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Front matter

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III - if V < <•

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Contents

I. A Swamp Adventure. 7

II. A Cabin Waif 28

III. Why They Wept 49

I. A Cabin Waif

'pHE study of character is one of the most fascinating of occupations. Human life in every social and moral plane is full of interest. In a sense, people are text-books, and some of them hold us to the living page with the charm and interest of a novel. Such people are types. They have a strongly marked individuality, the possession of gifts and attributes, styles of speech and mannerisms, which differentiate them from all others.

These interesting, living subjects are found not simply in high, but in low places. They are met with on the throne and in the stable ; in rural regions and on crowded city thoroughfares ; on dusty highways under the light of the stars, and walking on velvet and Brussels carpets with the soft luster of costly chandeliers falling upon them. Whenever and wherever found, they are types. They are refreshingly distinct and different from other people, talk and act in a manner peculiarly

their own, and hold you with the charm of freshness, (28)

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2 9 novelty, or originality. They maybe more or less richly endowed mentally, but the peculiar power of uniqueness is there.

Dickens found many of his creations on the streets of London, while Craddock obtained hers in the mountains of Tennessee. They are to be met everywhere, and are certain to be recognized by the thoughtfully observant.

The old-time Southern plantations were far more prolific in the production of interesting personages and striking characters than many people would imagine. Two of these claim the reader’s attention in this sketch : a mother and her son.

Matilda, or Tildy, as the negroes called her, was a raw-boned woman of forty. She had a face as black as the ace of spades, and possessed a temper that at times was several shades blacker. She had been married, and in the few years of wedded life had led her husband a perfect dance, until one day he contracted some swamp chills, which shook him out of his body and far away from the shakings that Matilda used to give him. He left her two girls, a boy named Toby, and some old rags in the shape of his worn-out clothing. The sablecolored widow philosophically took the better portion of the garments and transferred them into her

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quilts, while one or two pairs of trousers descended to Toby, and for that matter descended far below him, for he was only three feet high, while his father was, or had been, a six-footer.

After the husband died, Matilda worked off' her spasms of fury upon her children. She had a way of paying her respects to them with broom-sticks, hoe-handles and brickbats. Being a woman of ungovernable temper, when she started to punish them, she would use the first thing available as an instrument of correction. A wooden handspike, a pair of tongs, or an iron poker were eminently satisfactory to her when she was on the warpath.

In the course of time the girls were placed elsewhere in some kind of farm or housework, and Toby was left to receive the undivided attentions of his mother in the way just mentioned.

The child was eight years old when the mother was brought from the quarters and installed as one of the house servants. From that time our attention was attracted to the peculiar way the mother had of bringing the boy up, or rather, of knocking him down.

He was a black- faced, kinky-headed child, with a curious look, compounded of suspicion, fear, and pleading. If he ever possessed a hat, we

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never knew it ; he went bare-headed as well as bare-footed for four years of his life, to our certain knowledge. He was arrayed some days in a coarse Lowells shirt which descended midway between his thighs and knees, and on other days, in a pair of trousers which had belonged to his father. Matilda cut off about twelve inches from the legs, and gathered in the garment at the waist, with a great rudder-like bulge behind ; but still they were entirely too large. She rolled them up at the bottom in liberal folds, while the waistband was so loose that Toby had to hold the garment up with his left hand when standing or walking, to keep it from leaving him altogether. When sitting or lying down, he had some relief from his task of pantaloon support, but the instant he rose to a perpendicular position, the danger of being suddenly denuded stared him in the face, and he immediately resumed the old hand-hitch on the waistband.

He never appeared wearing both of these garments, the shirt and pantaloons, at the same time. This would have been rolling in luxury, indeed ! The shirt days were the happier, if the boy could be said to have had any happiness at all. On these occasions he had nothing to hold up with his hands, or to cumber him in one of his precipitate

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flights from his mother. The shirt was not onlymore agreeable to Toby in a general way, but, in the sudden maternal sallies, it proved to be a special blessing in giving greater freedom to the little black legs in the way of escape. At such times, the end of the garment stood out on a line with the horizon, and no drum-sticks ever came down with greater rapidity than did his feet strike the surface of the earth. But the day he wore the trousers was not only one of physical discomfort, but positive terror to him, for all retreats were executed with fears of tripping, and falling into the hands of his pursuer.

