THE BLACK BORDER

GULLAH STORIES OF THE CAROLINA COAST

(With a Glossary)

BY

AMBROSE E. GONZALES

COLUMBIA, S. C.
THE STATE COMPANY
1922

COPYRIGHT 1922
THE STATE COMPANY

TO
ROBERT ELLIOTT GONZALES

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Just under the left shoulder of Africa, which juts out boldly into the Atlantic, as though to meet half way the right shoulder of South America, lie, between Sierra Leone and the Bight of Benin, the Slave Coast, the Ivory Coast, and the Gold Coast. It was the lure of gold and ivory that brought to these shores the enterprising traders who first offered the African slave-holders a stable foreign market for the captives of bow and spear and knobkerrie.

Out of this fetid armpit of the Dark Continent came the first black bondsmen to curse the Western world. Thence, across the narrowing ocean, but a night’s flight for Walt Whitman’s “Man-of-War-Bird”—

“At dusk that look’st on Senegal, at morn America”—Portuguese and Spanish traders, but a few years after Columbus had set foot on San Salvador, transported their first human cargoes to the plantations of Brazil and the rich islands of the Caribbean. Here the labor of the blacks proved so profitable that the envious English soon engaged in the traffic, and during the reign of the virginal Elizabeth certain of her noble subjects sought concessions for the monopoly of the West Indian slave trade.

A generation or two later, the first slaves filtered through to the mainland colonies of North America from the Barbados, Antigua, and other West Indian Islands. After the institution had become firmly established, the New England eye, not lacking “speculation,” saw the promise of the East, and New England, pocketing her prayer book while pouching her musket balls, freighted her bluff-bowed ships with red flannel and glass beads with which to accentuate, if not to clothe, the heathen nakedness, and set sail for the rising sun. Thenceforth the New England slavers sailed in cycles, and their course was charted by rum, slaves, and molasses. The “black-birders” bartered their human cargoes for West Indian molasses, which, by a spirituous, if not a spiritual, process, became New England rum. “Old Medford” filled their holds, westerly winds filled their bellying sails, and the rum was soon converted into more slaves, to be in turn converted again into molasses in completing the gainful cycle.

For a hundred and fifty years Rhode Island and Massachusetts competed successfully with England for the North American trade, and these colonies (with “God’s grace”) throve exceedingly. In the early years of the last century, however, the importation of slaves was interdicted and the last Yankee slaver converted the last rum-bought slave into cash, then, converting himself, he became an Abolitionist, and the well-known “New England conscience” was developed.

But the Puritan slaver, whatever “woes unnumbered” he brought upon his own race, was, in transferring these bought or stolen blacks to the humane Cavalier planters of the South, an unconscious benefactor to thousands of Negro captives and to millions of their descendants, whose masters gave them Christianity and such a measure of civilization, that, in the short space of two hundred years from the cannibal savagery of the stew-pot and the spit, they were fitted, in the New England mind, at least, for manhood suffrage, which came to enlightened England only after more than a thousand years of development!

None of the encyclopedias mentions the Gullah Negroes, nor does the name appear in the dictionaries. Mr. John Bennett, the well-known writer of Charleston, who has, for twenty years, been gathering data concerning this interesting people, places the Gullahs among the Liberian group of tribes; “formerly powerful and numerous, they have been crowded and overrun; their remnant remains about thirty miles inward from Monrovia;” but in 1822, in a publication by the Charleston City Council at the time of the attempted Negro insurrection, reference is made to “Gullah Jack” and his company of “Gullah or Angola” Negroes, thereby making the suggestion that “Gullah” is a corruption of Angola. As Angola and Liberia are at least fifteen hundred miles apart, the former being nearly one thousand miles south of the Equator, these two opinions seem to be in hopeless conflict.

Mr. Bennett says further: “Among the many African tribes brought to this country, the presence of very many Gullah Negroes is apparent from the earliest times. On some plantations, before the days of experienced precaution, it is highly probable they formed a majority of the hands. As early as 1730 a plan had been hatched against Charleston by these Negroes....

“The dialect of the West Coast, from which came these Gullah Negroes, was early commented upon as peculiarly harsh, quacking, flat in intonation, quick, clipped and peculiar even in Africa. Bosman, the Dutch sailor, described its peculiar tonality, and calls its speakers the ‘Qua-quas,’ because they gabbled like ducks.

“The clinging together of these Gullah tribesmen, as indicated above, and their apparent resolute and persistent character, evidently assisted in impressing their dialectical peculiarities on weaker and more plastic natures brought in contact with them, and fixed the tonality of the Negro dialect of the Carolina low-country....

“For the above reason, of prevalence and domination as a peculiar dialect with singular and marked tonality, the characteristic patois of the districts where these Negroes most abounded, came to be universally referred to as the Gullah dialect.”

Whatever the origin of these Gullahs, Mr. Bennett is probably correct in his estimate of their influence upon low-country Negro speech.

Slovenly and careless of speech, these Gullahs seized upon the peasant English used by some of the early settlers and by the white servants of the wealthier Colonists, wrapped their clumsy tongues about it as well as they could, and, enriched with certain expressive African words, it issued through their flat noses and thick lips as so workable a form of speech that it was gradually adopted by the other slaves and became in time the accepted Negro speech of the lower districts of South Carolina and Georgia. With characteristic laziness, these Gullah Negroes took short cuts to the ears of their auditors, using as few words as possible, sometimes making one gender serve for three, one tense for several, and totally disregarding singular and plural numbers. Yet, notwithstanding this economy of words, the Gullah sometimes incorporates into his speech grotesquely difficult and unnecessary English words; again, he takes unusual pains to transpose numbers and genders.

On some of the sea-islands and on portions of the mainland, sparsely inhabited by whites, the Gullah speech still persists in its original “purity.” The explanation for this is that the Negroes, before and after the war, were in so tremendous a majority on the great plantations of the low-country that only the house servants came in frequent contact with their masters’ families, and these house servants, certainly those who had been “in the house” for generations, spoke with scarcely a taint of Negro speech. The field hands, seldom coming in contact with whites, had neither opportunity nor temptation to amend their speech. There was none to “impeach” their language, and so virile was this Gullah that, in some sections higher up the state, as in Barnwell and Sumter counties, where, in the settlement of estates certain families or colonies of coast-bred Negroes were sold before the war, the Gullah tongue, although with difficulty understood by the other Negroes of the community, still persists like lingual oases in the desert of up-country Negro speech.

This Gullah dialect is interesting, not merely for its richness, which falls upon the ear as opulently as the Irish brogue, but also for the quaint and homely similes in which it abounds and for the native wit and philosophy of its users. Isolated from the whites as were these coast Negroes, and having no contact with the more advanced slaves of the up-country, who, belonging as a rule to small slave-holders, were in close touch with their masters’ families, the coast Negroes retained more of the habits and traditions of their African ancestry and presented, therefore, a more interesting study of the Negro as he was, and to a certain extent “ever shall be.” Living close to nature, they were learned in woodcraft and the ways of animals and birds and fish, and used this knowledge to illustrate their dealings with their own kind.

The peasantry, the lower classes generally, are the conservators of speech. Writers who have exploited the white mountaineers of the Appalachian ranges of North Carolina and Tennessee have heard from their lips Biblical and Shakesperean English now almost forgotten among educated people. So these coast Negroes still use fragments of Shakesperean English long obsolete among their former masters.

To Mr. Bennett and other philological investigators must be committed the task of working out the sources of many words of this interesting tongue. The purpose here is simply to record the oddities of the dialect as the Coast Country Negroes use it. After all, grotesque and interesting as is this speech to those familiar with it, it is only a vehicle for carrying to the reader the thought and life of an isolated group among the varied peoples that make up the complex population of this Republic.

There have been many writers of Negro dialect. Some stories that have come out of the North, feminine effusions chiefly, have been fearfully and wonderfully made; the thoughts of white people, and very common-place thoughts at that, issuing from Negro mouths in such phonetic antics as to make the aural angels weep!

In fact, no Northern writer has ever succeeded even indifferently well in putting Negro thought into Negro dialect. Even Poe, in “the Goldbug,” put into the mouth of a Charleston Negro such vocables as might have been used by a black sailor on an English ship a hundred years ago, or on the minstrel stage, but were never current on the South Carolina coast. To recent Southern writers, therefore, one must turn for intelligent understanding of the Negro character and the recording of his speech, which varies in the different sections of the South.

Thomas Nelson Page, recognized as the outstanding exponent of the Virginia Negro in literature, has yet touched his field lightly, considering chiefly the old family man servant and his relations with his master’s household. Very beautifully and tenderly, because very truthfully, Mr. Page has portrayed the ante-bellum Negro man servant; but as to the younger Negro, Negro life before and since the war, and the relations of Negroes to one another, it is to be regretted that he has contributed little or nothing.

The genius of Joel Chandler Harris, who, with Judge Longstreet and his “Georgia Scenes,” fixed Georgia firmly upon the literary map of the world, embalmed the Negro myths and folk-tales of the South so subtly in the amber of his understanding that “Uncle Remus” is known and loved by the children of half the civilized world. There was little creative work in “Uncle Remus.” Mr. Harris claimed to record the stories only “like hit wer’ gun ter me.” These myths were known and told by Negro nurses to the white children over all the Southern states, and in the West Indian Islands as well, but the artistry of Harris lay in the sympathetic understanding of children prompted by his kindly heart, and the human appeal of the tender relations of “the little boy” and the old Negro family servant was irresistible, not only to the children, but to those happy grown-ups who loved them.

It is interesting to know that in the low-country of South Carolina, instead of “Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox,” it is invariably “Buh Rabbit en’ Buh Wolf.” Strange, too, because wolves must have been found in upper Georgia and Carolina for more than a hundred years after they were exterminated along the coast, within whose forests still abound the grey foxes whose natural prey is the rabbit.

Encouraged by the success of the “Uncle Remus” stories, which greatly surprised this singularly modest man, Mr. Harris wrote novels and other stories of Georgia life among whites and blacks. While these were published successfully, it is upon the animal tales of “Uncle Remus” that his fame has been permanently established.

In the introduction to one of his volumes Mr. Harris has made a rather exhaustive study and analysis of the origin of these Negro myths. That they are of African origin none can doubt, but as on the West Coast of Africa, whence the slaves came to the American continent and the West Indian Islands, there are neither wolves, foxes, nor rabbits, it would be interesting to know what African animals were their legendary prototypes. In Jamaica many of the “Uncle Remus” tales are current and have been told to English children by their black nurses for generations, but there the Anancy Spider, a black, hairy tarantula-like creature, is substituted for the rabbit in the mythical triumph of mind over matter—cunning over physical strength—while the tiger does duty for the outwitted fox. Whence comes the Jamaican tiger? One can only surmise that tales of the strength and ferocity of the Jaguar (“el tigre” to the Spaniards) the great spotted cat of South and Central America, were brought from the mainland to the West Indies by the Indians of the Caribbean Coast or the earlier Negro slaves; but in Jamaica even the saddle-horse story is told complete in all its details, the spider, clapping spurs to the tiger’s flanks and riding him up to the house of the “nyung ladies” (Mis’ Meadows an de gals) hitching him to a post and walking boldly in to love’s conquest. For the “Tar Baby” story, instead of the violated spring, the drinking preserve of fox or wolf, a “tar pole” is set up in a banana grove, and to this sticky lure the pilfering spider is found stuck fast by the lord of the plantation when he makes his morning rounds.

Harry Stillwell Edwards, of Macon, is another Georgian whose charming stories in the up-country or cotton plantation dialect have given pleasure to thousands. With an unusual knowledge of the Negro character—the first consideration, if one would present truthful pictures of Negro life—he combines a charming literary style, and his writings deservedly rank high among Negro stories.

Harris touched the Gullah dialect very lightly and not with authority. In “Nights with Uncle Remus,” a later collection of Negro myths, he puts into the mouth of “Daddy Jack” certain variants of the Uncle Remus stories told in the dialect of the coast, and in his introduction to this volume he acknowledges his obligation to correspondents in Charleston and elsewhere on the Carolina and Georgia Coasts for the Gullah stories. It is almost certain that he lacked first-hand contact with the story-tellers, and thus missed some of the subtleties of their speech as well as the peculiar construction of their sentences, differing entirely, as they do, from those of the up-country Negroes. Mr. Harris also includes in his introduction a brief glossary of Gullah words, and expresses the opinion that this peculiar dialect is more easily read than the Georgia dialect of “Uncle Remus,” an opinion in which, unfortunately for the popularity of “Gullah,” few will concur.

In “Myths of the Georgia Coast,” Col. Charles Colcock Jones, of Georgia (and South Carolina, also, by the way) has given, in generally correct Gullah dialect, the stories current along the coast, many of them variants of those told in “Uncle Remus.” A careful lawyer, Col. Jones has set down, with most meticulous exactness, and without imagination or embellishment, the stories as they were told him on the plantation.

One familiar with Negro speech recognizes that these tales are recorded as they fell from Negro lips, and as such they must be regarded, as far as they go, as the most authentic record of Negro myths on the continent—probably the originals of many of the “Uncle Remus” stories, for the slaves first came from Africa to the coast, bringing with them their myths and legends which gradually infiltrated into the hinterland.

A comparison of Jones’s story of the rabbit and the tar baby with Uncle Remus’s version of the same tale will be interesting as showing, not only the richer and quainter dialect of the Gullah, but also his more direct and homely mode of thought.

The “Coteney” sermons of the Reverend John G. Williams, of Barnwell County, which appeared in the Charleston News & Courier about twenty-five years ago and were subsequently published in pamphlet form, purporting to be pulpit deliverances and consequently showing chiefly the Negro’s conception of his relation to religion, are full of homely wit, and, written in the language of the coast, constitute a noteworthy contribution to dialectal literature.

Mrs. A. M. H. Christensen, of Beaufort, although of Northern birth, enjoyed soon after the war unusual opportunities for acquiring folk-lore stories of the sea-islands and littoral, and she has set forth in a small volume certain of the tales that were told her, which are in the main variants of versions of those already related by Harris and Jones.

Another booklet, by the late J. Jenkins Hucks, of Georgetown, S. C., recording some of the cases that came before him as Magistrate, is, perhaps, the most humorous example extant of Gullah undefiled.

Following the Stories, will be found a fairly complete Glossary of the Gullah speech as used by the Negroes of the Carolina-Georgia Coast and sea-islands, perhaps the only extensive vocabulary of Gullah that has yet been compiled.

The words are, of course, not African, for the African brought over or retained only a few words of his jungle-tongue, and even these few are by no means authenticated as part of the original scant baggage of the Negro slaves.

What became of this jungle-speech? Why so few words should have survived is a mystery, for, even after freedom, a few native Africans of the later importations were still living on the Carolina Coast, and the old family servants often spoke, during and after the war, of native Africans they had known; but, while they repeated many tales that came by word of mouth from the Dark Continent—the story-tellers were almost invariably of royal blood, and did not hesitate to own it—they seem to have picked from the mouths of their African brothers not a single jungle-word for the enrichment of their own speech.

As the small vocabulary of the jungle atrophied through disuse and was soon forgotten, the contribution to language made by the Gullah Negro is insignificant, except through the transformation wrought upon a large body of borrowed English words. Adopting, as needed and immediately when needed, whatever they could assimilate, they have reshaped perhaps 1,700 words of our language by virtue of an unwritten but a very definite and vigorous law of their own tongue.

In connection with the Glossary, certain characteristic features of this strange tongue are noted. Their consideration will facilitate the reader’s exploration of “The Black Border.”

Of the stories included in this volume, the last fourteen were written and published in The State in the Spring of 1892. The remaining twenty-eight were written and published during the year 1918.

Ambrose E. Gonzales.

Columbia, August, 1922.

THE BLACK BORDER

NOBLESSE OBLIGE

Joe Fields was the most onery looking darkey on Pon Pon. Squat, knock-kneed, lopsided, slew-footed, black as a crow, pop-eyed, with a few truculent looking yellow teeth set “slantindicularly” in a prognathous jaw, he was the embodiment of ramshackle inefficiency. Although he worked only now and then, thanks to the industry of a hard-working wife, he usually owned, encumbered by a chattel mortgage, a wretched half-starved horse upon which he rode to his occasional employments.

Joe, runt as he was, had two sources of pride—the aristocratic lineage of his “owners,” for he had belonged to the Heywards, and the achievement, on his own behalf, of the paternity of twins. Poor, patient Philippa, being only the mother, and a person of no family to speak of, having been the slave of a Charleston baker—whose fortunes rose during the war, though his Confederate yeast didn’t—Philippa, of the bourgeoisie, was not taken into account. “Dem two twin duh my’own,” and “Me nyuse to blonx to Mass Clinch,” were the Andante and Allegro of Joe’s prideful song. When some lusty young wench, during the customary “chaffing” of the plantation dinner hour, would ridicule his small size, Joe would swell with importance, grin like a ’possum, and overwhelm her with the retort: “Little axe cut down big tree! You see dem two twin, enty? Dem duh my’own.” But the “two twins,” poor little dusky wights, were in evidence in the neighborhood and could be estimated at their true value and Joe’s paternal prowess appraised accordingly, but “Mass Clinch” lived away off “een Walterburruh” and, later, as governor, in Columbia, and his name, mouthed unctuously by his former slave, carried with it a weird, mystical importance, a portentous something that held his auditors with staring eyes and dropping jaws till Joe reached his climax, when the tension relaxed and they returned to earth.

