Mr. Billy Downs and his likes

Front matter

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT

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I

Preface

“ The Vicar of Wakefield of American Literature ” was the title bestowed upon Colonel Richard Malcolm Johnston by Whitcomb Riley, who loved the man as he delighted in his literary work, and it has seemed to me that no more fortuitous epithet was ever applied by one literary man to another. It is a pleasure to know that Colonel Johnston himself was very happy in the numberless testimonials he received during the later years of his life of the love and esteem in which he was held by his fellowcraftsman. He was especially delighted at the number of these manifestations that came to him from the North, from such writers as Mark Twain, Edmund C. Stedman, Charles Dudley Warner, R. W. Gilder, and many others ; yet, in the South, too, he was honored and loved, and no State in the Union was ever as dear to him as his native Georgia.

Eight or ten years ago Thomas Nelson Page began a public reading of selections from his own work in Baltimore by saying : “I have a friend who says, ‘Tom, there is one author who excels you as a writer of Southern dialect stories, and that is Colonel Richard Malcolm Johnston.’ When I tell you that this critic is my own father, you will realize that he is not an unfriendly one.”

Born in Georgia in 1822, the son of a Southern planter, who was also a licensed Baptist clergyman, Colonel Johnston died in Baltimore in the communion of the Roman Catholic Church on September 3, 1898. He was buried

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PREFACE from the church, which was filled with loving friends of all manner of religious and political beliefs, and among his bearers were men who had fought in opposing armies in the War of Secession. One can but think that this would have pleased the dear old gentleman, for while he bore a military title, acquired as a staff officer to a Georgia governor in war time, he was pre-eminently a man of peace and never intentionally wronged any human being.

After graduating from college in 1841, Colonel Johnston practiced law in his native State until 1857, when he became professor of Belles Lettres at the University of Georgia. In 1867 he removed to Baltimore and established a school for boys, a few miles from the city, where one of his associate teachers was Sidney Lanier, the Georgia poet, who was very dear to him. This school he conducted successfully until 1882, from which date, until his death in 1898, he devoted himself entirely to literary work until the last two or three years of his life, when he filled a position in the Bureau of Education, in the Interior Department, given him by Secretary Hoke Smith. Although well advanced in years, Colonel Johnston was glad to accept the position and was well pleased that his work in the Bureau was so well done and that the publications that he wrote and edited there were so valuable that, notwithstanding his age, it was easy for his literary friends to secure his retention in office under a change of administration.

His first literary publication was in Georgia, in 1864. It is entitled “ Georgia Sketches,” and from that time until the year of his death he was continually putting forth stories of life in Georgia in the early and middle part of this century. The material was gathered by Colonel Johnston from his personal experiences as a practicing lawyer in the country towns of his native State

PREFACE vii

and from stories told him by other Georgia lawyers. For the accuracy of the dialect Colonel Johnston always vouched, and said that Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens (a life-long friend), and other distinguished Georgians, used to amuse themselves in leisure hours by talking to each other and telling stories in this dialect.

It was ever a delight to hear Colonel Johnston read his own stories. As we knew him in Baltimore, he was a distinguished-looking old gentleman, some six-feet-two in height, with a well-proportioned figure, fine gray hair and moustache, kindly blue eyes, and an expression in which kindness and sadness were comingled.

It was ever a joy to Colonel Johnston that he could say that he had never published a line reflecting upon any form of Christian belief or that taught other than the purest morality.

As Mr. Arthur Stedman wrote, concerning the very tales included in this volume, they are characterized " by an innate youthfulness in word and thought.” I may add that this youthfulness and ingenuousness of disposition marked his whole life and character and makes his stories delightful memorials of a day and of people that have forever passed away.

Colonel Johnston loved his fellowmen, sympathized with their joys and sorrows and strove to make the world bright and happy for all with whom he was thrown. Although the final benediction at his funeral came from the lips of a Prince of the Church of Rome, the life of the man was in itself a benediction. In the hope and belief that between the lines of these charming stories that benediction will be heard and felt, they are submitted to the readers of a new century.

Henry P. Goddard.

Baltimore , April //, igoo.

MR. BILLY DOWNS AND HIS LIKES

“ The meek will he guide in judgment ”

I

URIOUS is the inequality often noticed x< - ,/ in human friendships. Indeed, as a rule, the most devoted seem to exist between unequals, superiors submitting complacently to beloved, indulged and waited on, inferiors content to submit and serve — sometimes even thankful to do so. How uncomplainingly Theseus accepted the love and sacrifices of Pirithoiis ! How touching to David the devotion of Jonathan, “passing the love of women ” !