Sitting in the house one day we heard something strike the side of the building with a resounding bang. Going quickly to the door, we had a glimpse of Toby vanishing at full speed in the distance, with the angry mother at his heels. The battle that morning had opened with a brick thrown at the boy, but which fortunately missed him and hit the house. If it had struck him, there would have been an immediate end of the lad.

Often, after this, we have heard a commotion in the yard and, on hastily going out, would see one of those suddenly instituted pursuits. The child, nimble of foot, and expert at dodging from long

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practice, could be seen fairly llying, keeping out of the way of rocks, chunks of wood and flat irons, and finally, through the intricacies of the back yard and out-houses, disappearing in the remoter depths of the garden or orchard.

If some one should ask why such a conduct was tolerated by a humane and well-regulated Southern home, the answer is that Matilda was not only a first-class washer and ironer, but quick to do anything in the shape of work. She was as smart as she was high-tempered. In addition, she had a most indulgent mistress, who did not like to worry herself about anything. When one of these sudden bangs against wall or fence resounded through the house, followed by the sudden uproar of voices and laughter which always accompanied this outbreak of war, with flight and pursuit, Mrs. Carleton would ask one of her servants :

“What on earth is the matter out of doors?” and the servant, with shining rows of teeth, would answer :

“ ’Tain’ nuffin’ ’tall, Miss Ma’y, ’cep’n Tildy arter Toby,” and so the matter would drop.

Two surprising things were connected with these storms. One was, that the offence of the child was often of the most trifling nature, the pen Pictures.

dropping of a tin cup, or the failure to hear his mother speak, etc. Then the chase began, with interested observers popping their heads out of kitchen windows and cabin doors, broad grins steadily enlarging on black and yellow faces, while the crash of a rock against the fence, narrowly missing the fugitive, would bring forth stentorian guffaws from the men and shrill laughter from the women.

The dress of negro children is generally arranged with a view to ventilation, and Toby was specially favored in this regard, so the sight of the bare-legged, bare-footed racer with his slim, black limbs twinkling over the ground, and his old shirt standing on end as he fled, was a never failing source of amusement to the colored observers, though it was anything but amusing to Toby. He was always terribly in earnest. He had to be, as he ducked and dodged from missiles ranging from one to five pounds in weight, any one of which could easily have killed him.

Matilda’s language to Toby was pretty much after the same pattern as her bodily treatment of the child, the tongue being as severe as the hand. It was :

“Come hyer to me, you triflin’ whelp !” or

“I’ll break ev’y bone in yoh body wid dis flat i’on, you black monkey, you,” or

“I’ll bust yoh haid wide open wid dis stick,” etc., etc.

There were other expressions with which Toby was often favored when the maternal thermometer ran high, that we do not care to repeat,

To pass in front of the lowly cabin in which the family lived, was to notice that a kind of rattling musketry fire of scolding was the general order of things, varied now and then with a fortyfour pounder explosion. It only required a few minutes pause outside the door for the ear to note the orbit daily described by the woman’s tongue. First there was a muttering, a kind of low, fussing tone, then a sharp cry to one of the children :

“Git out dar !”

“What you doin’ thar?”

“Come hyer to me ! I’ll kill you ef I kin git at you. I will mun.”

So Toby was reared in the midst of expletives and rocks. In these experiences he was far ahead of David, who had Shimel to curse and throw stones at him on a single afternoon, while Toby had this kind of treatment every day. The boy may be smd to have moved planet-like through a

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never-ending meteoric zone or belt, his own course being a most remarkable and erratic one, as he spent his life avoiding all bodies larger and heavier than himself.

In these flights there was one line of Hamlet’s soliloquy which could, very properly, have been quoted by the lad. He could truthfully have said :

“Toby or not Toby, that is the question.”

He fully realized that if one of the missiles flung at him should strike him, there would be no more Toby!

As for the “slings and arrows,” Hamlet spoke about, he knew them not ; but the rocks and brickbats were just as deadly. In the matter of “outrageous fortune,” he was once more in port, but adrift again in regard to “taking up arms against a sea of troubles.” He preferred, in face of the peculiar difficulties of his life, to trust to his legs, leaving arms of all kinds out of the question.