Once started, Joe’s imagination fed upon his words as a dog upon his own fleas. One day when Philippa reprobated his want of industry, Joe, other negroes being present, began to brag: “Wunnuh haffuh wu’k ’cause wunnuh blan blonx to po’ buckruh. Yo’ maussuh ’self haffuh wu’k! Enty I shum een town one time duh stan’ een ’e bake sto’ duh mek bread, en’ ’e kibbuh wid flour ’tell ’e baid stan’ sukkuh deseyuh cedar hedge duh wintuhtime w’en w’ite fros’ dey ’puntop’um?”

“Enty yo’ maussuh wu’k, Joe?”

“Who? My Maussuh? Mass Clinch? ’Ooman, you mus’ be fool! Enty wunnuh know him duh quality? You ebbuh yeddy ’bout quality wu’k? Wuffuh him haffuh wu’k? No, suh! Him hab him ob’shay, Mistuh Jokok, fuh wu’k. My maussuh tek ’e pledjuh. ’E ride hawss, ’e eat ricebu’d en’ summuh duck en’ t’ing’. Him hab t’irteen plantesshun ’puntop Cumbee Ribbuh. Him plant seb’n t’ous’n’ acre’ rice.”

“Seb’n t’ous’n’ acre’!”

“Yaas, enty uh tell wunnuh ’e plant nine t’ous’n’ acre’ rice? Wunnuh t’ink me duh lie, enty? Uh swaytogawd, w’en uh bin Cumbee one time uh count fo’ t’ous’n’ head uh nigguh’ duh hoe rice een de baa’nyaa’d fiel’. Nigguh’ stan’ een Mass Clinch’ fiel’ sukkuh crow’ duh mustuh! En’ him hab seb’n hund’ud mule’!”

“De mule’ wu’k ’pun Cumbee?” asked an iconoclast.

“Co’se de mule’ wu’k, en’ de nigguh’ wu’k, en’ Mistuh Jokok wu’k. Eb’rybody wu’k ’scusin’ my maussuh. Dem mule’ hab long tail’ dull summuhtime fuh switch fly, but w’en wintuhtime come en’ dem ’leb’n hund’ud mule’ tail’ roach, de pyo’ hair wuh shabe off’um mek one pile stan’ big mo’nuh rice rick!”

“Hukkuh yo’ maussuh plant all dat rice en’ t’ing’ ef ’e yent wu’k?”

“Enty I tell wunnuh him lib een Walterburruh? Duh summuhtime ’e does dribe duh plantesshun now en’ den fuh see how him crap stan’. Him dribe two hawss’, en’ de buckle on ’e haa’ness shine lukkuh gol’. One nigguh duh seddown behine ’e buggy wid alltwo ’e han’ fol’ befor’um lukkuh hog tie. Mass Clinch hab on one kid glub ’pun ’e han’ wuh come to ’e elbow. W’en ’e git Cumbee, ’e light out ’e buggy. T’ree nigguh’ run up fuh hol’ ’e hawss’ head. Mistuh Jokok mek’um uh low bow. Mass Clinch iz uh berry mannussubble juntlemun, alldo’ him iz quality, en’ him ’spon’ to de bow. Den ’e biggin fuh walk. Him hab shishuh rich walk! Den ’e cock ’e hat one side ’e head. You nebbuh see nobody kin cock ’e hat stylish lukkuh Mass Clinch. Den ’e onbutt’n ’e weskit. ’E pit ’e lef’ han’ een ’e britchiz pocket, en’ swing ’e walkin’ stick een ’e right han’, en’ biggin fuh quizzit him ob’shay. By dis time ’e git ’puntop de baa’nyaa’d hill en’ look obuh ’e fiel’.

“‘Jokok’,” ’e say, “‘dat de stretch flow you got on my rice, enty?’”

“‘No, suh, dat de haa’bis’ flow.’”

“‘De debble’!” ’e say. “‘’E mus’ be mos’ time fuh ricebu’d!’”

“‘Yaas, suh. We gwine hab some fuh dinnuh’.”

“‘Wuh else you got fuh eat?’” Maussuh quizzit’um.

“‘We got one cootuh soup mek out’uh tarrypin’ wuh bin een one pen duh fatten ’pun gritch en’ t’ing,’ en’ one trout fish, en’ summuh duck’.”

“‘You hab enny mint?’”

“‘Yaas, suh, we hab ’nuf.’”

“‘Berry well, mek we a few julip’,” ’e say. “‘You got enny mo’ ’pawtun’ bidness dat ’quire my ’tenshun?’”

“‘Yaas, suh; snake hole en’ crawfish en’ t’ing’ spile one uh we bank, en’ de trunk blow out, en’ uh hab uh berry bad break, en’ Cumbee ribbuh comin’ een de fiel’. You wantuh shum, suh?’”

“‘No, I t’engk you’,” ’e say. “‘Leh de ribbuh tek ’e co’se. Leh we eat’.”

“W’en ’e gitt’ru ’e bittle, ’e hab ’e fo’ hawss’ hitch up, en’ Mistuh Jokok pit two-t’ree bag uh cootuh en’ ricebu’d en’ summuh duck een him cyaaridge, en’ ’e gone spang Walterburruh, same lukkuh bu’d fly! Da’ duh my maussuh!”

By the time Joe concluded his story the noon hour was over, and the awed negroes rose silently to resume their work. One old mauma, turning to Joe as she knocked the ashes out of her clay pipe and carefully stuck it in the knotty wool behind her ear, said, “Joe, dat duh Gawd you binnuh talk ’bout, enty?”

“No, enty I tell wunnuh duh Mass Clinch Heywu’d! Him duh my maussuh, me duh him nigguh. Me ain’ haffuh wu’k, him ain’ haffuh wu’k. W’en wunnuh look ’puntop’uh she, wunnuh look ’puntop’uh me. Me en’ him alltwo stan’ same fashi’n.”

“I t’aw’t,” said the old woman, scornfully, “I t’aw’t ’e mus’ be de blessed Gawd you bin gib shishuh high praise, but I always yeddy suh Him duh de ainjul’ maussuh, en’ I yeddy suh de ainjul’ w’ite en’ shiny lukkuh staar een de sky, but you, nigguh! YOU black ez uh buzzut!”

“MY MAUSSUH”

How beneficent must have been the institution of slavery under kindly masters which could cause Joe Fields, black, yellow-eyed, knock-kneed, slew-footed, longtime husband of Philippa, sometime father of twins, to boast, 53 years after the war, of the prowess and attainments of his former master, Duncan Clinch Heyward, sometime governor of South Carolina, now collector of internal revenue and sitting at the receipt of customs in the tall Palmetto building at Columbia, with dominion over war tax, surtax and every other impost internally levied by a benevolent government upon its loyal people. Although, perhaps, an infant in arms when Joe first looked freedom in the face, this “master” was exalted in the mind of his former slave to almost Godlike proportions. “Joe’ maussuh duh him Jedus,” conservatively remarked Philippa.

The negroes about Pon Pon had been considerably exercised over the lengthening of the daylight hours by pushing forward the hands of the clock. Always suspicious of a Caucasian in the woodpile, it was generally regarded as a device for increasing the hours of negro labor. At a recent gathering of the idle black at Adams Run station, the opinion was expressed that the President, although a “Dimmycrack,” must be “a smaa’t man” to have lengthened the days on the darkeys and taken over the railroads.

New York, in the minds of the coast negroes, is the ultima Thule—at once the farthest North, and the very core and center of Yankeedom, where, in awful majesty, the President of the United States is supposed to sit like Zeus upon Mt. Olympus, or “my maussuh” in Columbia.

“Yaas, man,” said Joe, “de Prezzydent smaa’t man, fuh true, but ’e yent smaa’t lukkuh maussuh, ’cause my maussuh haffuh gone New Yawk fuh tell de Prezzydent wuh fuh do. Same lukkuh maussuh tell Mistuh Jokok, him ob’shay ’puntop Cumbee, hummuch rice en’ t’ing’ fuh plant, same fashi’n him tell de Prezzydent wuh fuh do, en’ de Prezzydent smaa’t ’nuf fuh do’um.

“Todduh day uh hab uh hebby disapp’int. Uh yeddy suh uh big buckruh wedd’n’ bin fuh hab een Adam’ Run billage, en’ uh yeddy suh my maussuh fuh come spang f’um Cuhlumbia to de wedd’n’. Uh gone en’ pit on me shoe’ en’ da’ new britchiz wuh uh buy yeah ’fo’ las’, en’ uh pit on uh old weskit wuh uh bin hab, so ’e kin mek me fuh look lukkuh maussuh, en’ uh tek me two foot en’ walk, ’cause da’ las’ oxin wuh uh buy done dead onduhneet’ de mawgidge da’ buckruh mek me fuh pit ’puntop’um, en’ uh yent hab nutt’n’ fuh ride, en’ uh gone slam Adam’ Run billage to de wedd’n’, so uh kin see maussuh, en’ uh stan’ outside de ’Piskubble chu’ch en uh fast’n’ alltwo me yeye ’pun de do’ fuh see w’en de buckruh’ gone een en’ w’en dem come out, en’ ’nuf buggy en’ cyaaridge en’ t’ing’ dribe up to de do’, en’ some dem torruh t’ing wuh buckruh hab now—uh cyan’ call ’e name, but ’e hab fo’ w’eel en’ ’e run lukkuh bu’d fly, en’ ’e smell lukkuh kyarrysene—en’ uh see de buckruh git out en’ gone een de chu’ch en’ de preechuh pit on ’e new shroud, ’cause ’e done buy anodduh one attuh Estelle t’ief de fus’ one ’e hab. Bimeby, eb’rybody come out de do’, en’ uh look ’tell uh pop-eye,’ but uh nebbuh see no maussuh; en’ den uh fin’ out suh maussuh ent hab uh chance fuh come to de wedd’n’ cause him haffuh gone New Yawk fuh tell de Prezzydent wuh fuh do! Yaas, suh, da’ duh my maussuh! Same way ’e mek Mistuh Jokok en’ dem nigguh’ en’ t’ing’ fuh stan’ ’roun’ ’puntop’uh Cumbee ribbuh, uh yeddy suh same fashi’n him fuh do een Cuhlumbia en’ New Yawk. Uh yeddy suh my maussuh fuh lib een Cuhlumbia een one high house. ’E high mo’nuh loblolly pine tree. De house hab seb’n hund’ud room’, but dem buckruh’ wuh bin Cuhlumbia tell me de house ent hab no step fuh climb. W’en maussuh ready fuh go to de top uh ’e house, ’e gone een one leetle room, en’ ’e shet de do’ en ’e shet ’e yeye. Fus’ t’ing you know, ’e gone spang to de top uh ’e house. Wen ’e op’n ’e yeye de do’ op’n, en’ ’e walk een ’e office en’ ’e hab ’nuf man en’ nyung lady een ’e office. ’E seddown befo’ ’e table. ’E table big lukkuh winnuh-house flatfawm. ’E pit uh seegyaa’ een ’e mout’. ’E cross ’e foot. ’E call one dem nyung lady. ‘You got any match?’ maussuh ax’um.

“‘Yaas, suh,’ ’e say.”

“‘Please gimme uh matches,’ maussuh say, berry puhlite, ‘en’ light’um fuh me.’ De nyung lady g’em de match, but him say suh maussuh hab mo’ ’speriunce fuh light match’ den w’at him hab. Maussuh say, ‘berry well,’ en’ him ’cratch’ de match ’pun ’e britchiz. ’E ketch fire. ’E light ’e seegyaa’. ’E blow smoke! ’E study! Bimeby ’e reach obuh ’e table. ’E tetch one leetle sump’n’nurruh lukkuh rattlesnake’ butt’n. De t’ing hab lightnin’ een’um, but ’e nebbuh t’unduh. W’en maussuh tetch’um, de felluh go ‘ping,’ same lukkuh oonuh t’row stick ’puntop tallygraf wire. Bimeby, fo’ man’ run een de room. ‘Hummuch money oonuh tek f’um de buckruh teday?’ maussuh ax’um. ‘You tek all dem got?’”

“‘Yaas, suh,’ dem say. ‘Eb’n so we tek dem fowl off de roos’!’”

“‘Berry well,’ maussuh say. ‘Ef you tek all dem got, uh haffuh study ’pun uh plan fuh git mo’, en’ ’e tell de fo’ man’ fuh gone. W’en dem gone, maussuh study. ’E pit ’e head one side sukkuh bluejay. ’E blow smoke, en’ ’e study. Maussuh too schemy! Bimeby, ’e say to ’eself: ‘Wuh me en’ de Prezzydent gwine do? Us done ketch all de money wuh de buckruh got, en’ us yent lef’um nutt’n’ ’cep’ de railroad. Nigguh’ ent got nutt’n’ but dem han’ en’ dem foot’. Nigguh’ ent fuh hab no money. Nigguh’ fuh w’uk. Leh we see,’ ’e say. ‘Fus’ t’ing, me en’ de Prezzydent haffuh wu’k! Alltwo uh we duh juntlemun, en’ juntlemun ent fuh wu’k.’ Maussuh pit on ’e hat. ’E gone deepo’ een Cuhlumbia. ’E ride de westyblue strain, en’ ’e nebbuh git off ’tell ’e git spang New Yawk! ’E gone to de Prezzydent’ house. De Prezzydent mek’um uh bow. ’E ax’um, ‘How you lef’ yo’ fambly en’ yo’ crap?’ Maussuh treat’um berry mannussubble. ’E tell’um ’e fambly well, but ’e crap ent stan’ so berry good, ’cause nigguh’ seem lukkuh dem ent lub fuh wu’k ’fo’ day clean een de mawnin’, en’ dem dat good-fuhnutt’n’ dem wan’ knock-off soon ez daa’k come. ‘Dem eegnunt tuh dat,’ de Prezzydent tell’um. ‘Ent you hab moonlight night’ ’puntop Cumbee ribbuh?’ Maussuh tell’um yaas, him hab moonlight, fuh true, but seem lukkuh moonlight night’ duh summuhtime nigguh’ fuhrebbuh duh shout en’ beat stick. Maussuh tell’um ef him kin mek uh law fuh pit anodduh hour een eb’ry day, him kin git mo’ wu’k out de nigguh’. ‘Berry well,’ de Prezzydent tell’um. En’ ’e mek law fuh sattify maussuh, same lukkuh maussuh tell’um.

“Den maussuh cross ’e foot, en’ ’e study some mo’. ’E git schemy ’gen! Maussuh tell’um t’engky fuh de law wuh ’e mek, but ’e tell’um one t’ing wuh bodduhr’um duh de railroad wuh run f’um W’ite Hall fuh gone town. ’E tell’um eb’ry Sattyday W’ite Hall deepo’ black wid nigguh’ fuh gone town fuh t’row’way dem money. Maussuh tell’um de ticket en’ de ’scusshun too cheap, en’ ef de Prezzydent gi’ him de railroad, him will chaa’ge mo’ money fuh de ticket, en’ den de nigguh’ cyan’ trabble so fas’. De Prezzydent tell’um, yaas, ’e plan berry good, but him hab uh sonny-law wuh hab uh berry good ecknowledge fuh git money out’uh buckruh’, en’ ef him kin git’um out’uh buckruh’, him kin git’um out’uh nigguh’ alltwo, so ’e say ’e gwine tek de railroad f’um de buckruh’ en’ g’em to ’e sonny-law, en’ maussuh tell’um berry well, him ’low’um fuh do dat, en’ den maussuh come home en’ write uh ansuh to Mistuh Jokok fuh tell’um nigguh’ fuh wu’k one mo’ hour eb’ry day Gawd sen’, en’ Mistuh Jokok pass de wu’d; en’, please Gawd, de Prezzydent’ sonny-law mek nigguh’ fuh pay mo’ fuh ride de railroad, en eb’rybody say suh de Prezzydent shishuh smaa’t man fuh mek dem law, but, oonuh yeddy me! duh my maussuh mek de Prezzydent fuh mek law! Him schemy fuh t’ink all dem t’ing so him en’ de Prezzydent ent haffuh wu’k! My maussuh ent full wu’k. No, suh!”

AN ANTEMORTEM DEMISE

Under whatever star Philippa had been born, she had known only ill luck since her acquisition of a husband in Joe Fields, the slew-footed former slave of former Governor Heyward. Joe’s pride in his former master was too great to permit him to walk, and the mortgaged horse or mule which he usually owned seldom lived very long on the light rations and scant attention it received. Its demise would soon be followed by another animal purchase, another mortgage, and another death. Joe occasionally worked when it suited him, but Philippa toiled unceasingly, and, although she seldom lived at home, she was very proud of the little establishment which her labor maintained. Always distrustful of Joe, she yet gave him the custody of, and dominion over, the few material things she possessed, representing in her character the contradictions not infrequently met with among those of her sex in higher circles.

Once upon a time, Philippa aspired to animal husbandry. Tired of buying bacon for Joe at the Cross Roads store, she applied the savings of several months of hard labor to the purchase of a young sow, and, perhaps in compliment to Joe, she bought a Berkshire, the blackest pig she could find. During the months of anticipation, while she worked for the money with which to make the purchase, her mind was full of the little black pigs that some time would be running about her yard around the cabin in the woodland, furnishing meat in prospect, and immediate companionship for Joe and their taciturn black daughter, Christopher Columbus, who kept the home fires burning with whatever lightwood knots she could pick up in the pineland, while the wife and mother worked for “de buckruh” several miles away.