Of a kind similar, although upon a lower plane, were the loves of Jones Kindrick, the greater, and Simeon Newsome, the less. Four miles south of our village, at the crossing of the county-seat road by one leading from the west toward Ivy’s Bridge on the Ogeechee River, dwelt the Newsomes. Their large, square mansion kept within plenty of good things for their enjoyment, and that of others who came there with or without special invitation. A mile and a half east, near the road last mentioned, in a dwelling somewhat smaller but whiter, lived the Kindricks. The heads of these families had died some years before, and their widows, who were cousins, had been managing the estates well during the time it took the boys to grow old enough for such responsibilities. As for Sim (nobody except his mother ever called him Simeon), as long as he had been anything he had been as steady as any clock. He seldom laughed, except when politeness so required. Not that he was morose; it was only that he rarely saw or heard things which to him seemed worthy of laughing about. He had tried to take to schooling with the fondness desired by his parents, but while in the midst of demonstrative and other adjective pronouns in the forenoons, and of tare and tret and the double rule of three in the afternoons, not seeing his way clear he pleaded fatigue, after such fruitless endeavors, and begged of his father to be let go to plowing.

A set-off to Sim’s humility was the pride he felt in the abilities of his cousin Jones, a year older than himself. This had been going on from childhood until now, when each had reached his majority. While at school Sim was looked upon as better than Jones in little things like spelling and reading, for which Jones expressed contempt that had much influence upon Sim’s imagination of his greatness. This was exalted higher when Sim broke down, and Jones, misliking the plow, with which he had been threatened, dashed forward and got along whether or no, cajoling where he could not delay to conquer, hopping over where he could not cajole, or, with connivance of the master (who liked not to lose a good-paying scholar), slipped through behind others who had opened the way for themselves, and always looked and talked like one who was moving from victory to victory. In time he had acquired a stock of words, many of them new, which filled Sim with admiration not less fond than awful. Of middle height, brown, brawny, solemn-faced, he never felt a pulsation of envy when he looked at the tall, slender, fair, eversmiling Jones.

It went on thus after they had taken control of the plantations. Sim’s sense of inferiority ought to have subsided when it appeared how much better he understood and conducted business; but knowing that the soul of Jones was too high to let itself be entirely engrossed in mere agriculture, he was pleased when the latter from time to time let him offer counsel — and followed it.

For a time Jones had been circulating himself and his vocabulary among the girls, and his mother and his sister Maria, the latter two years older than himself, plain of feature, sensible of mind and industrious of body, wished that he would get married and settle down to steady work. He let them urge, and answered that his matrimonial cogitations had not yet come to a head.

“ Yes,” said his mother one day, “ you think you must be a mighty picker and chooser; and if you don’t look out you’ll go clean through the woods and then have to be satisfied with a crooked stick. If you only knew it, S’phrony Miller is the girl for you — that is, if you could get her.”

“ As for the ability of sophisticating S’phrony Miller into the chains of mattermony, ma, I — no; perhaps I oughtn’t to use the words.”

“ I wouldn’t if I were in your place,” said Miss Maria. “ It would be a good thing for you to get S’phrony, if you could. If you’d marry, Cousin Sim would. I really believe he’s waiting to see when you are going to settle before starting out himself, intending to keep himself entirely out of your way.”

“ Sim ! He’s a dear good fellow, isn’t he ? I wish Sim had a better gift of languages; but — oh, old Sim will get on well enough, I hope. As for me and myself, you and ma, and, I may say, all other ladies, ha ! ha ! will have to wait till my mind comes to judgment.”

“I say judgment /” retorted his mother, probably not knowing herself precisely all that she intended to convey by the remark.

It was different with Sim. Having reached manhood safely, soundly and honorably, it began to occur to him that it might be a good thing to get a wife. He had been too busy to go about much, and it was only when riding to Horeb meeting - house and back again — sometimes perhaps during a long sermon within — that he had begun to throw, with moderately heightened interest, speculative eyes among the pretty girls who were there in such profusion. Then his observations of the life led by Mr. Billy Downs, the most respectable old bachelor among his acquaintances, backed by numerous kind admonitions bestowed upon him by the latter, were leading gradually to the decision that, on the whole, married life was preferable to single, when one took the pains to study their several promises of results, general and special.

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II

NOW when, with this thought on his mind, Sim next went to the Millers’, whose place joined both the Newsomes’ and the Kindricks’, and looked at S’phrony from his new point of view, he felt that he was content to rest there. S’phrony, who was a tall, rather blonde, pensivish, sweet-looking girl, and her young sister were the only offspring of their parents. Their dwelling was yet smaller than the Kindricks’, but whiter, and more shrubbery was in the yard than in both the other places put together. If the plantation had less acreage, the land was fresher, and it would not have been easy to say of the two sides, one adjoining the Newsomes’ and the other the Kindricks’, which was the better.

