;Look
here, nigger, if you wus des a man, I'd wallup you all
over dis yard. Here you set, big ez Trip, eatin' my
grub en callin' me sich names ez dat. &lsquo;Oh,&rsquo; she say,

&lsquo;I didn't mean no harm, pa&rsquo; (call me pa lak white
folks); &lsquo;I des spoke of you all as peterbaptists.&rsquo;</P>

<P>&rdquo;Den I say, &lsquo;I want you to understan' right here
now, Milindy, else you kin des drap dat knife en
fork - I want you to 'member, my name ain't Peter, en

I ain't no Baptist. Does you hear dat?&rsquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Den dat gal look skeerdt, Marse John - she sho
did; en I kinder git sorry fur 'er.&rdquo;

<PB ID="clinksc141" N="141">

&ldquo;Talk to me,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;'bout gwine under
de water 'fo' you git to Heaven; no, suh, I'm a shonuff

Mephodis, I is. Didn't ole Marster, whut sleepin'

over dar een de graveyard, go 'long to Heaven 'dout
botherin' hisself 'bout 'mersion?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;But, Marse John, I spec 'mersion do some dees
riggers good; some uv 'em look lak dey ain't bin
wash good since dey wus sot free. I spec it would
do 'em good.&rdquo;</P>

<P>And the good-natured fellow chuckled heartily.</P>

<P>How long he would have continued, I know not,
but, handing him a few coins, I said:</P>

<P>&ldquo;Good-by, Mack, I must go now; tell John to take
care of his wife and be a good negro.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Tank you, Marse John, tank you, suh; I wus des
gwine ax you ef you didn't have a quarter stickin'

roun' dar somers een your ole britches; tank you, suh,
dis 'll buy some medicine fur de ole 'oman en a whole
plug o' manifac fur me. Marse John, ain't you got a
few crumbs roun' dar een dat lef' hand behime
pocket?&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;No, Mack, I don't chew.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Well, good-by, Marse John; I wish you had
time to tell me 'bout dem boys o' yourn. Kin dey run
ez fess ez you use to, en is dey ez bad ez - &rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Good-by, Mack, I must go now.&rdquo;</P>

<P>&ldquo;Good-by, Marse John, I hates to see you go,

<PB ID="clinksc142" N="142">
but&rdquo; - looking at his money - &ldquo;I sho gwine make de
yeller spit come.&rdquo;</P>

<P>I left the negro, puzzled after all, to know whether
he was really glad to see me, or whether his joy was
due to the delightful anticipations of a &ldquo;whole plug o'manifac.&rdquo;</P> </DIV2>

</DIV1>

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