“Joe en’ Cuhlumbus sho’ gwine hab uh good cump’ny w’en uh buy da’ hog en’ sen’ um home,” she thought. “Ef uh kin raise ten pig’ dis’yeah, maybe nex’ yeah uh kin raise two-t’ree hund’ud, en’ dem kin git ’nuf fuh eat een de swamp en’ de pinelan’ bidout buy’um no bittle.”

So her fancy pictured her humble premises teeming with little pigs, first squirming in their beds among the straw, then grunting and running about the place, while Joe and Columbus, squatting on the door step of the cabin, communed with them in spirit and watched them grow. Later, the husky shoats would forage the pinelands and swamps for mast and acorns, and root about in the muddy branches for slugs and crayfish, then, grown to fat porkers, they would be slaughtered, salted and smoked, and hams, shoulders, and flitches would hang in festoons from the cabin rafters. So they successively passed through the seven ages of swine. At last the sow that was to transmute Philippa’s dreams into realities was bought and paid for, and a message dispatched to Joe to come and take her home. In due time he arrived with ox and cart and, admonished by Philippa to meet the responsibility placed upon him, he drove away, the guardian of her hopes.

But Joe was not a forward-looking man. His eyes, lacking speculation, were filled with the insistent materialism of the moment. A present pig was worth a hundred in prospect. His eyeballs popped and his lips leaked as he viewed Opportunity that grunted so tantalizingly at his door, and the gnawings of “Guamba” (the meat hunger of the savage African tribes) played Lady Macbeth to his halting thoughts of murder and turned them into resolution.

“Yaas, ma’am, uh glad fuh git uh chance fuh wu’k out ’gen, ’cause Joe’ shishuh po’ puhwiduh. ’E nebbuh hab no bittle een de house fuh eat. ’E lub fuh eat, but ’e say suh ’cause him maussuh duh quality, suh him ent fuh nyam no dry bittle. Cawn hom’ny ent wut’ fuh Joe ’scusin’ ’e got hog meat ’long’um fuh greese ’e mout’, en’ da’ time we’n uh binnuh wu’k Pon Pon uh lavuh’ haa’d fuh two munt’ fuh buy uh sow so uh kin raise hog meat fuh keep f’um fuhrebbuh duh run duh sto’ fuh bodduh wid dem Jew’ en’ t’ing’, en’ w’en uh done pay fuh de sow, uh sen’ one metsidge fuh tell Joe fuh come fuh fetch’um home. Yuh come Joe een ’e oxin cyaa’t! ’E dat swonguh, ’e mos’ mek somebody wuh ent know’um t’ink suh himself wu’k fuh buy de hog. Joe tie all fo’ de sow’ foot, ’e pit’um een ’e cyaa’t, en’ ’e gone! Attuh uh week done gone, uh sen’ wu’d fuh tell Joe fuh come fuh see me fuh tell me how de hog git ’long. Bimeby Joe come, ’e tell me de hog hab uh berry good he’lt’. Uh t’engkful fuh yeddy dat, ’cause uh study ’puntop da’ hog tummuch. Anodduh week done gone, uh sen’ fuh Joe ’gen. ’E come. Uh ax’um how de hog’ he’lt’. ’E say ’e he’lt’ ent so berry good, ’e say seem lukkuh de hog kind’uh po’ly. Uh baig’um fuh ent tek ’e yeye off de hog, en’ ’e mek me uh prommus suh ’e gwine watch’um same lukkuh de sow duh ’e own chile. Anodduh week gone. Joe come ’gen. ’E fetch uh berry sad news f’um de hog, ’cause ’e say suh de hog duh leddown, en’ him berry ’f’aid suh ’e dey at de p’int uh de’t’. Wen him tell me dat, uh seddown en’ uh cry, but w’en uh look ’puntop’um uh see suh Joe hab uh berry sattify’ face, en’ ’e jaw look hebby ’tell ’e stan’ lukkuh mufflejaw fowl, but stillyet uh nebbuh ’spishun nutt’n’, en’ uh ax Joe wuffuh mek ’e jaw fat. ’E tell me ’e hab uh teet’ache, en’ dat w’ymekso ’e jaw swell. Joe gone. Nex’ week ’e come ’gen. ’E jowl hebby ez uh buckruh’ barruh Chris’mus time, en’ ’e face look berry sattify. Uh ax’um how de hog? ’E say de hog dead ’tell buzzut done eat’um. Wen uh yeddy dat wu’d, me h’aa’t hebby ’tell ’e ready fuh drap out me t’roat ’pun de du’t. Uh look ’pun Joe ’gen. Uh study ’pun how ’e jaw fat. Uh biggin fuh ’spishun. Uh ax’um ef ’e still hab uh teet’ache een ’e jaw. ’E tell me yaas, ’e teet’ache hot’um ’tell ’e cyan’ nyam ’e cawn hom’ny. Uh ax’um ef ’e teet’ hot’um to dat, hukkuh him mout’ kin grin lukkuh possum mout’ duh wintuhtime w’en ’e dey een possimmun tree? ’E say suh ’e teet’ache hot’um ’tell ’e mek’um fuh grin. W’en ’e tell me dat, uh know him duh lie, en’ uh know berry well weh de hog gone, ’cause him hab shishuh selfish face uh know suh nutt’n’ gwine mek’um grin ’cep’n’ ’e belly tight. Dat, en’ brag ’bout ’e maussuh, duh de only two t’ing fuh sweet’n ’e face fuh mek laugh come een ’e mout’! Uh tell’um, berry well, uh fret ’bout de hog ’tell uh haffuh gone home en’ look ’puntop de po’ creetuh’ bone. ’E tell me suh buzzut done scattuh ’e bone. Uh tell’um, nemmine, uh gwine fin’um ef uh haffuh hunt spang tuh Caw Caw Swamp! Joe stick out ’e mout’ ’tell ’e oagly ez uh catfish, but uh yent mine’um, en’ uh climb’ een de oxin cyaa’t en’ mek’um fuh dribe tuh de house. Uh know berry well suh uh kin mek Cuhlumbus fuh tell me de straight ’bout de hog, ’cause uh train’um fuh watch ’e Pa same ez beebu’d watch beehibe. W’en uh git home uh holluh fuh Cuhlumbus, but ’e yent mek no ansuh en’ uh know ’e mus’be gone deepo. Uh look full de key een de knot hole een one de house’ log weh ’e does lef’um w’en ’e gone out, but befo’ uh gone een de house uh tell Joe fuh show me weh de hog done dead, so uh kin look ’pun ’e bone. Joe look shameface’ ez uh suck-aig dog w’en oonuh ketch’um een uh hen nes,’ but ’e nebbuh crack ’e teet’, en’ ’e gone tuh de aige uh de swamp en’ ’e tell me suh dey de hog dead, en’ de buzzut mus’be flew ’way ’long ’e bone, ’cause none ain’ lef’. Uh tell’um ’e buzzut strong fuh true, but de nigguh lie so easy, uh haffuh suck me teet’ at’um. Uh gone dull house, uh onlock de do’ en’ uh gone een. De fiah done out een de chimbly, but een de cawnuh uh de chimbly uh see de big spiduh duh set, kibbuh’ up wid ashish en’ dead coal’. Uh ax Joe wuh ’e got fuh eat. ’E say ’e dunno wuh Cuhlumbus cook’ befo’ ’e gone out. ’E say ’e ’spec’ Cuhlumbus him roas’ tettuh, eeduhso bile’ hom’ny een de spiduh. Uh tek off de kibbuh. Please me Jedus, uh see de hog’ head dey een de spiduh done cook, en’ uh know ’e duh my’own, ’cause ’e hab de w’ite people’ maa’k wuh uh buy’um f’um een alltwo ’e yez! W’en uh look ’puntop de sow head, en’ ’membuh all de t’ing uh bin agguhnize ’bout fuh git da’ hog, uh hab uh berry hebby sperrit en’ water full’ alltwo me yeye. Uh ax Joe weh da’ hog meat come f’um? ’E say him ent know nutt’n’ ’t’all ’bout’um, ’e say suh somebody mus’be gi’ Cuhlumbus de meat. ’E say suh him binnuh nyam de pyo’ cawn hom’ny ’tell him hab uh dry drought een ’e t’roat. Uh tell’um, ‘Joe, you sho’ iz uh fait’ful liah fuh tell lie. Yo’ jaw swell wid de pyo’ fat you git f’um eat my hog, en’ da’ berry sow gwine ride you duh night time. ’E fuh haant you long ez you lib.’ Cuhlumbus come. Uh ax’um hukkuh de sow git ’e de’t’. ’E say suh ebbuh sence de hog come home, ’e Pa binnuh hankuh at’um fuh eat. ’E say suh eb’ry day ’e Pa seddown on de do’ step duh watch de hog duh root ’bout de yaa’d, en’ eb’ry time de hog grunt, ’e Pa dat hongry fuh eat’um, ’e gnash ’e teet’ en’ water run out ’e mout’. One time de hog git ketch een de fench en’ squeal. W’en Joe yeddy ’e woice ’e run out, en’ ’stead’uh ’e loose’um out de fench, ’e tek axe, knock’um een e’ head, en’ ’e tell Cuhlumbus ’e kill’um fuh pit’um out ’e mis’ry. Den ’e staa’t fuh eat’um to ’e tail en’ eat spang t’ru de hog ’tell ’e git to ’e head wuh uh fin’ een de pot! De berry day da’ nigguh tell me suh de sow eenjy uh berry po’ he’lt’, ’e done eat de hog’ two hanch! Uh done wid feed Joe! Ef ’e maussuh lub’um tuh dat, him kin feed’um! Meself, uh done!”

Though the abandoned Joe made bones of Philippa’s hopes, he made none about acknowledging the butchery, and boasting of it, away from home.

“Joe, you sho’ iz fat.”

“Yaas, man, uh fat fuh true. Uh binnuh eat hog meat. Philpuh him buy uh hog en’ sen’ um home, en’ de hog meet uh acksident een de fench, en’ uh ’f’aid ’e gwine dead lukkuh da’ todduh hog ’e hab fuh dead on me han’ one time, en’ buzzut git’um ’fo’ uh hab uh chance fuh eat’um. Buzzut git uhhead’uh me one time, but ’e nebbuh do’um two time! My maussuh’ nigguh haffuh smaa’t mo’nuh buzzut! Stepney[1] ain’ fuh come een my house! Me fuh ’low my maussuh’ nigguh fuh perish fuh hog meat? Me jaw full dry ’long cawn hom’ny, en’ buzzut mout’ fuh greesy ’long de ’ooman hog meat, enty? No suh! Uh gwine nyam’um fus’! Uh kill’um ’fo’ ’e dead!”

THE LION OF LEWISBURG

Several years ago there lived on the “Lewisburg” rice plantation of former Governor Duncan Clinch Heyward, one Monday White, a yellow negro and a persistent and imaginative practical joker. The little “Devil’s Fiddles” which boys construct of empty tin cans and rosined string emit unchristian squeaks and groans when played upon with smooth hardwood sticks, and Monday believed that a similar device on a larger scale could be so manipulated as to frighten into hysterics half the negro population along Combahee River. Begging from the store a large empty powder keg, he surreptitiously rigged it up with stout twine which, well rubbed with rosin and scraped with a dry hickory stick for a bow, produced a hoarse and horrible sound which might have passed among the uninitiated for the roar of a lion—or for anything else.

Monday knew that the superstitious negroes feared most the unknown. The negro who would have taken a chance with alligator or bull, or the even more dangerous hind legs of a mule, could be scared stiff by a weird, unfamiliar sound in the woods at night. So Monday decided that the ear-jarring sound emitted by his double-bass “Devil’s Fiddle” should do service for the roar of a lion, as these creatures were unknown on Combahee, and the few negroes who had once seen lions when the circus visited Walterboro, brought back marvelous tales of their ferocity and their terrible voices.

Monday baited his victims skilfully. One Saturday night when the store was crowded with trading negroes, he led the conversation lionwards. He needed tales of terror, and the two or three negroes who had once seen lions were willing to oblige. One of them had even seen them fed. “W’en uh bin Walterburruh, uh look ’puntop one dem annimel fuh call lion, en’ uh shum w’en dem duh g’em ’e bittle fuh eat.”

“Nigguh g’em ’e bittle?

“No man, buckruh feed’um. Nigguh ent fuh feed’um. Da’ t’ing dainjus tummuch! Nigguh duh him bittle. Lion en’ nigguh alltwo come f’um Aff’iky, en’ w’en dem Aff’ikin king en’ t’ing hab lion een dem cage, ’e g’em uh nigguh fuh eat eb’ry day Gawd sen’, en’ ’e crack nigguh’ hambone een ’e jaw sukkuh dem Beefu’t nigguh crack crab claw’ w’en ’e done bile. Him done fuh lub nigguh! W’en dem sukkus man fuh feed’um een Walterburruh, dem fetch half uh bull yellin’ fuh ’e bittle, en’ w’en da’ t’ing look ’puntop de meat, ’e tail t’rash’ ’pun de flo’ sukkuh nigguh duh t’rash rice ’long flail, en’ ’e gyap ’e mout’ same lukkuh Mistuh Jokok op’n ’e trunk mout’ fuh t’row uh flow ’puntop Mass Clinch’ rice! ’E woice roll lukkuh t’unduh roll, en’ w’en ’e holluh, eb’ry Chryce’ nigguh t’row ’e han’ obuh e’ two’ yez en’ run out de tent, en’ gone!”

“Tengk Gawd dem annimel nebbuh come ’puntop Cumbee!” a woman fervently exclaimed.

“Yaas, tittie,” said another, “ef da’ t’ing ebbuh come yuh, me fuh run Sabannuh. Uh nebbuh stop run ’tell uh done pass de Yamassee!”

Others joined in the trembling chorus and Monday, when they had become sufficiently worked up, shrewdly spilled the first spoonful of powder leading to his mine. “Oonuh nigguh, one buckruh binnuh talk ’puntop de flatfawm to W’ite Hall deepo dis mawnin’, en’ uh yeddy’um tell dem torruh buckruh suh one sukkus hab uh acksident to Orangebu’g, en’ one lion git out ’e cage en’ run een de swamp en’ gone, en’ de buckruh try fuh ketch’um but dem ’f’aid fuh gone een de swamp, en’ dem sen’ dem dog attuhr’um, en’ de lion kill t’irteen beagle one time!”

“Oh Jedus!” cried an excited woman, “Uh berry ’f’aid da’ t’ing gwine come Cumbee! Hummuch mile Orangebu’g stan’ f’um yuh?”

“Uh dunno hummuch mile,” Monday replied, “but uh know lion kin mek’um ’tween middlenight en’ dayclean, en’ ef uh ebbuh yeddy ’e woice roll een dish’yuh swamp, meself gwine git een me trus’me’gawd coonoo en’ uh fuh gone down Cumbee ribbuh, en’ uh nebbuh stop paddle ’tell uh git Beefu’t!”

A week passed. Like the waves from a stone thrown into still waters, the lion stories spread among the outlying plantations in all directions. Saturday night found Monday early at the store. Another convenient buckra at White Hall station had told that morning of the lion’s escape from the Edisto and his crossing over the intervening pinelands into the Salkehatchie Swamp and, as most people know, the Salkehatchie River, below the line of the Charleston and Savannah railway, becomes the Combahee. The lion was loose, therefore, in their own proper swamp, and might even now be riding a floating log down the current of their beloved river!

Monday stealthily slipped out. An hour later, when the negroes in and about the store had worked themselves up to a delectable pitch of excitement, an unearthly groaning roar came from the woods nearby. The night was hot, but the negroes almost froze with fear, and the clerk, in whom Monday had confided, raised no objection when the negroes within the store called in their companions from the outside and asked permission to bar the door.

“Oonuh yeddy’um, enty! Wuh uh tell you ’bout da’ t’ing’ woice?” said the negro who had seen lions in Walterboro.

Monday’s “Devil’s Fiddle” groaned again, and as its dying notes trembled on the summer night, a rush was made to close and bolt the windows. The kerosene lamps smoked and flared in the fetid air. The men listened and shuddered as the recurrent roars, now muffled, reached their expectant ears. The women wailed. “O Gawd! uh lef’ me t’ree chillun shet up een me house,” cried one. “Uh ’spec’ da’ t’ing done nyam’um all by dis time!”

“Shet yo’ mout’, ’ooman,” said a masculine comforter. “Hukkuh him kin eat en’ holluh alltwo one time? Yo’ chillun ent fuh eat.”

“Me lef’ my juntlemun een de house,” said another woman, with resignation, “Uh ’spec’ him done eat.”

“Wuh you duh bodduh ’bout loss uh man?” said the mother. “Man easy fuh git tummuch. Me yent duh bodduh ’bout man. Uh kin git anodduh juntlemun ef da’ t’ing nyam my’own, but weh uh fuh git mo’ chillun?”

“Go’way, gal, ef you kin fuh git anodduh juntlemun, same fashi’n Gawd help you fuh git anodduh chillun.”