When S’phrony noticed that the remarks lately made by Sim at the house, although not numerous, seemed to have been intended mainly for herself, she felt the interest usually rising on such occasions, and from that time her talk, the way she dressed, the increased perfume of flowers, and one thing and another about the room, the non-appearing of her sister and parents when he called, all tended to confirm him in the thought that he was attempting what, if successful, would be a good and sensible thing.

Mr. Billy Downs, between whom and himself was an intimacy which, on the part of the former, was warmly fond, urged him to be as quiet as possible, but correspondingly speedy. The reasons for his advice he had sufficient grounds for not fully disclosing. Yet Sim’s instincts convinced him that it was good, and at his fourth visit he was not far from putting to S’phrony a question as pointed as he knew how to frame it. He fully resolved that he would do so at the next, and but for one thing this would have been done. That thing — not meaning, by use of such a word, to be openly offensive to his memory — was Jones Kindrick. For — don’t you know? — no sooner had he found that Sim was going to the Millers’ in suspicious circumstances, than he went to running there himself. More than that, he made it his business to come over to the Newsomes’, and, not finding Sim at the house, to follow him out to the very field where he was overseeing the hands. When he found him, thousands upon thousands of words were used by him, of which I shall here put down a few:

“ Ma and sister Maria have been for some time past specified. They have both been going on to me about S’phrony Miller in a way and to an extent that in some circumstances might be called even obstropulous; and to quiet their conscience, I’ve begun a kind of a visitation over there, and my mind has arriv at the conclusion that she’s a good, nice piece of flesh, to use the expressions of a man of the world and society. What do you think, Sim, of the matter under consideration, and what would you advise ? I like to have your advice sometimes, and I’d like to know what it would be under all the circumstances and appurtenances of a case which, as it stands, it seems to have, and it isn’t worth while to conceal the fact that it does have, a tremenduous amount of immense responsibility to all parties, especially to the undersigned, referring, as is well known in books and newspaper advertisements, to myself. What would you say to the above, Sim, in all its parts and parties ? ”

It was fortunate for Sim that his hopes had not been lifted so high that their sudden fall would be too extremely painful. Through the hints of Mr. Downs he had been feeling some apprehension as to what Jones might do when he heard of his visits to S’phrony, and he held his feelings in restraint. He now drew a long breath, the significance of which was lost upon his cousin; then answered:

“ I didn’t — that is, I never quite got all your languages, Jones; but my opinion of S’phrony is, that she’s the equil of — I may say — yes, of any of ’em. Ahem!”

“ Your advice then, Sim, is not to the contrary, in all the circumstances ?”

“You mean — is it your meaning to the courting of S’phrony, Jones ? ”

“You may say words to that effect, for the sake of the whole argyment.”

“ My advice,” answered Sim, after swallowing the air that had accumulated in his mouth — “ my advice would be to anybody — that is, I mean any marryiri man — that wanted S’phrony, if I was asked for my advice, I should give it to git S’phrony if he can. I have no hizitation about that, nor not a doubt.”

“Of course, Sim, in an affair magnified as we are on now, your opinion is worth more than ma’s and sister Maria’s both put together, although it’s a satisfaction that, as the case now stands, you colide with ’em perfect. I have not yet represented to S’phrony any open remarks; but I have insinooated a few pleasant words to her, and her looks on those occasions were that she were expecting more of the same sort; and now, since I’ve had this highly interesting conversation with you, I rather think I shall govern myself according. Still, there can be no doubt, I don’t suppose, but what the future is before us, just like the past is behind us, and I can’t but thank you for your kind remarks, so entire coliding with ma and sister Maria.”

Brave man was Simeon Newsome, and in most things self-reliant enough; but he believed that he knew perfectly well that nothing could be more vain than for such as he to essay to rival a man of such vast sentiments and such boundless powers of expression. Never had Jones appeared so great before his eyes, what time he could take them off the ground and look up his full length. In his mind he bade S’phrony Miller farewell, except as a prospective cousin, and when Jones, after oceans of other words, went away, he tried to go to thinking about something else. The long habit of submission to his superior, and somewhat of the old gratification of seeing him an easy leader in movements of his genius and inclination, soon induced a condition of moderate resignation. Had it not been so with Pirithoiis after the success of the joint endeavors of Theseus and himself in that first “rape of Helen ” in the temple of Diana Orthia ? Did he not foresee that the lots cast for her would fall to the greater ? As far back as that one understood well enough how such things go, and so, uncomplaining, even congratulatory, the subordinate went away to seek the less fair Kore among the Molossians.