Another surprising thing connected with these backyard eruptions was the speediness with which the whole affair was forgotten by the chief actor. Perhaps, a half hour after, Matilda would be seen with the head of the offending child on her lap, while she, with motherly pride, combed out his kinks with a pair of cotton cards, tying up his hair

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with gay-looking strings, or engaged in an exploration of the bushy cranium before her, the nature ot which investigation we beg to be excused from mentioning.

There was still another feature of these affairs which was the natural outcome of this treatment of the boy. He came to wear a wary, anxious look when approaching his mother, as if expecting breakers ahead. Not knowing what he was to receive, whether bread or a stone, when she cried, “Come hyer to me !” he naturally drew near with great misgivings and visible signs of trepidation. It was noteworthy that Matilda spoke just as sharply when she had food for him, as when she had a cudgel hidden behind her with which to dress him down. There were no visible signs by which he could guess whether there was war or peace in the air, but a most uncomfortable uncertainty hung over all. The boy had been deceived many times in both ways ; sometimes looking for a beating, he received a piece of bread ; and at other times, going for one of the slim meals with which his body and soul were kept together, suddenly, without any warning, the stick appeared, the rock was hurled, and Toby ran for his life. Then would follow an excitement and commotion

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in the backyard, which if projected on a comment surate scale among the nations, would be called a great war and require volumes to describe.

So Toby, not having a regular course of conduct on the part of his mother to guide him, had to live moment by moment by faith, and sometimes with no faith at all, at least in the maternal head of the family. He had neither chart nor compass, and drifted never knowing where he was, nor when a rock would strike him and he be as effectually scuttled as any ship that ever sank. He trusted, in comon parlance, to luck, or, more truly speaking, to his eyes and heels ; the one to discover the first signs of coming danger, the other to bear him away to safety at race-horse speed.

To this day, we recall the cowed look of the boy, the anxious, distrusting glance which he repeatedly cast at his mother from under his brows, while upon his lips was the poorest attempt at a smile that we ever beheld. It was intended by him to be conciliatory and ingratiating, but often seemed to infuriate the strange, unnatural mother ; and if she did happen to overflow in a Vesuvian way, it was simply amazing to watch the instantaneous disappearance of the smile, the equally quick gathering of a look of fear in his eyes, while, with the ab-

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sorbing purpose of immediate escape in his mind, suddenly a pair of black soles were turned motherward, and a pair of black legs moved over the ground toward -a place of safety with a rapidity that would have made a castanet player turn green with envy.

More than once we have seen him summoned sharply by his mother to come before a group of ladies and gentlemen standing on the verandah of the “Big House.” He would approach with his half-imbecile manner, the watchful look in his eye, and the painful attempt at a smile on his mouth. Once we saw him, while waiting to be addressed, slowly raise one foot from the ground and scratch a mosquito from the calf of his left leg with the toe of the uplifted member without losing - his balance. Suddenly, Matilda turned like a cyclone upon him, and said :

“Whar’s yer perliteness? Why doan you show yer mannus to de white folks?”

Down at once dropped Toby’s foot from the mosquito hunt, the toes spoon-like scooped up and threw backward some gravel, while his hand pulled a lock of hair in front. All this was intended for a bow, and was “showin’ his mannus.” It was painful to see the anxious, troubled look cast out

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of the corner of his eye upon his mother, do ^ce if his “mannus” had been acceptable.

Several times we heard Mrs. Carleton savto Matilda :

“Why don’t you put better clothes on your child?”

“Lor’, Miss,” replied the mother, with a loud laugh, “dat boy won’t keep nuffin’ on, no matter whut I puts on him, Ef I dress him in silk and satin, he won’t have nuffin’ ’tall to show fur it by night.”

The idea of Toby being attired in silk and satin was decidedly mirth-provoking, but Mrs. Carleton did not smile. Saying nothing more she went back into the house, though evidently not satisfied, while the boy under discussion was left to alternate between the trousers and shirt.

Sometimes we have heard an angry summons ring out on the air to him, and the order literally hurtled from the mouth :

“Go dis minute, you black imp you, an' rock yer Aunt Nancy’s baby whut’s squallin’ hitself to death!”