After a while the roaring ceased and the clerk, being perilously near suffocation, calmed the fears of the negroes and opened the windows. The trembling darkeys cocked their ears and listened apprehensively, but the shrilling of the Cicada among the pines and the bellowing of the bullfrogs in the distant canals were the only sounds that broke the silence of the night so recently full of terrors. After awhile the door also was unbarred and opened, and a bold man borrowed an axe from the storekeeper and adventured far enough to cut some slabs of lightwood from a familiar stump. The hero added to his popularity by splitting these up and distributing them among the members of the gentler sex, whose escorts lighted torches and convoyed them in a body back to the quarters, where the children and husbands whom they left at home were found intact.

At church on Sunday, the Lewisburg negroes spread among their brethren from the other plantations the news of the coming of the lion, and the “locus pastuh” fervently touched upon the king of beasts. “Puhtec’ we, Maussuh Jedus, f’um da’ t’ing oonuh call lion. Lead’um, Lawd, to weh de buckruh’ cow en’ t’ing’ duh bite grass so him kin full ’e belly bedout haffuh nyam nigguh, en’ ef ’e yiz haffuh tek nigguh fuh ’e bittle, do, Lawd, mek’um fuh tek dem sinful nigguh wuh ent wut, en’ lef’ de Lawd’ renointed. Mek’um fuh do wid de good sistuh en’ bredduh ’puntop dis plantesshun same lukkuh oonuh mek’um fuh do long Dannil—” “Yaas, Lawd,” shouted Monday, the hypocrite, “ef ’e yiz fuh eat nigguh, mek’um fuh eat dem nigguh ’puntop’uh Bonny Hall ’cross de ribbuh, en’ tek ’e woice out’uh we pinelan’.” “Yaas, Lawd!” “Please suh fuh do’um, Lawd!” shouted the fervent brethren and sisters. And stealthily, about two hours after dark that night, while the emotional negroes were alternately laughing, shouting and praying, Monday put his Devil’s Fiddle into a sack, slipped into his canoe, and, crossing to the opposite shore of the river, roared frightfully along the Bonny Hall water line, terrifying the negroes on that plantation and filling the Lewisburg darkeys with thankfulness that their prayers had been answered.

Another week passed. Monday, playing with them as a cat plays with a mouse, kept quiet, until by Saturday night, no news having come of any damage at Bonny Hall, the Lewisburg negroes hoped that the lion had been captured by “de sukkus buckruh,” or had left the neighborhood, and soon after nightfall, half the plantation gathered at the store.

About nine o’clock, when the store was jammed with briskly trading negroes, from afar in the woods came the ominous roar of the hand-made lion. It was distant, and the negroes, while badly frightened, stood their ground to await developments, but a few minutes later the awful sound came again from a nearer point, and by the time the roaring had come within a quarter of a mile of the place, the negroes were panic-stricken, and most of them hurried from the store and ran to the quarters, where they bolted themselves in, to pass a night in fear and trembling, for at intervals until past midnight, their ears carried terror to their souls. On Sunday, Monday, wearing the sanctimonious expression of a cat that has just swallowed the canary, moved among them, listening with sympathetic ears to the tales of perilous adventures that some of them had experienced. “Bredduh W’ite,” said a church sister, “lemme tell you. Las’ night uh gone to Sistuh Bulow’ house attuh daa’k. Uh did’n’ bin to de sto’, ’cause las’ week de buckruh credik me, en’ uh ’f’aid ’e gwine ax’me fuh pay’um wuh uh owe’um, en’ uh gi’ Sistuh Bulow de money fuh buy me rashi’n’ en’ t’ing’, en’ uh seddown een ’e yaa’d fuh wait ’tell ’e come back. Him house ent dey een nigguhhouse yaa’d, ’e stan’ to ’eself ’pun de aige uh de pinelan’. Bumby uh yeddy da’ t’ing’ woice. W’en uh yeddy’um fus’, ’e bin fudduh, en’ uh t’awt ’e bin Jackass duh holluh, but w’en ’e git close, uh ruckuhnize ’e woice, en’ uh know ’e duh lion. Uh dat ’f’aid, uh cyan’ talk. Uh trimble sukkuh mule’ shoulduh duh shake off cowfly. W’en da’ t’ing come t’ru de bush en’ look ’puntop me, me two eye’ pop’ out me head! ’E stan’ high mo’nuh Mass Clinch’ mule. ’E yeye shine lukkuh dem fiah buckruh does mek ’puntop’uh Jackstan’ duh pinelan’ duh summuhtime fuh keep off muskittuh! W’en ’e op’n ’e jaw, ’e t’roat red lukkuh beef haslett! ’E mout’ full’up wid teet’ sukkuh harruh, en’ blood duh drip out ’e jaw sukkuh water drap outuh nigguh mout’ w’en ’e look ’puntop’uh watuhmilyun! W’en uh shum stan’ so, uh drap’ ’puntop me two knee’ en’ uh baig’ me Jedus fuh sabe me! Uh dat ’f’aid, uh shet me yeye’, en’ w’en uh done pray en’ op’n’um’ ’gen, de t’ing gone!” And so on, each tale of dreadful experience told by one negro, being over-matched by the next, who, if one gave “free rein” to her imagination, would be sure to strip the bridle off her’s and throw it away. “Meself shum,” related a 20th Century Munchausen in petticoats. “Uh bin down de road uh piece ’bout two hour’ attuh daa’k fuh try fuh ketch da’ gal, ’cause uh kinduh ’spishun my juntlemun, en’ uh binnuh folluh ’e track fuh ketch’um, but uh nebbuh ketch’um yet, but uh gwine fuh ketch’um, ’cause uh got me yeye ’puntop da’ gal f’um W’ite Hall wuh tote dem bottle en’ t’ing onduhneet’ ’e frock fuh sell rum to all dese man eb’ry Satt’d’y night, en’ mek’um fuh t’row ’way dem money ’stead’uh g’em to dem wife en’ t’ing’, en’ uh bin swif’ ’pun da’ gal track, ’cause yistidd’y w’en my juntlemun git pay’off fuh ’e wu’k, ’e come en’ pit half ’e money een me han’ befo’ uh kin ax’um fuhr’um, en’ da’ t’ing mek me fuh know him duh fool me. Uh look ’puntop’um en’ uh shum duh grin. Sattifaction duh run roun’ da’ nigguh mout’ same lukkuh puppy run roun’ de yaa’d attuh ’e own tail! Uh know man tummuch, en’ w’en ’e stan’ so, ’e yent fuh trus’! Eb’ry time man gi’ money to ’e lawfully lady, ’e h’aa’t duh cry, en’ w’en him look lukkuh ’e glad fuh g’em, ’e face duh lie, ’e try fuh kibbuh up ’e h’aa’t, en’ ’e done mek’up ’e min’ fuh fool’um, but me! uh got uh ecknowledge fuh look t’ru ’e face, en’ w’en uh look ’puntop ’e h’aa’t, ’e stan’ crookety ez uh cowpaat’! Da’ gal kin fool some dem todduh ’ooman, but ’e yent fuh fool me! Him hab two petticoat’, one mek out’uh homespun clawt’, lukkuh we’own, en’ todduh one hab skollup’, lukkuh buckruh lady’ own. W’en him hab on de clawt’ petticoat, none de man nebbuh bodduhr’um, but w’en ’e walk t’ru Lewisbu’g nigguhhouse yaa’d wid da’ skollup’ petticoat staa’ch’ stiff, en’ ’e frock hice up high fuh show’um, en’ dem man look ’puntop de skollup en’ yeddy de staa’ch duh talk ‘she, she, she’ w’en ’e walk, dem know suh ’e got rum fuh sell—dat duh ’e sign—dem t’roat’ biggin fuh dry, en’ dem eb’ry Gawd’ one pick uh chance fuh folluhr’um, but dem todduh ’ooman, dem t’ink suh man lub da’ skollup’ t’ing ’cause ’e stylish, en’ dem study ’bout git skollup’ petticoat demself fuh mek man fuh folluhr’um, but duh nutt’n’ but de pyo’ rum dem man dey attuh. Dem fuh folluh da’ gal ef ’e petticoat mek out’uh grano sack!

“W’en uh did’n’ ketch de gal, uh staa’t’ fuh gone home, en’ uh look ’way off t’ru de pinelan’ en’ uh see two t’ing duh shine sukkuh injine headlight! Uh look ’gen, ’e come close, en’ uh see ’e duh annimel eye! Bumby ’e op’n’ ’e mout’ fuh holluh. Spaa’k’ duh come outuhr’um en’ ’e woice roll ’tell de groun’ shake. Uh nebbuh hab no time fuh pray. W’en uh see da’ fiah come out ’e mout’, uh tell’um, ‘so long, bubbuh, uh gone!’ en’ uh hice me ’coat en’ uh tek me two foot een me han’ en’ uh nebbuh study ’bout no road. Uh gone slam t’ru de bush! Brian ’cratch’ me, uh dunkyuh. Jackwine’ ketch’ me foot en’ obuht’row me, uh jump up, uh gone ’gen! One harricane tree bin ’cross de paat’, uh bus’ t’ru’um sukkuh fiah gone t’ru broom grass fiel’. Nutt’n’ nebbuh stop me, ’cause, bubbuh, uh run! W’en uh git een de big road, uh hog binnuh leddown fuh tek ’e res’. Wen ’e yeddy me foot duh beat groun’, ’e jump up fuh run, but uh obuhtek’um dat swif’, me foot kick’um ez uh gwine, en’ uh yeddy’um holluh behin’ me sukkuh tarrier duh graff’um by ’e yez! Briah tayre off me frock ’tell, time uh git nigguhhouse yaa’d, uh yent hab nutt’n’ lef’ but me shimmy, en’ w’en dem nigguh look ’puntop me dem t’ink uh sperrit come out de ’ood. Uh run een me house, uh shet me do’, en’ uh nebbuh come out ’gen ’tell sunhigh!”

Monday inclined his ear and listened to the negroes, but he showed them no mercy, and before the end of the third week his lion became so bold that a roar came even in broad daylight from among the reeds along the river bank, frightening the laborers out of the fields and even prompting a neighboring planter to order his foreman to lock up the mules for safety when he saw the hands flying in terror from the ricefields! At last, to avoid industrial paralysis, the owner of the plantation, discovering Monday’s plot, suppressed the powder keg lion. And the master saved his people, the Halcyon nested again on the waves of the Combahee, bringing peaceful days and peaceful ways to the Lewisburg plantation, with nothing more exciting than the quest of “da’ skollup’ petticoat,” but—“that’s another story.”

THE LION KILLER

The lion of Lewisburg was dead. By order of former Governor Duncan Clinch Heyward, the Devil’s Fiddle with which Monday White, yellow-skinned plantation practical joker, had terrorized the negroes of the neighborhood for three weeks, had been hidden away, and the groaning roar of the powder keg lion was no longer heard in the land. Monday, the clerk at the store and the master of the plantation, guarded the secret carefully and the negroes, who no longer heard the terrible voice echoing through the woods at night, or along the reeds by the river, believed that the lion, exorcised by the spirit of prayer, had departed from among them and gone to some less regenerate community. Those who had told marvelous tales of the fierce creature whose flaming eyes had burned into their souls, whose bloody jaws had frozen them with fright, told and retold with elaboration and close attention to detail,—and finally themselves believed, the first told stories of their encounters with the monster. Some of those who had had no personal experience with the lion of Lewisburg believed only part of the oft told tales. Others were frankly skeptical, for, while practically all of them believed in the lion, few were willing to yield to the story-tellers the prestige of having come unscathed through such perilous adventures. These stories are always liberally discounted among the negroes, however. At a “baptizing” on the Combahee, the big black pastor had doused in the canal one after another of the “seeking” sisters. They emerged from the turbid waters gurgling and choking, but all were too full of water, or the spirit, for utterance. At last one lusty wench with better breath control than the others came up smiling, and with wind enough for speech. “Oh Jedus!” she yelled, determined to create a sensation, “uh see Gawd onduhneet’ de water! Uh fin’ me Gawd. ’E look ’puntop me!”

“You lie!” said the envious sister who had just preceded her, “’tis cootuh! Enty I shum?”

Gradually the negroes recovered their confidence, and resumed their nocturnal rambles, visiting from one plantation to another, but they usually went in small companies and seldom adventured alone, save when some bibulous man, glimpsing the “skollup’ petticoat” of the peripatetic bootlegger from White Hall as she swished her starched symbol through the Lewisburg quarters on Saturday nights, followed with parched tongue and arid throat to some convenient spot where coin could be exchanged for contraband.

In some way it was generally understood that, supplementing the plantation prayers, “Mass Clinch,” through personal magnetism or the exercise of some former-gubernatorial authority, had had a great deal to do with speeding the going leonine guest. This rumor traveled by grapevine thirty-odd miles from Combahee to Adams Run, the abiding place of Joe Fields, the former governor’s former slave, whose confidence in “Maussuh’s” powers of accomplishment, equalled the Mohammedan belief in the esteemed Prophet’s ability to stock the Hereafter with Houris. It was true that “Maussuh” had commanded the roaring to cease—and it did, but Joe’s imagination insisted upon supplying all the “corroborative detail.”

Joe foregathered with some of his friends at the railway station, for things were not going pleasantly at home. His wife Philippa was one of those hard-working, aggravating creatures who, by her very industry and self-abnegation, forced upon the lordly loafer by whom she was husbanded a sense of his own inferiority. Philippa worked out among the white people, cooking and washing and scrubbing, while Joe rode about on a mortgaged horse or ox and boasted as a Sir Oracle at the Cross Roads or the station. Philippa was always willing to feed Joe, but she was none the less ready to season his food with the sauce of her tongue, and whenever she came home, her sense of duty urged her to remind Joe of his shortcomings. Once a fighter, hard work and scanty food had worn her body and somewhat broken her spirit, and she no longer thrashed her grown daughter Christopher Columbus as she once did, “jes’ ’cause ’e look lukkuh ’e pa,” but Joe, having to take the sauce with the meat, seldom wasted time in replying that he could utilize in eating, and thus the more speedily put himself out of earshot. Once away among his cronies, however, he expressed himself boldly and truculently. “Da’ ’ooman keep on fuh onrabble ’e mout’ ’tell uh w’ary fuh yeddy’um. ’E stan’ sukkuh briah patch w’en blackberry ripe. ’E gi’ you bittle fuh eat, but ’e ’cratch you w’ile you duh eat’um! Him iz uh fait’ful ’ooman fuh true, en’ ’e lub fuh wu’k, but w’en him dey home, uh yent fuh hab no peace. Seem lukkuh nutt’n’ wuh uh do nebbuh suit’um. Ef uh seddown een me rockin’ cheer duh fiah fuh tek me res’ w’ile uh duh nyam me bittle, ’e fau’t me fuh dat. Same fashi’n ef uh git ’puntop me oxin fuh ride to de Cross Road, oonuh kin yeddy’um talk ’bout uh lazy man ent wut!”

“’E ebbuh fau’t you w’en you got axe, eeduhso hoe een yo’ han’?”

“Who, me? Me fuh hab hoe een me han’? No, suh! Maussuh’ nigguh ent fuh hol’ hoe! Wuffuh me haffuh hol’ hoe w’en uh hab po’buckruh nigguh fuh wife? Him fuh hol’ hoe! Philpuh’ maussuh duh po’ buckruh f’um town. Him binnuh bake bread ebbuh sence slabery time. Wuh him ebbuh do? Him ebbuh kill lion?”

“Kill lion! Wuh you duh talk ’bout nigguh? Whoebbuh you ebbuh yeddy kin kill lion?”

“My maussuh fuh kill’um!”

“Go’way, Joe! You duh dream. Een de fus’ place, no lion ent fuh dey een dis country, een de two place, you ent got no maussuh, en’ een de t’ree place, ef you iz bin hab maussuh, him ent able fuh kill no lion.”

“Me yent hab no maussuh! Enty you know suh uh nyuse to blonx to Mass Clinch Heywu’d to Lewisbu’g plantesshun ’puntop Cumbee? Oonuh eegnunt nigguh’, oonuh yent know suh him hab t’ree t’ous’n’ acre’ rice en’ mo’nuh t’ree t’ous’n’ nigguh’ en’ mule en’ t’ing’? Oonuh nebbuh yeddy ’bout da’ lion wuh git’way f’um de sukkus to Orangebu’g todduh day en’ gone down Sawlketchuh swamp ’tell ’e git Cumbee, en’ ’e run all Maussuh’ nigguh’ out ’e fiel’ en’ ’e mek Maussuh’ ob’shay, Mistuh Jokok, fuh climb tree?”

“Nobody nebbuh yeddy ’bout’um, Joe, en’ you nebbuh yeddy ’bout’um. Hukkuh you fuh yeddy ’bout’um? You bin Cumbee?”

“Uh yent bin no Cumbee, but uh got uh titile lib on Maussuh’ place Cumbee, dat how uh yeddy ’bout’um.”

“Wuh yo’ tittie tell you, Joe?”

“W’en de lion git’way out de sukkus ’e gone spang f’um Orangebu’g to Sawlketchuh swamp en’ ’e nebbuh stop ’tell ’e git Lewisbu’g!”

“Wuffuh him haffuh stop Lewisbu’g, Joe?”

“Enty you know suh Maussuh’ nigguh’ fat? Maussuh’ nigguh’ fat fuh sowl! Lion hab sense ’nuf fuh know fat nigguh w’en ’e shum, en’ him kin smell fat nigguh mo’ fudduh den him kin smell po’ nigguh, en’ Maussuh mek shishuh hebby crap uh rice en’ ’tettuh en’ t’ing dat him nigguh’ fat mo’nuh all dem todduh nigguh’ ’puntop Cumbee ribbuh!