Far less content with the condition of things was Mr. Billy Downs. A brief description must serve for the outside of him. He was a rather small, grizzly, thin, but wiry gentleman, somewhere between forty-five and fifty. He lived in a double log house a mile nearer the village than the Newsomes. He could have afforded to put up a far better mansion, making and laying up as he had been doing for the last twenty-five years. Everybody liked him, and he liked everybody except Jones Kindrick ; but this exception was because he loved Sim Newsome better than anybody else. According to neighborhood tradition, Mr. Downs had reason to feel peculiar tenderness for Sim. In his youth he had wanted, and in his unskilful way had tried to get, Sim’s mother when she was Miss Fortner. Failing in this, he drew himself in, and stayed there until this son had grown old enough to make acquaintance beyond the domestic circle, since when, notably since the death of Mr. Newsome, he had been indulging for him a feeling somewhat like parental, and it grieved him to see that he was rather dwarfed by his admitted inferiority to Jones Kindrick. The process of affiliation was slow, because Mr. Downs seldom went to the house in Mr. Newsome’s lifetime, and after his death, from feelings of delicacy, never. When this good man saw how things had gone in the matter of S’phrony Miller, he decided to throw out a few words, holding back others to a later day. Using a name fonder than that by which Sim was commonly addressed, he said:

“ Simyul, if it have been me, when I see Jones abeginnin’ to use over there at the Millers’ with his striped kervats and them dictionary words, that was above my inf’mation, I should have done like you and drawed in my horns. You ain’t the pushin’ feller Jones Kindrick is, and my expe’unce is, it take pushin’ with female young women to make much headway among ’em. I did hope it were yourn and S’phrony’s lot, because she’s a fine young woman. But it seem like it weren’t; special as Jones is a kind of a cousin, and have always let you give up to him, which people says he oughtn’t to — that is, everlastin’. But now, Simyul, if it was me, I should spread out, and maybe git up a still-hunt outside o’ Jones’s range, and see what’s to come of him and S’phrony. For two things is absolute certain. One of ’em is, S’phrony ain’t the onlest girl in the State o’ Georgy, and the other is, they ain’t no tellin’ the final upshot of her and Jones, and — well, if it was me, I should peeruse around at conven’ent times, and maybe ride over t’other side the river — we’ll say up, in, and along there about Williams Creek meetin’- house, where Jes Vinson live, and he have a big plantation and a daughter besides. But I should make a still-hunt if it was me, because they ain’t any countin’ on Jones, and special when he see you a likely to git ahead of him. Of course I got nothin’ ag’inst Jones Kindrick, only I do wish that Jones Kindrick could git to understand that he ain’t to have every girl in the whole State, and special them that he see you abuckin’ up to.”

Upon these words, apparently wise and evidently forbearing, Sim felt that he ought at least thoughtfully to ponder.

Ill

On a Saturday not long afterward, as Mr. Jesse Vinson, one of the deacons, was listening with subdued attention to the sermon then being delivered by the pastor of Williams Creek meeting-house, he observed a young man come in softly, take a seat decorously, and with proper solemnity keep his eyes on the preacher during the remainder of the discourse. When a recess was taken prior to the meeting of the regular conference, Mr. Vinson, having learned that the stranger was the son of his old friend and church brother, Eli Newsome, asked if he would go and spend the night with him. Sim naturally answered yes. Arrived at the Vinson mansion, a respectable brick two-story, a mile away, he found, as Mr. Downs had said, that a young girl was there, and that she was not unlike S’phrony Miller, only taller, dressier, and more chatty. With such a girl a bashful young man can make his way more easily than with one like himself. Alley Vinson kindly led him along paths which she discovered he could tread with least embarrassment. When he went to bed that night, he felt that perhaps he had done well by venturing there. So he felt next morning on the way to meeting, and so when the congregation was dispersing, and he bade her good-by, and thanked her for the invitation to come again.

I don’t remember if it was ever known positively how Jones Kindrick found out that Sim had been to Williams Creek : but Mr. Billy Downs afterward said that he was glad of it, although he never admitted that he had contributed anything leading to the information. At all events, at the next meeting-day at Horeb, two weeks thereafter, Jones hardly more than spoke to Sim, and the latter was surprised, after the people were going back home, to see nobody in this wide world riding along with S’phrony but her father and sister, and S’phrony all the while looking as if she felt as lonesome as she could be. Mr. Downs and Sim traveled along together. The former was as punctual at religious services as the very deacons. Conscious of being a bachelor and a sinner, and therefore unmeet for the kingdom of heaven, he had never applied for membership, but he hoped, by the use of other outward means, to make his case as mild as possible at the final judgment, which naturally he hoped would be put off as long as possible.