Off went Toby like a shot, knowing well what the least delay would bring upon him and in a few moments a peculiar hammering sound on the cabin

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floor gave evidence that one ot his daily duties had been entered upon. The knocking was made by the alternate rise and fall of a box without rockers and which had the compliment conferred upon it of being called a cradle. In this box was the yelling young African he was commanded to quiet. For some minutes it seemed doubtful which would win in the competition of sound, the cradle or the baby ; but Toby went at it systematically and doggedly ; he was used to noise, especially this one, and so grasping the side of the box in his hands, he met the duty of the hour, which was to make the baby hush, and this he did, accomplishing the task in periods ranging from five to twenty minutes. Little by little, the child from being jerked about in the cradle, beame dizzy, then less vociferous, and finally was literally banged and jarred into unconsciousness, and the well-meaning nurse was free again.

Toby spent, as we have said, most of his life in dodging rocks and brickbats. He had enough thrown at him to have erected a monument of large proportions.

The boy’s life, was, in a sense, a military one, full of sudden advances by the foe and rapid retirings on his part. It was in the line of falling back

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that he attained such marvelous proficiency. From much experience, he became a perfect expert in bringing his own forces oft' the field, well-blown and exhausted, it is true, but always alive. Few military leaders have been as successful in flight as Toby proved himself for a number of years.

We can not but think that if he had been placed at West Point he would have developed into a master of strategy and swift retreat. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, and Fabius, the famous Roman retirer, might well have sat at his feet had they only been his contemporaries. For all we know, a great military genius, a retreater, if not an .advancer, passed away when Toby vanished from public view.

Several rumors of this negro family reached. us after their emancipation and departure from the plantation. One was to the effect that Matilda had sickened and died. Here was another confirmation and proof of the wisdom of being able to conduct retreats. Just as Fabius, by his systematic and persistent fallings back, wore out opposing armies, so Toby, by skillful flights and rapid dodges and disappearances, kept himself alive, while his mother exhausted herself by her frequent and protracted verbal and stone attacks and sank prematurely into the grave. She went down to the tomb

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loaded with victories over her fugitive son, but they had been her own undoing. The inscription upon her sepulchre could very properly have been :

“WORN OUT IN RAISING TOBY.”

In other words, the human volcano reached the hour when it could do no more damage, its history ending with a little puff of breath from the open mouth, and lo ! the explosions and stone throwing of Matilda were over forever.

Poor little Toby ! After the flight of busy years has crowded out many and important events, yet we recall him as vividly as though it were but yesterday. Once more we see the woolly head, black face and half-clad form of the boy. We remember the anxious look, the apprehensive, apologetic smile, the suspicious attitude, then the outbreak of hostilities and the sudden dash for life and liberty. We see the shirt streaming in a straight line, or the flapping, ill-fitting trousers held up with one hand, while the other digs into and saws the air most diligently. We can hear the feet pattering on the hard ground, the breath coming in gasps through the set teeth ; and in another moment the flying vision rounds the corner of the smokehouse, and has disappeared in the garden amid a shower of stones.

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What became of Toby after the Emancipation, is a mystery. There were two reports. One was to the effect that after his mother died, Toby fairly languished. In spite of all her roughness, he seemed to miss her. He moped around in back alleys and empty lots of the town, idly and disconsolately. He lacked the inspiration of sudden movement, as of yore. There was no reason for instantaneous and violent exertion. Othello’s occupation was gone, and time hung heavy on the hands of the lad.

For awhile he consorted with a crippled, one-eared cur dog, which seemed as friendless, hopeless and cast-off as himself. They were often seen together in lanes, back alleys and deserted out-houses, as if both avoided recognition, and expected nothing and wanted nothing save to be let alone. One day the wheel of a great truck ran over the dog, and put an end to his hot-water baths and hunger pangs forever. After that, Toby was again alone, now being seen, and now missed, until one afternoon he was found dead in a stable loft.

Another report was that he lived to be fourteen or fifteen years of age, but always manifested the greatest nervousness when he saw any missile

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flying through the air. He was often observed to give a brickbat lying in his path a wide berth in passing. Several times he was seen looking at one, with an appearance of profound meditation. Doubtless, to his half-addled intellect, it was a thing of life, possessed inherent energy, and might any moment take wings and fly. As nearly all he had beheld prior to his mother’s death were in the air, and moving in lines toward him, he might have been pardoned for his conception of that piece of matter, and his conclusion that none were to be trusted.