“Soon ez de lion git Lewisbu’g, ’e stop. ’E know suh him bittle dey dey, en’ ’e mout’ biggin fuh run water. Bumbye duh night-time, ’e woice roll een Maussuh’ pinelan’ en’ all dem nigguh’ tarrify’ sukkuh chickin tarrify’ w’en fu’lhawk’ wing t’row shadduh obuhr’um! Dem nigguh’ ’f’aid ’tell dem fool! Dem lock demself een dem house duh night, en’, alldo’ ’e duh summuhtime, dem mek fiah fuh bu’n so de lion cyan’ come down de chimbly. W’en de lion cyan’ git no nigguh’ fuh eat ’cause dem all lock’up, ’e gone duh ’ood en’ meet uh cow en’ ’e kill him fuh ’e bittle. W’en ’e done nyam de t’ree cow—”

“T’ree cow! Joe, hukkuh him kin eat t’ree cow’ w’en ’e only kill one?”

“Him nyam t’ree cow’, enty? Him kin nyam’um uh dunkyuh ef ’e yent dead. You ebbuh see lion? Wuh Pon Pon nigguh know ’bout lion? Seem lukkuh w’en ’e done nyam dem t’ree cow’, ’e jis’ mek’um fuh hongry good, en’ ’e gone back nigguhhouse yaa’d fuh see ef him kin git uh chance fuh nyam nigguh’. ’E walk up en’ down, ’e t’rash’ ’e tail, ’e gnash’ ’e teet’ en’ ’e holluh sukkuh jackass en’ alligettuh en’ bull all t’ree one time! You kin yeddy dem nigguh’ een dem house duh pray. Dem eb’ry Gawd’ one prommus dem Jedus fuh folluh Him wu’d, ef ’e only spayre dem life. One tell’um suh ef Him tek de lion’ jaw off’um, him nebbuh t’ief Maussuh’ rice no mo’, en’ eb’ry one tell de Lawd ’bout some uh dem light sin wuh dem willin’ fuh t’row’way ef dem life sabe.”

“Light sin! Mekso dem ent prommus fuh t’row’way dem hebby sin?”

“No, man, dem ent fuh t’row’way dem hebby sin, uh dunkyuh ef lion crack dem bone’. Een slabery time nigguh baig ’e maussuh’ paa’d’n fuh t’ief ’e fowl w’en ’e git ketch, but w’en ’e kill cow, ’e nebbuh crack ’e teet’, en’ eb’n so ef ’e maussuh ketch’um duh skin de cow, him fuh tell ’e maussuh ’e fin’um dead een de ’ood, en’ ’e duh skin’um fuh tek de hide to ’e maussuh fuh sabe’um f’um buzzut! No, man; oonuh fuh hol’ oonuh hebby sin sukkuh sheep buhr hol’ mule’ tail, ’tell Gabrull blow ’e hawn en’ de Lawd tek’um off!”

“Bumbye w’en dayclean en’ de lion nebbuh git no nigguh, ’e gone en’ kill fo’ mo’ cow’, en’ w’en ’e done nyam’um ’e gone duh ’ood en’ leddown fuh tek ’e res’, en’ nobody nebbuh yeddy’um ’gen ’tell Sat’d’y night come. All t’ru de week de nigguh’ swonguh en’ sattify een dem min’ ’cause dem t’ink suh dem pray’ mek de lion fuh gone’way en’ le’m’lone, but ’e yent duh no pray’ mek’um fuh gone, duh dem fo’ cow’ wuh ’e nyam, mek’ ’e belly full ’tell ’e yent hab no room fuh nigguh!”

“W’en Sat’d’y night come, de lion holluh ’gen en’ all de nigguh’ run out de sto’ en’ gone een dem house fuh hide. Monday come, en’ de nigguh’ ’f’aid fuh gone een Maussuh’ fiel’ fuh wu’k. Mistuh Jokok dunno wuh fuh do. Him sen’ uh ansuh to Cuhlumbia fuh tell Maussuh ’cep’n’ him come Lewisbu’g, all him nigguh’ fuh eat. Maussuh ride de train. ’E come. ’E git off W’ite Hall deepo, ’e git ’pun ’e hawss, ’e tu’n to ’e ob’shay, ’Jokok,’ ’e say, ‘Weh da’ annimel fuh hide? Lemme shum!’”

“Mistuh Jokok tell’um de las’ time dem yeddy ’e woice, ’e bin een de t’icket en’ reed en’ t’ing by de ribbuh bank. Maussuh nebbuh wait fuh yeddy no’ mo’. ’E snatch ’e rifle out’uh Mistuh Jokok’ han’, ’e jam ’e two spuhr een e’ hawss’ belly, ’e hawss jump’ nine foot off de groun’ een de ellyment, en’ ’e gone! Maussuh run ’e hawss ’tell ’e git ’cross de causeway ’pun de ribbuh bank, den ’e biggin fuh ride slow en’ t’row ’e yeye befor’um fuh see weh da’ t’ing fuh hide. W’en ’e git close de briah en’ t’ing, ’e hawss cock’ ’e yez befor’um, ’e snawt’ en’ ’e ’tan’up ’trait ’pun ’e hine foot. W’en ’e do dat, Maussuh know suh de lion dey een dem bush! De hawss come down ’pun ’e fo’ foot. ’E duh shake sukkuh rice t’rasher shake. Maussuh yeddy sump’nurruh duh groan een de t’icket. Bumbye de lion come out. W’en ’e op’n’ ’e mout’ ’e teet’ long sukkuh cawncob! Maussuh t’row ’e rifle to ’e yeye. ’E only hab one ball een’um en’ ’e know suh ef him ent kill da’ t’ing dead, da’ lion fuh nyam him en’ ’e hawss alltwo. Maussuh tek aim at ’e t’roat. ’E cut loose, ‘bam!’ W’en de gun crack, ’e look! De lion’ head roll down de bank ’tell ’e fall een de ditch! Maussuh cantuh up to Lewisbu’g. ’E tell Mistuh Jokok fuh sen’ uh waagin en’ fo’ mule’ fuh fetch’um to de yaa’d. Dem medjuhr’um en’ ’e stan’ t’irteen foot long! W’en de nigguh’ yeddy suh ’e dead, dem stop wu’k en’ dem fuh mek fiah en’ shout roun’ da’ lion de Gawd’ night! Bumbye buckruh’ come fuh look ’puntop’um en’ w’en dem yeddy suh ’e seb’nteen foot long, dem ’stonish!”

“Yaas, uh ’spec’ nigguh’ en’ buckruh’ alltwo fuh ’stonish ef dem kin yeddy you fuh tell’um, Joe. Da’ lion duh git mo’ longuh! W’ile ago you bin fuh mek’um t’irteen foot long.”

“Fus’ time dem medjuhr’um ’e yent bin hab no head. Enty ’e fuh medjuh mo’ attuh dem tie ’e head back ’pun ’e neck weh Maussuh’ ball cut’um off? Oonuh mus’be fool!”

“Joe,” said another doubting crony, “hukkuh da’ leely ball kin fuh cut off da’ lion’ head? ’E tek soad, eeduhso axe, fuh do da’ t’ing?”

“Who’ Maussuh kill da lion! Duh yo’ Maussuh, enty? Enty uh tell oonuh eegnunt nigguh’ suh de hawss skayre ’tell ’e shake, en’, same time Maussuh pull’ ’e trigguh, de hawss trimble’ ’tell ’e mek da’ ball fuh wabble ‘cross de lion’ neck ’tell ’e cut ’e t’roat f’um yez to yez!”

“OLD BARNEY”

Old Friday Giles was the English purist of Penny Creek. A former “driver” and slave of Mr. Edward Barnwell, his manners were pompous, though ingratiating. His speech was unusually good save for his ludicrous use of “she” and “her” for all things singular, animate or inanimate.

For many years “Old Barney,” an Ayrshire bull acquired from the Barnwell family, was the terror of all the negroes roundabout. True to his Scottish breeding, Barney was both stubborn and acquisitive and lived up to

“The good old rule * * * the simple plan

That they should take who have the power

And they should keep who can.”

Barney had the power. Therefore he took. He loved green peavines as the Scot loves his haggis, and whenever he fancied them he had but to lean against the miserable fences enclosing the negroes’ patches, walk through, and help himself. The negroes would shoot him up with firearms and ammunition of all sorts and his hide was constantly full of lead of every size from mustard seed to swan shot, but fear kept the marksmen from getting near enough to hurt him seriously, so Barney philosophically took the lead without, and the peavines within, and after eating his fill would lie down in the field and chew his cud complacently, walking out later through the owner’s front yard, pausing to paw the dirt contemptuously and pull a few mouthfuls from the Seewee bean vines that climbed about the garden palings.

One day Friday’s field was invaded, and, hat in hand, he came to the doorstep to complain. “Missis,” he said, “dat bull Baa’ney, she is ridickilus! Missis, I mek my fench ten rail high. I stake her and I rider her, but ole Baa’ney she put her breas’ agains’ my fench, she lean on her, she break her down. She enter my fiel’, she eat my peas. I shoot her, but she is indifferent to my shot. When she conclude eatin’ my peas, she lie down, and, Missis, she was so full that she could not rise!” But Friday was a gentlemanly old darkey and treated his sturdy, quick-talking wife, Minda, with great gallantry, practical gallantry, too, as she bore him (and raised) 17 sons and daughters, thereby earning the well-done of her kindly though thrifty old master. “Maussuh lub me ’cause uh hab chillun so fas’,” she boasted. “I fetch’um uh fine nigguh eb’ry year Gawd sen’!”—meaning that the old gentleman had a pre-Rooseveltian objection to race suicide on the plantation.

Although old Bo’sun Smashum, the herdsman, who had raised Barney from a calf, would twist his tail in the barnyard and chevy him about with impunity, the bull was truculent toward outsiders and on more than one occasion disputed the highway with planters of the neighborhood, who were forced to turn back and drive a mile or so out of the way in the interest of safety; while negroes riding or driving oxen, on sighting Barney in the road half a mile away, would take to the woods or the fields and make a wide and respectful detour. The danger would be enhanced should the animal between the shafts of the primitive cart be one of the “bull yellin’s” so much affected by the freedmen for combination purposes. The silly song, “Everybody works but father,” had not then been evolved from the near-brain of the writer of music hall lyrics, and the labors of a beast of burden were held not incompatible with the paternity of a bovine family. So these little creatures multiplied and continued to lead their double lives. Barney held in utter contempt even the authenticated bulls of the community, but he so terrorized the little harnessed scrubs that their owners could hardly avert a stampede when the great bull bellowed in the vicinity.

One hot Sunday afternoon three or four hundred negroes were holding services at the old log church near the Parker’s Ferry cross-roads. Too numerous for the building, they were using outdoor bush shelters covered with green boughs and with hewn saplings for seats. At the tail of a “distracted meetin’” that had been running for several days, while grass grew in their crops, they were in a state of exaltation, and the high, sweet voices of the women blended in harmony with the deep, rich basses of the men in the perfect rhythm characteristic of African music. Old time hymns and “sperrituals” alternated. At first, only two or three voices followed the leader, then one by one the singers joined in major and minor keys, until at the last the entire congregation swelled the diapason that floated away on the summer wind. The little oxen and bulls, whose harness permitted the indulgence, lay down at their hitching posts, the less fortunate stood between the shafts and chewed their cuds, drowsing with half-closed eyes in the soft, warm air of the pineland, fragrant with the blossoming partridge peas.

The singers walked up and down the aisles of the open-air church, working up enthusiasm in camp meeting fashion.

“Sistuh Chizzum, won’t you meet me yonduh?” Sister Chisolm would, so she responded to the masculine invitation, “Oh yaas, Lawd!”

“Bredduh Hacklus, won’t you meet me yonduh?” And Brother Hercules, a wizened little member of Sister Chisolm’s “class,” shouted in acquiescent gallantry, “Oh yaas, Lawd!”

The meeting drew to a close, the last inspiring “sperritual,” of African suggestiveness, remained to be sung. Who should raise the tune? Simon Jenkins the “squerril” hunter, a devout old rascal, called to his brother-in-law, John Chisolm, “hice’um, Chizzum! You hice de chune.”

John’s resonant voice rolled out—

“Jedus, hol’ de lion jaw,

Jedus, hol’ de lion jaw,

Jedus, hol’ de lion jaw,

’Tell I git on de grazin’ groun’,

Oh, ’tell I git on de grazin’ groun’,”

“Hol’um, Jedus!”

“Don’ tun’um loose, Lawd!”

“Maussuh Jedus, hol’ ’e jaw!”

came the responses in bass and treble, then, as the refrain again swelled and died away, “Oh-h ’tell I git on de grazin’ groun’,” an ominous “mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, mmh! mmh! mnmh!” rolled through the woods. “Duh Baa’ney! Great Gawd, duh Baa’ney!” shrieked the panic-stricken women who scattered in every direction, while the men ran to release their hitched animals as old Barney leisurely approached, routing sonorously. “Mek’ace, gal, mek’ace! Him duh walk sedate but ’e bex,” shouted a man to a leggy, dry-boned black girl who, although guiltless of shoes and stockings, had worn to the meeting an antiquated hoopskirt which now impeded her progress. “Hice’um, gal! Hice yo’ ’coat en’ run!” She “hiced” her petticoat and ran, but the crinoline billowed about her knees as she passed Dick Smashum on her way to the Savage plantation. Dick was duck-legged and as slow of speech as of foot, but discretion had urged him to get an early start and he was well out of the danger zone. Later, when Atalanta’s mother overtook him and asked, “You see my gal? Weh ’e gone?” he replied. “Uh yiz see one sump’nurruh duh run like de debble, gwine Sabbidge. ’E pass me duh paat’, en’ ’e binnuh trabble so swif’ uh yent ruckuhnize um ’zackly, but ’e stan’ sukkuh two blacksnake duh ’tretch out een one bu’dcage.”

“BILLYBEDAM”

Billybedam was bibulous.

None knew how he achieved his devilmaycare nickname—the only name he had, but everybody around Pocotaligo knew that he came by his thirst through patient industry, and that he loved his work. No round-paunched monk of the Middle Ages, no Falstaff of the English taverns, ever absorbed dusky Tuscan wine or Sherris Sack with more appreciative avidity than Billybedam soaked up the “Fus’ X” corn sold on the sly by Yemassee blind tigers and bootleggers, for Billybedam had acquired his “liquorish mouth” during the days, the glorious, honorable days, of the State Dispensary, when, under the operation of that “Great Moral Institution,” certain sons of “Grand old South Carolina” had shown the world that the Caucasian was not “played out,” but could, upon occasion, graft like any freedman of the good old days of Reconstruction!

So the bibulousness of Billybedam became a byword all about “de Yamassee,” where “de Po’ Trial” Railway—significant name—crosses the Atlantic Coast Line, and, not infrequently, the tempers of passengers bound for Beaufort and Port Royal.

Perhaps it was the frequent pouring of libations—his gods were all in his gullet—that enabled Billybedam to crook his elbow so expertly, but this facility, and a marvelous twist of the wrist, contributed to his success as a fisherman, and the greater part of what he ate and drank and wore, came from the brown waters of the Salkehatchie, whose deep and narrow current flowed between wooded banks a mile or so away. With rod and line he fished the stream by day, and many a string of bream and redbreast perch was sold at the station to buy the precious whiskey, while the narrow-mouthed “blue cats,” caught on his set lines over night, were traded among the negroes in exchange for his scanty food and shelter, for Billybedam was a bachelor and a vagabond, unattached and unaffiliated, and called no roof his own.

Sometimes in the spring when the sturgeon were running, the fisherman would get the big-game fever, and, armed with a “grain” which he threw as the whaler throws a harpoon, stationed himself on some log that jutted out over the water, or in the fork of a low, overhanging tree, and took toll from the passing thousands. During the sturgeon run, when, too, mulberries and blackberries were plentiful, the negroes grew fat and “swonguh” and became more than usually irresponsible.

The heavy, sensuous Southern spring was in the air. The bayous or “backwaters,” which irrigated the inland swamp ricefields, were dotted with the sweet white pond lilies, or aflame with the yellow lotus, while over the broad leaves of lily and lotus, purple gallinules tripped daintily. Every log that floated and every stump that rose above the water carried a string or a cluster of terrapins, their glistening backs reflecting the sunshine. The sloping trunks of the willows that fringed the banks were festooned with water snakes, basking in the grateful warmth. Here and there on tussock or muddy flat, rough-backed alligators lay dozing. Blue flags flaunted along the marges. Tall white cranes stalked slowly about the shallows, pausing now and then with spear-like bill poised, watching, waiting.

Billybedam was full of the magic of the spring-time, but it was not altogether a satisfying fullness, and as he pushed the shallow flat-bottomed skiff off from shore, he laid down the paddle long enough to eat a hunk of coarse corn bread and swallow a nip from his “Fus’ X” flask. And then, thoroughly satisfied with the world, he dipped his blade and, with alternate strokes to right and left, pushed the clumsy snub-nosed bateau across the backwater to a famous “drop,” a deep pool just below a gap in the dam where the dark waters flowed slowly through from an upper reservoir. This was Billybedam’s favorite preserve whenever high water in the Salkehatchie forced the river fishermen to seek their living elsewhere.