“ It look like a onlucky accident, Simyul, but my hopes is it’ll turn out for the best. Jones have a evident a struck on to your trail acrost the river ; and now look at him yonder among them men, awavin’ of his tongue and the balance o’ hisself, and S’phrony along of her pa and her sister by her lone self. Somethin’s up betwix’ him and her ; and if it was me, I shouldn’t go to no Williams Creek next meetin’-day, but I should wait to see where the cat’s goin’ to jump.”

“ I’ve done made up my mind that I ain’t agoin’ there for yet a while.”

“ Of course you ain’t; I knewed all the time you weren’t. Now, if it was me, I should feel like givin’ my horse a cut and gallopin’ up, and sidlin’ in there by S’phrony, betwix’ her and her pa; but I don’t think I’d do it quite yit a while, so public like that, when her feelin’s has been hurted, that is, provided she have ’em for Jones, which I always can not but has had my doubts, and special now when he’s a open neglectin’ of her in that kind o’ style. And if it was me, I should let Jones have all the rope he want.”

Other talk they had on the way. Mr. Downs had not command of what he called Jones Kindrick’s dictionary words, but when he felt like it, he could be equally voluminous. Stammering had been the language in which the single love of his youth had been conveyed, but now in the romance of this young man whom his imagination had adopted for a son, uncertain, unfixed though it was, he felt an interest equal to that of the most impassioned lover.

Mr. Downs had wished heartily for Sim to marry S’phrony. In his mild way often he had remonstrated with him for his habitual yielding to Jones. Sim had listened to his praise without objecting; for to the humblest as to the vainest sweet are the panegyrics of a friend. Yet it would have been too painful, therefore it was not possible, to part from the exalted estimate that he had had of Jones all his life. Mr. Downs recognized this; and therefore instead of blaming, he seemed rather to ratify his withdrawal from his little stage when Jones with his paraphernalia of every sort stepped upon the boards. It was for this also that he sent Sim upon the expedition across the river. He believed that Alley Vinson would be an entirely safe investment, yet the main motive was to excite in Jones curiosity first, and afterward jealousy, and so lead him away from the Millers’. He believed now that he had succeeded. His last words to Sim were:

“You lay low, Simyul; keep alayin’ low as you can git. They ain’t no tellin’ what Jones’ll do, nor what he won’t do. But one thing is certain: Jones Kindrick can’t do everything, a-includin’ the marryin’ of everybody. You may stick a pin right there among them words.”

He rode on home, his mind occupied with all the wistful thoughts and the sweet thoughts of a true lover Bless his old heart!

IV

Among the rural folk of that generation courtships and espousals were for the most part brief. Of the two, Sim and Jones, Alley’s father liked better the former; but Sim, acting on the counsel of Mr. Downs, was lying low on his side of the river, and perhaps Alley felt a tiff for such neglect. At all events, about two months afterward, Jones went over there in the family carriage, and brought her back with him to stay.

It was pleasant to see Mr. Downs when Jones was taken out of all rival possibilities with his dear Simyul.

“ Simyul, it have come egzact as I wanted. Now you can come out and breathe the a’r free. And now you got the whole S’phrony Miller field before you, and if it was me I should go in, and I should go in speedy, and I should go in bold.”

Sim began at once to feel like a new man, and congratulated himself for following the salutary counsels of Mr. Downs. On the very next meeting-day S’phrony seemed to him nicer and sweeter than ever before. There was a merriness not habitual in her face and in her words when, after the start home, she referred to the new couple.

“ Jones and his bride looked quite cozy and bright. Didn’t you think so, Sim ? ”

“ Well, yes. Jones special looked very comfortable. I’m glad he’s located at last.”

“ So am I.”

“You? I — I’m glad to hear it, S’phrony.”

“What for ?”

“ Because I — I didn’t know exactly how you and Jones stood.”

“ Stood ? Why, we stood always as we’re standing now. What do you mean ? ”

“ I — fact is, S’phrony, I thought Jones been awantin’ of you”

“ I hope you haven’t been thinking that I wanted Jones.”

She looked at him in mild, smiling reproach, and her lips were so red and her teeth so white that Sim was thankful that they did not and now never could belong to Jones.

“ I didn’t know — why, of course I didn’t know, S’phrony.”