Today, however, he made an unpropitious start. After his earthworm bait had been repeatedly stripped from his hook by the troublesome silver fish, whose small mouths enabled them to nibble it away piecemeal without getting hooked, his cork bobbed furiously, and he jerked quickly, only to bring swinging over the boat one of the malodorous little black turtles commonly called “limus cootuh” by the low-country negroes. This unwelcome catch he disengaged from the hook and threw as far away from him as possible. “You good fuh nutt’n’ nigguh! Yunnuh t’ink me come spang f’um Macfuss’nbil fuh ketch limus cootuh, enty? Who eenwite you fuh eat ’long fish? You ebbuh see nigguh eat ’long buckruh? De debble!” Running his cork a foot or two higher up the line, he fished at a deeper level and soon began to haul in fine perch, which he strung on the willow withes he had provided. At the end of two hours he had several strings of marketable fish, and, as the sun had set, he paddled to shore, threw away his now empty flask, tied his boat to a snag, and started for Yemassee to convert his catch into cash.

An hour later, with silver jingling in his pocket, he encountered in the dusk, Miss Maria Wineglass, a much sought-after ornament of colored society. Miss Wineglass was, in a manner of speaking, a peripatetic paradox. Altho’ dour-looking and glum, she was noted for her spirits (80 proof); bootless and bare-legged, she was McPhersonville’s most daring and accomplished bootlegger, and so circumspect and resourceful that she seldom met the law face to face.

When her course crossed that of Billybedam, she was traveling an unfrequented path on the outskirts of the settlement, and, with little need for caution, she walked rapidly, giving out as she moved a faint, hollow sound like the subdued tones of a xylophone. She hailed the bibulous one as a regular and valued customer.

“Weh you gwine, bubbuh?”

“Wuh you got? I gwine ’tell I fin’um.”

“I got ’nuf.”

“Gimme uh pint;” and he held out half a dollar.

“Gimme seb’nty fi’ cent. Dishyuh t’ing hol’ mo’n uh pint.”

“Wuh kinduh t’ing dat? Lemme shum.”

“Yuh him,” and Miss Wineglass fumbled under her skirt and, from a marvelously durable and comprehensive pair of bloomers made of two cottonseed meal sacks sewed together at the top, produced a gourd holding about three half-pints, and passed it over. The gourd was bottle-shaped and cob-stoppered and ingeniously laced about with hickory bark, as flasks of Chianti are wrapped with flags. The knocking together of half a dozen of these gourds, tied around her waist and suspended within her bloomers, had produced the xylophone music. The money paid, they parted.

Billybedam went his ways. Whatever the nature of the nepenthe the “Fus’ X” extracted from the calabash, it so ’whelmed his wits that oblivion lurked in the bottom of the gourd and overcame him. He fell among thieves, who stripped him of a new shirt he wore and left him, in his trousers only, by the roadside, where a local constable found him next morning and haled him before the magistrate for being inadequately clothed on the public highway.

“What have you to say for yourself?”

“Cap’n, uh yent hab nutt’n’ fuh say. Uh gone fish duh backwatuh, en’ een de fus’ gwinin’ off, uh did’n’ hab no luck, ’cause silbuhfish tek me bait en’ uh nubbuh ketch’um, en’ one limus cootuh grab de hook en’ uh ketch him en’ t’row’um’way, en’ den uh ketch ’nuf fish, en’ uh gone Yamassee en’ sell’um, en’ uh binnuh walk duh paat’, en’ uh meet one gal duh walk duh paat’, name ’Riah Wineglass, en’ uh yeddy’um befo’ uh shum, ’cause ’e mek one soun’ w’en ’e walk sukkuh cow foot crack w’en him duh run, en’ w’en uh yiz shum close, ’e frock duh bunch out all roun’um sukkuh cootuh ’tring out ’puntop’uh log, en’ uh ax’um, ’gal, wuh you got fuh fifty cent?’ en’ ’e say ’e yent got nutt’n’ fuh fifty cent but ’e hab ’nuf fuh seb’nty fi’ cent, en’ I tell’um ’lemme shum,’ en’ ’e hice ’e frock, en’ him hab one t’ing onduhneet’ him frock, dem call’um bloomuh, uh nubbuh see shishuh debble’ub’uh t’ing befo’ sence uh bawn! ’E hol’ ’bout t’ree-fo’ bushel, en’ ’e mek outuh grano sack, en’ britchiz duh ’e farruh en’ frock duh ’e murruh, en’ ’e stan’ sukkuh alltwo. Den de gal graff een da’ t’ing wunnuh call’um so, en’ ’e full’uh de pyo’ killybash ’long Fus’ X, en’ ’e ketch’out one en’ gimme, en’ uh gone off en’ drink’um, en’ fus’ t’ing uh know uh yent know nutt’n’, ’tell de counstubble fin’ me dis mawnin’, en’ las’ night w’en uh bin een one strance, some dem Macfussn’nbil nigguh’ t’ief one new shu’t off me back, en’,” said Billybedam, “uh tengk Gawd uh did’n’ bin hab on uh new britchiz!”

A SHORT CUT TO JUSTICE

Ever since the days of Solomon, the courts and tribunals of the law in all lands have sought short cuts to justice, but one of the straightest and strangest in the history of jurisprudence was achieved by one Daniel W. Robinson, colored, sometime Magistrate or Trial Justice of the sovereign State of South Carolina, for the Bailiwick of Jacksonboro, in lower Colleton County.

Under the trying days of Reconstruction in South Carolina, the white men and boys living in the so-called “black belt,” comprising the coastal counties of the State, were constantly seeking to lure the black voters into the fold of Democracy, with but indifferent success, for the wary freedman, under the secret instructions given him by the leaders of his own race and the white-skinned spoilers, native and alien, who controlled his political activities for their own profit, was hard to wean away from the idols set up for him within “the awful circle” of the Republican fold.

These poor, deluded negroes, absolutely dependent upon their former masters, the landholders, for food, for clothing, for shelter, for remunerative work—often for free medicines and medical treatment in communities where there were no doctors and no drug stores—though making profuse lip service for benefits received, forgot them all on election day when, under the influence of the knaves who manipulated them, they turned away from their best friends and, hurdled at the polls like sheep, voted blindly the ballots put into their hands by the corruptionists.

At one of these elections the Republican ballot was headed with the national flag in colors, swathed around the ample loins and spreading hips of the figure of Liberty, with the legend “Union Republican ticket.” One of these flamboyant affairs was secured from the printer a day or two before the election and the Democratic tickets were also printed in red ink with a rooster at the top, in the hope that some of the negroes might accept and vote them for Republican ballots. One of these rooster ballots was offered an old darkey at the polls by a Democratic negro worker, but the wary old fellow had been rehearsed in his lesson too well, and he rejected it indignantly, saying: “No, man! uh yent want da’ t’ing! Gimme da’ ticket fuh wote wuh hab de gal wid de Balmuhral sku’t wrop roun’um!” And he got it.

Then came ’76 and the “Straight-Out” campaign. Every white man and boy who could raise two or three dollars to buy a few yards of flannel, sported a red shirt, usually put together by the loving hands of some member of his family, but, occasionally, fearfully and wonderfully made by a sweetheart or feminine acquaintance—some perhaps “a little more than kin,” but all “less than kind.” The boys, however, upon whom had been wished the needlework activities of their lady friends, wore them jauntily nevertheless, absolutely indifferent to the want of co-ordination of “seam and gusset and band.”

As the campaign progressed and enthusiasm increased, an occasional courageous black, taking his life in his hands and braving the hatred and ostracism of his fellows, even of his church and his family, would boldly put on a red shirt and ride with the whites to political meetings or rallies. One of these, old Clitus Wilson, a life-long Democrat, who, as his master’s body servant, fought with him in the battle of Gettysburg, flaunted his red shirt bravely and defiantly. Another was Paul Jenkins, a thrifty, property-owning negro, whose courageous work in the first Hampton campaign was remembered by the whites, who elected him county commissioner soon after the Democrats came into power. Paul, a wiry, coal-black negro, was once beset by several members of the Grant family, “Free-Issue” mulatto Republicans, and cruelly beaten. In the courts of radicalism there was no redress for a negro Democrat, but Paul bided his time and, meeting one of the Grants alone, retaliated so vigorously that the mulatto was laid up for a week. The victim went before Trial Justice Robinson, over the river at Jacksonboro, and swore out a warrant, charging Paul with aggravated assault and battery.

Paul, summoned to appear on the following Saturday, came in great trouble to a stripling planter of the neighborhood who willingly accompanied him to see that the Democrat got justice, and to go on his bond in case he should be sent up to a higher court.

On Saturday morning the deep and swift Edisto, lacking a ferry, was crossed in a shallow bateau, the saddle-horses, held by their bridles, swimming alongside, and the accused and his protector soon appeared before the august Court, sitting in a small shanty, facing an imposing layout of writing materials and a copy of the statutes. The young planter told the Court that he had come over with Paul to look after his interests and see that he got justice. The Court responded graciously that he was “glad to welcome the distinguished counsel from across the river” and took pleasure in extending to him the courtesies of his Court.

A jury was asked for and Justice Robinson, calling up some of the idle negroes who hung about his office, selected five elderly darkeys, all of them as black as crows. To these five jurors the magistrate added “the distinguished counsel from across the river,” whom he graciously requested to consent to serve as foreman. In the interest of justice the request was complied with.

Grant, the aggrieved, appeared as prosecuting witness, “tore a passion to tatters” in describing the sudden and furious onslaught made upon him by the black Democrat, and rantingly demanded justice. Paul simply told the story of the attack made upon him by the Grant family and admitted his retaliation, which he held was justifiable, and the jury withdrew to a vacant room nearby which was indicated as the place of deliberation.

The foreman was given a primitive split white-oak chair with a rawhide seat, while his five dusky associates ranged themselves like roosting buzzards upon a teetering bench, whose supports, two short boards sawed into the semblance of legs at the bottom, were placed so close together that the utmost skill was required on the part of the sitters to maintain their equilibrium, for if the central section rose, both end men had to sit tight until they could rise simultaneously, else the laggard would be in jeopardy.

And now the jurors were ready for the case. Paul, having beaten his man fairly and in righteous retaliation, was entitled to an acquittal and to this end the foreman directed his efforts. As a preliminary, Paul was called to the shanty window, provided with sixty cents, and despatched to Arnold’s store for a quart of corn whiskey. Upon his return with the pallid pop-skull, there was an excited shifting of five seats on the shaky bench and five pairs of eagerly expectant eyes rested their kindly regard upon the messenger of Bacchus as he withdrew, leaving his fate in their hands.

The lone and crafty Caucasian, playing Iago to five Othellos, picked out a gorilla-like old codger on the near end of the bench as the dominant personality among them, and extending the flask told him to take a drink and serve his fellows. Hacklus Manigo jumped up with such alacrity, and was followed so quickly by the negroes who sat next him, that the near end of the bench, relieved of their combined weight, flew up, and the two remaining jurors tumbled ignominiously and indignantly to the floor. The grumbling of the fallen and the derisive guffawing of the risen, ceased suddenly, however, as eight saucered and fascinated eyes fastened upon old Manigo’s Adam’s apple which moved up and down his neck in perfect unison with the “glug, glug,” of the liquid flowing so easily down his throat. The drinker’s ocular and auricular demonstration of hydraulics was too much for his associates, who cried out in indignant protest. “Tek’care, man! We’own dey een da’ t’ing!” “Cap’n, please, suh, mek’um tek ’e mout’ off da’ bottle. ’E gwine drink eb’ry Gawd’ drap!”

Manigo, having absorbed almost one-fourth of the contents of the flask, gave it into the nearest of the eager hands held out to receive it, drew his coat sleeve with a great swipe across his wet and glistening mouth, gave a grateful grunt, “umh, da’ t’ing good! Tengky, Boss, tengky, suh!” accompanied by an elaborate scrape of the foot and a low obeisance, and took his seat in the center of the bench, where he was soon flanked by the four, whose watchful eyes, each upon the other, had not permitted their attainment of Manigo’s state of exaltation.

“Now, Manigo, and you boys,” said Iago. “This is a plain story. Three or four yellow men double-team a black man and beat him up. He doesn’t take them to court but waits his chance, and when he catches one of these yellow men away from his gang, why the black man beats him to pay him back for what the yellow man helped to do to him. Now, that’s what Paul did to this free-issue yellow fellow Grant. Paul is black like all of you. Do you want to send him to jail for laying hands on a mulatto, just because mulattoes think themselves better than you blacks?”

“Great Gawd, no, suh!” shouted Manigo, springing up. Turning half way round out of respect to the foreman, he alternately jumped in the air and squatted like a gigantic frog, while he whirled his arms and harangued his fellow blacks, cutting his eye around now and then for a nod of approval from Iago. “De debble! Punkin-skin’ nigguh fuh beat black nigguh en’ black nigguh ent fuh beat’um back, enty? Oonuh ebbuh yeddy ’bout shishuh t’ing sence you bawn? Me fuh ’low yalluh nigguh fuh knock me en’ me yent fuh knock’um back! No, man! Uh knock’um ef uh dead!”

“Yaas, man, knock’um, knock’um!” came the cries of approval as old Hacklus, having put up his yellow man of straw, leaped about as he proceeded to bowl him over.

“Uh yent fuh wait ’tell ’e knock me fus’. Uh gwine knock’um befo’ ’e hice ’e han’! Uh knock’um een ’e yeye, uh kick’um on ’e shin, alltwo one time. Den uh butt’um een ’e belly. Uh double’um up ’cause ’e too swonguh, ’e too ’laagin’! Cap’n, who dis yalluh nigguh nyuse to blonx to een slabery time?” he asked the foreman.

“To nobody. He was free. He belonged to himself.”

“Great Gawd! Cap’n, all dese’yuh mans blonx to quality! All uh we yuh nyuse to blonx to Baa’nwell, eeduhso Heywu’d en’ Wandross. All duh juntlemun’ nigguh. Nigguh stan’ sukkuh ’e maussuh. Ef ’e blonx to juntlemun, him gwine mannusubble, ef ’e blonx to po’buckruh, him ent nutt’n’, ’cause uh po’buckruh nigguh ent wut, but ef ’e blonx to ’eself, ’e blonx to nigguh, en’ da’ yalluh t’ing wuh blonx to nigguh tek ’t’oruhty ’puntop ’eself fuh knock nigguh wuh blonx to juntlemun, en bex w’en de nigguh knock’um back! No, suh, ’e mus’ be fool! Leh we tu’n Bredduh Paul loose!”

“Yaas, man, tu’n’um loose, tu’n’um loose!” came the chorus.

“Well, boys, before we go, you’d better finish the flask.”

“Tengk Gawd, suh!” ejaculated old Hacklus whose mouth was now as cottony as a stump-tailed water moccasin’s, as he lifted the flask to his lips, “me t’roat dry. Uh binnuh talk.”

“Hol’ on, man!”

“Don’ tek’um all!”

“Manigo drink’ too hebby!”

“’E gwine dreen’um dry!” came the protests, but Manigo had swallowed the lion’s share before he passed the flask to the next man. “Boss, we fuh pit da’ yalluh Grant een jail, enty?” and he was much disappointed when told it couldn’t be done.

The jury returned to the Court room with their verdict of acquittal, and received the thanks of the Court, who assured them all, “and especially the distinguished foreman,” of his appreciation of the expedition with which they had dispatched the business of the Court. As Paul and his protector mounted their horses for the homeward ride, Daniel stood bare-headed at the Court room door, and expressed the hope that he might again welcome to his temple of justice “the distinguished counsel from across the river.”

SAM DICKERSON

For many years after the war, Sam Dickerson, a former slave of the Horlbeck family, ranted around the courts of the lower counties of South Carolina in the practice of the legal profession, which he had acquired in a jack-leg sort of way soon after his emancipation. Tall, black, pompous, and as voluble as an overshot water-wheel, he cut his grotesque antics in higher and lower courts to the intense amusement of blacks as well as of whites. He habitually carried with him a bag of tawdry and greasy law books, which he hauled out and spread upon tables, wherever the space was available, to impress jurors and court-room spectators with his importance. With monkey-like imitativeness he copied the court-room gestures and mannerisms of prominent lawyers of the white race, and he had memorized certain passages from the statutes and the law blanks, which he spouted whenever opportunity offered. Upon one occasion Dickerson was defending in a magistrate’s court a negro accused of larceny. The word written on the indictment pleased him and he mouthed and slobbered over it as one mouths the pit of a clingstone peach. “Dis man bin chaa’ge’, yo’ onnuh, wid laa’ceny! He bin chaa’ge’ wid laa’ceny! W’at am laa’ceny, yo’ onnuh?”

“Do you know what it is to steal?” retorted the court.

“Of co’se uh does, yo’ onnuh. Laa’ceny is t’ief, en’ t’ief is steal, en’ uh man w’ich steal is uh man w’ich enter anodduh man’ house een de dead ub night en’ did mos’ feloniously steal, tek, carry away en’ appropriate to he own use de whole or uh paa’t dereof uh de juntlemun’ proputty. But de chaa’ge, yo’ onnuh, am laa’ceny!”

Dickerson was so well known about the magistrates’ courts of the City of Charleston that many prominent white citizens were attracted to the trials when it was known that this simian-like advocate was going to participate in the proceedings, and it was quite the thing to take Northern visitors or the captains of vessels in port, to the court room to see the black perform, and sometimes the magistrate, or the opposing counsel, would be given a hint to stir him up for the entertainment of the visitors.

In a trial before a Charleston magistrate, the black lawyer once sought to have a bad case continued because of “the absence of a material witness,” that threadbare plea so frequently urged in our courts. The magistrate, inclined to bait him, insisted that the material witness be produced in court forthwith.

“Yo’ onnuh, I hope you will not insis’ upun de material witness bein’ produce’ een dis co’t.”

The court demanded his reason.

“Yo’ onnuh, de material witness am a female en’ she cannot cunweenyuntly be produce’ een dis co’t.”

“Why can’t a female witness be produced in court? What is the matter with the witness?”

“Yo’ onnuh, I hope you will not compel me to state w’at is de matter wid de material witness w’y she cannot be produce’ een dis co’t.”

“Unless you can give me good reasons why the material witness should not be brought to court, I will insist upon going on with the case,” said the court.

“Yo’ onnuh, I appeal to you as a juntlemun ub delicacy not to fo’ce me to tell de co’t w’y de material witness cannot be produce’ een co’t.”

But the appeal to the magistrate’s delicacy of mind was of no avail and he peremptorily ordered the case to proceed.

“Well, yo’ onnuh, my delicacy will not permit me to state een de English langwidge w’at is de reason w’y de material witness cannot be produce’ een co’t.”—just then a laugh from a gentleman of French extraction in the audience, caused him to turn his head, and he proceeded. “Yaas, suh, you kin laugh, but you cannot fo’ce me to use de English langwidge, en’ I will haffuh fall back on my French.” Then, wheeling around and facing the magistrate, “de reason, yo’ onnuh, w’y de material witness cannot be produce’ een co’t, is ’cause de material witness is”—just then a negro woman entered the room, and, hurrying up to Dickerson pulled him by the sleeve and whispered in his ear. Turning dramatically, he shouted, “may it please yo’ onnuh, I hab jus’ hear from de material witness en’ I kin now resume de English langwidge. De reason w’y de material witness cannot be produce’ een dis co’t, is ’cause de material witness hab two twin!”

On a certain summer day, twenty or thirty negroes from the Toogoodoo section, assembled at the office of the trial justice at Adams Run station to settle a legal matter. The dispute to be adjusted involved the ownership of a brindled ox, to which claims, apparently equally strong, were set up by two black ladies from “Down on de Salt.” One, Bina Youngblood, the “lawfully lady” of Scipio Youngblood, the other the lone, though not lorn, Clara Jenkins, for the moment unaffiliated. Scipio, the “sea-lawyer” of the Swinton plantation, undertook to plead his wife’s cause before the magistrate, while Clara, having money in her purse, because, perhaps, she had just then no man to support, had “done git de buckruh fuh write uh letter town, fuh tell Sam Dickuhsin fuh come fuh rupezunt me een de co’t.” At 9 o’clock Sam arrived from Charleston on “de shoofly strain,” as the negroes call the local which stops at all way stations. The ox, having caused mutual wool-pulling on the part of both claimants, had been put in the custody of the magistrate’s constable, and, tied to the picket fence surrounding a corn patch near the station, was chewing his cud complacently, viewing with drowsy eyes the human turmoil about him. Clara laid excited hands upon the Charleston advocate and pulled him into the presence of the ox, which she introduced. “Dish’yuh duh him, Mistuh Dickuhsin. Dish’yuh duh de oxin wuh me en’ Mis’ Nyungblood agguhnize ’bout. Uh buy dis oxin f’um Bredduh Izick Puhshay wuh lib tuh Slann’ Ilun’ en’ Buh Izick him buy’um f’um de Jew wuh hab uh sto’ to Wadmuhlaw, en’ ’e buy’um f’um de Jew ’cause de oxin gone een de maa’sh fuh eat, en’ ’e bog een de maa’sh, en’ de Jew stan’ ’puntop de bluff en’ ’e look ’puntop de oxin, en’ ’e ’f’aid ’e gwine drowndid, en’ ’e shake alltwo ’e han’ ’bout de oxin, en’ Buh Izick binnuh stan’up close’um, en’ de Jew try fuh sell’um de oxin, ’cause ’e t’ink de oxin gwine dead een de maa’sh, en’ Buh Izick tell’um him willin’ fuh g’em fibe dolluh’ fuh de oxin, en’ him will tek’um out de maa’sh ’eself, eb’nso ef ’e dead, en’ de Jew tell’um no, ’e yent fuh sell him oxin fuh no fibe dolluh’ ’cause him kin sell ’e meat fuh mo’n fibe dolluh’ eb’nso ef ’e done dead, but ’e say ’e willin’ fuh tek ten dolluh’ fuhr’um weh ’e stan’. Buh Izick tell’um him will nebbuh git’um out ef ’e dead, ’cause him well acquaintun wid uh quicksan’ dey een de maa’sh puhzackly weh de oxin duh bog’up een de maa’sh, en’ ’e say suh de quicksan’ gwine swalluhr’um up, en’ den de Jew ent fuh git nutt’n’. W’en de Jew yeddy ’bout de quicksan’, ’e dat ’f’aid him gwine loss ’e oxin, ’e sell’um tuh Buh Izick fuh de fibe dolluh’, en’ soon ez ’e buy’um en’ ’e done pit de money een de Jew’ han’, Buh Izick know berry well suh no quicksan’ dey een de maa’sh, en’ e’ gone weh de oxin duh stan’up een de mud, en’ ketch’um by ’e tail en’ twis’um two’t’ree time, en’ de oxin walk out de maa’sh jis’ ez good ez you en’ me, en’ Buh Izick git’um een de flat en’ fetch’um ’cross, en’ ’e nebbuh stop ’tell ’e git’um spang home weh ’e lib. Uh bin to Buh Izick house de berry day w’en him fetch de oxin home, en’ uh yent hab nutt’n’ fuh plow, en’ uh buy de oxin f’um Buh Izick fuh fifteen dolluh’, en’ pay’um ten dolluh’, en’ owe’um de odduh res’ uh de money.

“W’en de Jew fin’out how Buh Izick obuhreach’um, ’e dat bex ’e yent able fuh nyam ’e bittle, en’ ’e study all day ’bout how him kin git ’e oxin ’gen. ’E h’aa’t hebby ’bout de oxin, en’ ’e jaw drap eb’ry time ’e t’ink ’pun Buh Izick, ’cause him t’ink suh nigguh ent fuh smaa’t ’nuf fuh cheat no Jew. Nex’ day ’nuf nigguh f’um Swintun en’ Toale gone Wadmuhlaw full dig Irish tettuh, en’ dem gone tuh de Jew’ sto’ fuh buy gunjuh en’ nickynack en’ t’ing. Mis’ Nyungblood en’ ’e juntlemun alltwo gone to de sto’, en’ de Jew yeddy’um duh talk ’bout one brinly oxin wuh buy een dem nigguhhouse yaa’d, wuh come f’um Wadmuhlaw Ilun’, en’ de Jew tell’um yaas, duh him oxin, en’ ’e tell’um de oxin sell fuh true, but all de money ent done pay, en’ ’e sen’ ansuh fuh tell me wuh got de oxin fuh sen’um ten dolluh’ mo’ fuh de oxin, ’scusin’ him gwine tek’um ’way en’ sell’um ’gen. Buh Scipio en’ ’e lady alltwo fetch de Jew’ metsidge jis’ ez ’e come out ’e mout’, but uh nebbuh bodduh ’bout’um, ’cause uh know uh hab witness fuh de money uh done pay Buh Izick, en’ uh look tuh Buh Izick fuh puhteck me, but de nex’ week Mis’ Nyungblood gone Wadmuhlaw ’gen, en’ de Jew ’suade him fuh buy de oxin fuh fifteen dolluh’, en’ him pay’um t’ree dolluh’ on de oxin, en’ de Jew g’em uh paper fuh tek de oxin wehrebbuh ’e kin fin’um. W’en ’e git home, de ’ooman walk een my yaa’d wid de Jew’ papuh een ’e han’, en’ e’ walk swonguh, en’, please Gawd, ’e gone to de oxin weh ’e duh bite grass een de fench cawnuh, en’ ’e tek’um by ’e bridle en’ staa’t fuh lead’um out de yaa’d. Bubbuh, uh yent got no man ’bout de house fuh puhteck me, but uh got dese ten finger ’puntop alltwo me han’ fuh puhteck meself, en’ w’en uh see de ’ooman ’long de oxin, blood full’ alltwo me yeye! Uh peaceubble ’tell uh bex, but w’en uh bex, uh ready fuh dead, en’ uh light ’puntop’uh da’ ’ooman same lukkuh fu’lhawk light ’puntop’uh chickin! Me en’ him en’ de oxin, alltwo tanglety’up een de du’t ’tell dem man een de nigguhhouse yaa’d haffuh suffuhrate we. Nex’ day me’ en’ de ’ooman hitch ’gen, w’en him come een de yaa’d fuh onhitch de oxin de two-time, en’ uh ’cratch’ him face en’ him ’cratch’ my’own, en’ attuh dat, de trial jestuss yeddy ’bout’um en’ sen’ ’e counstubble fuh tek’way de oxin, en’ lef’ one metsidge fuh alltwo uh we fuh come Adam’ Run deepo fuh try de case, en’ uh glad dem fuh try’um teday, teday, ’cause me en’ da’ ’ooman en’ da’ oxin ent fuh lib tuhgedduh ’puntop no Swintun plantesshun!”

“Come eento co’t,” yelled the constable, and Clara and her counsel went within.

The two principals and their partisans, glowering at one another, ranged themselves on opposite sides of the little room, and the proceedings were opened. Bina came to the witness stand with a slowly healing gridiron of scratches covering her face, tokens of the efficiency of Clara’s finger nails, which courtesies she had handsomely reciprocated.

“Uh gone Wadmuhlaw fuh dig Irish tettuh, en’ w’en middleday come, me en’ all dem todduh man en’ ’ooman gone to de Jew fuh buy bittle fuh eat, en’ him yeddy suh we come f’um Swintun place, en’ him yeddy we duh talk ’bout one brinly oxin wuh come f’um Wadmuhlaw, wuh one uh we ’ooman buy f’um Izick Puhshay, en’ de Jew say suh de oxin duh him’own, en’ nex’ time me en’ my juntlemun gone Wadmuhlaw, de Jew say suh de oxin ent pay fuh, en’ him fuh sell’um ’gen, en’ w’en ’e say dat, uh buy’um en’ pay t’ree dolluh’ exwance on’um en’ de Jew gimme uh papuh fuh tek de oxin wehrebbuh uh fin’um, en’ w’en uh gone home uh tek de papuh en’ gone een de ’ooman’ yaa’d en’ tek de oxin out de fench cawnuh en’ staa’t fuh gone, en’ ’fo’ uh kin git out de yaa’d, da’ debble’ub’uh blacksnake ub uh ’ooman tek uh exwantidge w’en uh yent binnuh study ’bout’um, en’ him git een de fus’ lick, en’ ’e yent sattify fuh ’cratch me eyeball’ en’ fight deestunt lukkuh lady fuh fight, but him haffuh bite me een de same time, en’ ’e teet’ shaa’p ez ottuh’ teet’, en’ de ’ooman mek ’e fang’ fuh meet een me yez, but me Jedus help me fuh obuht’row’um, en’ befo’ dem man suffuhrate we, uh done spile ’e face ’tell ’e maamy yent fuh know’um! Uh gone t’ru’um sukkuh bulltongue plow gone t’ru blackberry wine! You shum stan’ dey? Duh me mek ’e mout’ fuh twis’up oagly same lukkuh him binnuh chaw green possimmun!”

With a curtsy to the court and a scornful glance at her opponent, Bina retired, and after Clara had repeated word for word the story previously related to her attorney—for some negroes have the faculty of memorizing and repeating a romantic story over and over again, omitting none of the mendacious minutiæ—Scipio, a stout, self-conscious black, rose to match his plantation wit with that of the experienced advocate.

“Jedge, w’en my lady ubtain dis cow f’um de Jew tuh Wadmuhlaw—”

Old Sam rose impressively. “Do my distinguish’ fr’en’ frum Toogoodoo allude to de annimel dat is now een de custody ub dis honuhrubble co’t ez cow?”

“Yaas, uh call’um cow! Cow duh ’e name! Mekso me yent fuh call’um cow! Uh call’um cow, uh dunkyuh ef e’ duh bull! Enty roostuh en’ hen alltwo is fowl? Uh call’um cow, yaas! Wuh de debble town nigguh’ know ’bout annimel?”

“Kin de ‘town nigguh’ eenfawm de distinguish’ counsel,” observed Sam, sarcastically, “dat he is berry well acquaintun wid uh sutt’n annimel dat eenhabit de jungle ub Aff’iky, but, ontell teday, he hab always obserb dis annimel fuh hab tail. Puhhaps de specie’ dat roam t’ru de fores’ ub Toogoodoo is bawn bidout tail!”

“Great King! ’E fuh call me monkey!” protested Scipio, as the audience exploded with laughter, for however resentful they may be of such characterization by the whites, in their lighter moments, the coast negroes, at least, delight in the exchange among themselves of “monkey,” “’ranguhtang,” “crow,” “buzzut,” “blacksnake,” “nigguh” and like terms of opprobrious endearment. “Da’ ’ranguhtang f’um town fuh call me monkey! Him gran’daddy ’self duh monkey!”

The magistrate put a stop to these amenities between counsel, but Scipio’s verbal machine gun was jammed and, too full for utterance, he took his seat, muttering wrathfully as Sam rose triumphant.

“Ef it please de co’t,” said Sam, “I repeah een dis tribunul fuh rupezunt dis defenseless female ub de Aff’ikin race f’um de paa’simony ub uh membuh ub de tribe dat tek Juhruzelum f’um de Christ’un t’ree t’ous’n’ yeah’ ago!”

“Now ’e duh talk’um!” commented a spectator.

“I am sattisfy’, yo’ onnuh, dat I kin repeal to yo’ onnuh’ sense ub jestuss fuh gib dis po’ ’ooman de puhtekshun to w’ich de po’ en’ weak am eentitle’ f’um de rich en’ de strong, ’cause, yo’ onnuh, een de langwidge ub uh distinguish’ membuh ub de Chaa’lstun baa’, w’enebbuh we enter de sacrid premussis ub uh co’t ub law, we all seddown onduhneet’ de eagle ub jestuss as de chicken seddown onduhneet’ de hen!

“Now, yo’ onnuh, what am de fack? Dish’yuh tenduh female, yo’ onnuh, bidout de puhtekshun ub uh man fuh gyaa’d’um f’um de human race, is t’rowed on his back fuh puhteck ’eself, lukkuh de wil’cat t’row ’eself ’pun ’e back onduhneet’ de harricane tree fuh refen’ ’eself ’genst de pack ub houn’ by whom she is attacktid.”

“Yaas, him ’cratch lukkuh wil’cat fuh true!” commented Mrs. Youngblood.

“Yo’ onnuh, dis tenduh female buy de ox een queschun f’um Izick Puhshay, uh respected citizen ub de Newnited State’, en’ she hab witness fuh proobe dat de money wuz to him een han’ pay, en’ to ’stablish his ’t’oruhty obuh de ox. De afo’sed Izick Puhshay buy de ox f’um de Jew, de paa’ty ub de fus’ paa’t, residin’ een de premussis afo’sed ’pun de Ilun’ ub Wadmuhlaw, een de State ub Sous Cuhlina. De Jew’ ox hab fall eento de pit, yo’ onnuh, en’ ’less ’e is fuh perish, de ox is sell to Izick Puhshay, dis respected citizen ub de Newnited State’ afo’sed, who by his ability twis’ de tail ub de ox en’ mek’um fuh ’bandun he puhsishun een de maa’sh, en’ betake himself to de high groun’. W’en de membuh ub de tribe ub Juhruzelum see dat de ability ub de Aff’ikin race sabe de life ub de ox, he feel disapp’int’ wid ’eself, en’ he seek to agen ubtain de proputty dat he hab loss, en’ ’e sell de ’denticul ox de two time, to de paa’ty ub de secon’ paa’t.

“Deyfo’, yo’ onnuh, I mek uh plea fuh dis tenduh female ub de human race, alldo’ his skin is black, dat jestuss be done, en’ dat his ox shall not be tek away.”

His plea was effective, for Clara returned joyfully to Toogoodoo with the restored ox tied behind the cart in which she had come, while Bina nursed her wrath to keep it warm until she could return to Wadmalaw to seek to recover her three dollars “exwance” from “de membuh ub de tribe ub Juhruzelum.”

SIMON, THE “SQUERRIL” HUNTER

As boys, a few years after the war, we knew him as a mighty squirrel hunter, and the negroes in the neighborhood knew him as a mighty slippery old scoundrel, whose smoothness had earned him the sobriquet of Okra—at once a tribute and a reproach—for the skill acquired in slaughtering “de buckruh’ cow en’ t’ing’” in the swamps, was sometimes used to lift a shoat from some nearby colored brother or sister when Simon did not care to hunt far afield, and, however commendable one’s prowess in preying upon “de buckruh,” who, for purposes of spoliation, stood in the same relation to the newly freed slaves that the esteemed Egyptians did to the children of Israel, it was regarded in dusky circles as somewhat unethical to steal from one’s own color.

Although always suspected, old Okra was never caught. When he killed a cow or other large game, the hide, and the head with its telltale ear-marks, were carefully buried in the woods, and part of the meat distributed among his cronies, insuring not only their protective silence, but a full crop of elaborate alibis for Simon, should suspicion ripen into accusation. “Nigguh haffuh stan’ by we colluh,” being the motto on all the plantations round about.

The squirrel hunter was as lean and hungry-looking as Cassius, with a shifty eye and a face deeply pock-marked. His footfall was stealthy and noiseless and he could walk the woods from dawn to dusk without tiring.

For several years following the war, many low-country negroes carried condemned army muskets which they bought for a dollar or two—long, heavy muzzle-loaders, straight of stock and hard of trigger. Although rifled, their proud owners rammed down and shot out of their grooved barrels anything and everything but ball. Shot of uniform size was not only held unnecessary, but really undesirable, an assortment of sizes running from No. 8 to No. 2, the latter called “high duckshot,” being regarded as a mixed dose seriously jeoparding the safety of rabbit or “squerril” at a distance of “two tas’”—two tasks (½ an acre).

Most of the new-fledged negro sportsmen were content to hunt the little cat squirrels that were plentiful in the wooded swamps and the oak and hickory knolls, but Simon was ambitious and habitually hunted the beautiful fox squirrels, grays and blacks, wary creatures, rarely met with and found only among tall pines—sometimes in the long leaf palustris of the ridges, but oftener in the great “loblollies” skirting the bays, the height of the trees and the Spanish moss that clustered thick about their towering tops, making them safe retreats, once reached. One of these big squirrels would sometimes be surprised on or near the ground, offering a shot before he got far up the tall trunks which he always ascended rapidly with a great clatter of claws on the bark, cunningly keeping on the off side from the hunter, but never slackening speed till a fork or one of the higher branches was reached, upon which he would flatten out and keep absolutely still. Even a boy then knew it was wasting precious powder and shot to attempt to make him break sanctuary, but not so old Okra. He had implicit faith and infinite pride in the shooting powers of his old “muskick,”—“Ole Betsey, him cya’ shot fuh sowl,” and he would crack away as long as his ammunition lasted, at a gray or black spot at the tip-top of some forest giant; often indeed, at a dead squirrel, for these “foxes” have an exceedingly inconsiderate habit of digging their claws so deeply into the bark that they hang on after death and are hard to dislodge. Often the boy hunter roaming the woods, day-dreaming of the buck or big gobbler that was always about to spring up just ahead of him, to fall gloriously to his little single barrel, would hear at intervals the heavy “duhbaw!” of Simon’s ordnance and know that the indefatigable old sinner was, like most of us, reaching up after the unattainable.

Curiosity to learn how he was faring would sometimes overcome caution, for Simon always begged for powder, and his ingratiating “Mass—— so freehan’,” seldom failed to coax from the flask part of the boy’s scanty store, but woe to the scanty store if Simon was permitted to “po’rum.” “Berry well den, suh, you po’rum,” and into the deeply cupped palm of the avaricious hand he held out, the precious powder would trickle. Simon never stinted his gun, and as long as the donor would pour, the recipient had no scruples about drams running into ounces. Whatever you poured into his hand went into the gun, and when she responded in recalcitrance to a double charge, sending her owner staggering back among the gallberry bushes, he would grin proudly and remark, “Him duh tell we tengky fuh wuh we g’em. Betsey him hab uh hebby belly fuh powder.”

One crisp winter’s day, Simon and his half-grown son, “Boyzie,” were encountered on a high pineland plateau dotted with a chain of shallow, sedgy ponds. Suddenly, from the marge of a pond a hundred yards away, the plume-like tail of a big gray fox squirrel was seen waving jerkily over the ground as he ran for the timber. The party gave chase and succeeded in putting him up in a clump of tall long-leaf saplings before he could reach the big trees. Simon’s eyes shone like brown pebbles through the sunlit waters of a shallow brook. His slouch was gone and he was all alertness, apprehension.

“Weh him, Boyzie? Weh him?”

“Yuh him, Pa! Yuh him! Shum! Shum!”

“Duhbaw!” boomed Betsey, and Simon reeled from the recoil as the load cut the top from a sapling down which the squirrel raced to the ground and scampered off for a big pine not far away, rushing up the trunk in long spirals. “Watch’um, Boyzie! Don’ tu’n yo’ yeye loose off’um ’tell I git Betsey load’,” and Simon hurriedly rammed down his charge with many furtive glances at the watching sentinel to see that he didn’t “tu’n ’e yeye loose.” Extracting from a greasy rag a huge copper cap of the grandfather’s hat pattern, he fitted the nipple and cocked his musket, as strenuous an operation as pulling the trigger, for at half-cock Betsey’s hammer leaned back like the head of a strutting gobbler, while at the full, the cup yawned toward the heavens like the crater of a miniature Mauna Loa. Circling the pine he tried to locate the squirrel now lying flat in a crotch near the crown of the long-leaf, his long tail hanging down while his body was securely hidden. Boyzie pointed out the drooping tail. “Dey him, pa, dey him, but ’e too fudduh. You cyan’ reach’um.”

“Who? Dat squerril? Watch’um!” The piece was raised, two sinewy fingers clutched the trigger with a jerk that would have disconcerted any aim, and the hammer, describing a parabola, fell upon the cap which exploded with a report like a parlor rifle, but Betsey’s muzzle remained glum and silent.

“’S’mattuh, Betsey? You got ’ooman name en’ you ent got ’ooman mout’? You cyan’ talk? De debble!” Another cap was fitted, another hopeful aim taken and another futile “paow!” echoed among the pines. Simon, now having only two caps left, accepted the suggestion that priming might help. He also accepted the powder which he poured with a liberal hand down the capacious nipple and rammed home with a lightwood splinter.

“Now watch’um come down.” Another careful sight at the tantalizing tail up aloft, another “popped” cap with a little blue smoke from the priming, and a sorely puzzled squirrel hunter.

“Witch mus’ be pit bad mout’ ’puntop Betsey. I ’spec’ ’e done cunjuh.”

“Pa, is you pit any powduh een dat gun?”

“Who? Me? Wuh gun? Betsey? C’ose I pit powduh een ’um.”

“Bettuh try’um,” said doubting youth, and he did. When the shot was drawn and the screw of the long iron ramrod clicked against the breech of the musket, old Okra’s face was a study. “Yaas, ef I did’n’ bin haffuh watch Boyzie duh watch de squerril, I wouldn’t bin fuhgit fuh load’um.” Consoling himself with this shifting of responsibility, he loaded deliberately and fired, bringing down, with a lot of pine needles, half the squirrel’s tail, which he stuck in the cord which bound his old hat with the remark, “Well, ennyhow I git all wuh I shoot at. Ef man kin git all wuh ’e try fuh git, him oughtuh tengkful!”

THE “CUNJUH” THAT CAME BACK

Lucy Jones, of Pon Pon, square and stout and widowed, had in her youth been as frequently husbanded as the Wife of Bath. One by one, however, through death, incompatibility of temperament, or indifference, she had lost these affiliations, and now, a “settled woman,” Lucy lacked the masterful ways and the loving club of a man about the house, for it is axiomatic among the Gullah ladies of the Carolina coast that love and physical chastisement are inseparable. “Ef man ent lick you, ’e yent lub you.” So, yearning for the touch of a vanished hoe handle or axe helve, Lucy languished. There was no longer satisfaction in “cawnhom’ny” or “tu’n flour.” There was no savor in “poke” greens or lamb’s-quarter. Fat bacon, while greasing her mouth, no longer anointed her soul. Her cabin was snug and comfortable, her bed was wide, and covered with a patchwork quilt that would have made Joseph’s coat look like a drab jacket of butternut jeans. This quilt, slowly fabricated of all the bits of bright cloth—silk, cotton and wool—that she had begged from “de buckruh” during a period of several years, she had stitched together with painstaking fingers and exalted soul, absolutely confident that with its completion would come a husband to share its chromatic glories. “All de time uh binnuh mek dat quilt uh bin agguhnize een me min’ duh study ’pun wuh kinduh husbun’ uh gwine git w’en ’e done finish. Sometime’ uh t’ink uh gwine git uh nyung nigguh, en’ den uh ’membuh suh dese’yuh nyung nigguh ent wut. Dem too lub fuh t’row bone. En’ den, ’nodduh time uh study en’ uh t’ink uh’ll git uh settle’ man, but uh know berry well uh haffuh git some kind’uh man ’cause uh lonesome tummuch, en’ uh keep on sew de quilt ’tell ’e done, en’ uh pit’um on de bed, en’ dat night w’en uh gone’sleep onduhneet’ de quilt, uh hab one dream, en’ one sperrit come to me een de dream en’ tell me suh me fuh marry Isaac Middletun.”

So the notion got into her head. Isaac was tall, as Lucy was short; Isaac was thin, as Lucy was stout, and Isaac was wary, as Lucy was predaceous. Himself an elderly widower, he was living alone when Lucy delicately intimated to him her desire to change the Welsh name of Jones for the aristocratic English patronymic of Middleton. Middleton, acknowledging the compliment, politely declined the offer, preferring to keep his lonely cabin to himself. “Uh tell’um wuh de sperrit say,” she said, “en’ uh tell’um de sperrit say him fuh come fuh marry me dat same night. Uh hab fait’ een de sperrit’ wu’d, en’ uh scour’ out de house en’ uh mek de bed, en’ uh pit de tea by de fiah, en’ still yet Middletun ent come. Uh nebbuh know shishuh eegnunt nigguh. W’en uh fin’ suh ’e yent come, uh gone deepo fuh fin’um, en’ uh tell’um ’gen wuh de sperrit say. Uh tell’um ’bout de quilt en’ de tea en’ t’ing’, en’ uh tell’um nemmine’ ’bout him house, cause myself hab house fuh alltwo uh we fuh lib een, but Middletun ent haa’kee to wuh uh tell’um ’bout de sperrit. ’E say suh de sperrit hab bidness fuh talk ’long nyung ’ooman ef de sperrit fuh send wife fuh him. Uh tell’um uh nyung ’ooman cyan’ specify fuh wife fuh settle’ man lukkuh Middletun, ’cause dem lub fuh dress tummuch, but seem lukkuh uh cyan’ git Middletun’ min’ straight.” So she “took her foot in her hand” and went home, dejected but not hopeless, for she determined to stick to the trail, as the hound to the slot, until she ran the wily quarry to earth, to wit, cabin, for she hankered after him with an intense hankering.

“Lucy Middletun,” “Mis’ Middletun,” how it filled the mouth and the ear, and exalted the spirit with satisfaction! Ever since emancipation the negroes have laid great store by their “titles,” prefaced by “Mistuh” or “Mis’.” Very dear to their hearts was the evolution of “Cuffee,” “Cudjo” and “Sancho” of slavery, into “Mistuh Scott,” “Mistuh Hawlback” and “Mistuh Middletun,” of freedom, and, in the twinkling of an eye, “Dinah” and “Bina” and “Bella,” the grubs, were transformed into “Mis’ Wineglass,” “Mis’ Chizzum” and “Mis’ Manigo,” the butterflies. So, as Lucy mused and spun the spider web of fancy in which she hoped to entrap the wary and unappreciative Isaac, her mind crossed the stormy seas of Endeavor, and, resting in the snug harbor of Achievement, she thought of the deed as done, and imagined herself as going to work on week days, to church on Sundays, and to class meetings in the evenings, carrying, as appurtenant to her person, the longed-for “title” of Isaac, and as she thought upon the occasions when on public road or by-path she should “pass the time of day” in the ceremonial salutations so dear to her kind, she was filled to the jowls with ecstasy and her eardrums vibrated with the melody of “Middleton.”

“Mawnin’, Mis’ Jones, how you do, ma’am?”

“Mawnin’, Mis’ Wineglass, uh tengk Gawd fuh life, but you know uh yent name Mis’ Jones now. Me duh Mis’ Middletun.”

“Dat so? I nebbuh yeddy ’bout Bredduh Jones dead.”

“No, ma’am, ’e yent dead, ma’am, but him hab anodduh lady, en’ me hab Isaac Middletun. You know dat same Mistuh Middletun lib close Adam’ Run deepo? Well, she duh my juntlemun now, en’ me duh Mis’ Middletun.”

“Yaas, ma’am, well, mawnin’, ma’am,” and so on.

And always as Lucy sat in the sunshine before the cabin door and smoked her short clay pipe, or in the loneliness of night lay pondering and ponderable under the quilt that looked like a county map of Texas, constantly she projected thought waves towards Adams Run station, near which abode the recalcitrant Middleton. Along this main-traveled roadway of the Atlantic Coast Line, many trains passed by day and by night. The shrill shriek of the local freight, as it took the siding at the distant station, reminded her that Middleton’s ears were filled with the same sound. The hoarse warning of the Florida Limited at the curve, as it rushed southward filled with Northern tourists, who,—viewing from observation cars the fruit-laden thickets of gallberry bushes covering the damp, flat pinelands—marveled at the prodigality of the Southern climate that ripened huckleberries in midwinter, every whistle that blew along the busy line reminded Lucy of the railroad, and the railroad reminded her of the station, and the station reminded her of Middleton. Theoretically, a member of the gentler sex has only to wish herself upon a man and the man is as good as wived, and the dogma that “a woman has only to make up her mind to marry a man and she gets him,” is probably as old as the Creation, for Adam, like the gentleman he was, accepted philosophically and uncomplainingly—even gallantly—the spouse which kind Heaven had wished upon him. But much thought had brought Lucy to the conclusion that in her chase of a husband she was after all a dachshund, while the elusive Middleton was a fox. His defenses having proved impenetrable by direct attack, she had tried sapping and mining without success, even the “sperrit” bomb projected Middletonwards had fizzled at the fuse, and her cabin and its encircling yard and garden were still, alas! “no man’s land!”

In her desperation Lucy decided to conjure! Like old Lorenzo in “La Mascotte,” she believed in “signs, omens, dreams, predictions,” and also in the potency of the dried frog, the blacksnake skin and the kerosene-soaked red flannel rag, as charms to pull a bashful wooer up to the scratch, to put a “spell,” resulting in sickness or death, upon an enemy, or for any other purpose suggested by the mind of the one preparing the charm, for, a sort of aftermath of voodooism, “cunjuhs” are still believed in by many of these superstitious people.

Lucy bethought her of old Simon, not an authenticated witch-doctor, for he demanded no fixed fees, but a wily old sinner, a sort of amateur in black magic, who gave advice free of charge, although his services were always rewarded with gifts of eggs, or sweet potatoes, or clean rice. As snake skins and dried frogs were component parts of almost all old Simon’s “charms,” the boys of the community frequently brought him those they killed or found dead by the roadside. These, at his convenience, old Simon skinned and salted, or rubbed with ashes and smoked and dried and put away, for use when occasion should require. The low-country negroes seldom pass a dead frog lying on its back, believing that if so exposed for any length of time, rain will inevitably follow, and those so found, if not turned over to prevent the floods from Heaven, were taken to old Simon and added to his store.

So in the dusk of the early night and the dark of the moon, for Lucy did not wish the black sisterhood to know her business, she locked her cabin door, put a shawl over her head and slipped away to Simon.

The weather was cold and Simon’s door was shut. She rapped faintly and furtively, and a fierce bark challenged from within. Simon hobbled to the door and opened it, a black cur growling at his knee. Kicking the dog away, he bade Lucy enter.

“Come een, sistuh, how you do?”

“Tengk Gawd fuh life, Unk’ Simun. Uh come yuh fuh ax you fuh gimme uh cunjuh fuh t’row uh spell ’puntop Isaac Middletun wuh lib Adam’ Run deepo, fuh mek’um haa’kee to de sperrit’ wu’d, wuh tell’um fuh hab me fuh wife, ’cause uh done tell’um two time wuh de sperrit hab fuh say, but him ent study ’bout no sperrit, en’ ’e suck ’e teet’ at me, en’ him say suh him fuh marry nyung ’ooman ’cause him ent hab no appetite fuh marry settle’ ’ooman, en’ uh done tell’um suh nyung ’ooman cyan’ specify fuh settle’ man, but Middletun dat eegnunt en’ haa’d-head’, uh cyan’ git’um fuh do nutt’n’, en’ please suh fuh mek one hebby cunjuh, ’cause Middletun stubbunt sukkuh oxin en’ mule alltwo, en’ w’en you gimme de cunjuh, tell me wuh fuh do ’long’um en’ weh uh mus’ pit’um fuh t’row de spell ’puntop’uh Middletun, en’ uh fetch t’ree aig’ en’ some yalluh yam tettuh fuh you fuh eat.” And she took these gifts out of her apron and presented them to the weaver of spells.

Simon was a man of few words. Going to an old cupboard where he kept his store of raw materials, he fumbled about and at last drew forth the dried skin of a “copper-belly” moccasin, about three feet long. This he wound about a smoke-dried toad, to which had been added two rusty horseshoe nails. Around them all a dirty strip of red flannel, well soaked in kerosene, was tied, and the charm was ready. Wrapping it in a piece of brown paper he gave it to Lucy who, tremulous with happiness and excitement, tied it in a corner of her apron.