An ebony damsel of his age, taking a liking for the friendless boy, invited him to spend the evening at her father’s house on the edge of town. Near the place was a brick-yard. It was not long before the watchful eye of Toby beheld the lofty stacks of red brick finished and ready for use, piles of broken ones in a corner, and a great kiln in full blast in the manufacture of thousands more. In less time than it takes to tell it Toby had vanished. The yard, which would have been an ammunition depot for Matilda, and so a heaven to her, was anything but a paradise to Toby. Association was doubtless strong within him, and though the brickvhrower was in her grave, yet here were the

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bricks ! And Fear cried out, “Let us be going ! Why tarry we here any longer?”

After that, he was passing by a livery stable, when a horse gave a kick on the partition-wall close to him. It sounded like a brick striking a fence. Instantly, the old nature was in arms, or rather in feet, and the half-witted boy ran like the wind for several blocks before he stopped to look back. The mother was dead, but her handiwork was still evident in the nervous system of the son. Her terror was still upon him, and that from a far distant world.

The second report went on to say, that one day, in running from some real or imaginar}^ pursuer, Toby slipped on the ice-covered pavement as he turned a corner, and fell, striking his head against a large curbstone. He was picked up unconscious and laid on some straw in the harness-room of a livery stable. He aroused to a confused kind of consciousness in an hour or so, but looked terrified as he heard the knocking/ and tramping of the horses in their stalls, and tried to get up for the old-time run ; but he was too weak and sank back with an expression on his face of utter despair.

The owner of the stable, a white man, bent over him and told him, in a kindly voice, that nothing

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should hurt him. Whereupon, that curiously blended look of anxiety, hope and dread stole into the lad’s face, and attempting to reach his front lock of hair with his right hand, to “show his mannus,” his eyes suddenly glazed in death, and the tired, friendless soul left the half-starved, emaciated body forever.

It was a deeply pathetic sight, the ragged figure on the straw pallet, the hand frozen in death in the act of salutation, and the lines of a pitiful, pleading expression still visible in the sorrow and painmarked countenance.

The stable man, with his white and black hostlers around him, looked silently at the dead form of the boy, and then all walked out softly, with that awe and- melancholy upon the soul which is always felt at the sight of an ended life, no matter how young or how humble that life may have been.

Poor little Toby ! May he rest in peace ! This world had for him a hard and bitter lot. He had but little pleasure in his brightest days, if any could have been called bright at all. Cuffs, kicks, upbraidings, chunks of wood, and stones, were the things which abounded in his life ; and the aim and object of the boy was to miss as many of them as he could. His joy, if joy he had, was over such escapes.

We think of the One who said that not a sparrow falls to the ground without heavenly notice, and who spoke of a world where all tears are wiped away forever, and from off' all faces.

We can not but connect that Good Country with this hunted child, who never knew what a real home and true mother was, and the greater part of whose life was spent in running from flying missiles, amid heartless bursts of laughter from his own people. Stunted in growth and half-witted from cruel treatment, he died early. We love to think of him as in “The Home-land,” where the angels will be far kinder to him than were his own kindred and race, and where we doubt not, he will be better oft' in every conceivable way, forever.

III. Why They Wept

prominent ministers in a church have aspired to A still higher positions. They wished to add to their fame other things. Besides had they not read “If a man desire the office of a bishop he desireth a good work;” a free translation of the last three words being “a good thing.”

One aspirant may be a natural born politician laying his plans wisely and well, without offensive public exposure of the design in the mind and desire of the heart. Ardent friends and admirers with calculating eye upon hunter, dogs, and fox, become in a sense whippers in, and look forward not without anticipation and strong confidence as well, to the capture of the “brush,” at a certain quadrennial season when hunters will be out in force and a grand drive take place.

Another aspirant convinces his church that he has remarkable executive and administrative ability. Still another places the whole denomination under obligation by untangling some knotty church question, and throwing great light on that darkly pro- 149 )

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found thing, ecclesiastical jurisprudence ; while a fourth lays the church under an additional burden of gratitude, by the removal of a load quite different from the other, but not the less heavy, mortifying and even crushing.

It matters not what the service may have been, whether it required the working of the hands or the heels, the brains or the tongue ; yet some things are not done in a corner, nor can they be kept in a corner. It moves the Sanhedrim ; it touches the Council of the Seventy in a tender place ; while the Elders and Scribes are sure to write and talk about the vigorous and noble affair.

Who but a prophet could forsee that the same aforesaid distinguished and grateful men when they came together in one of their great gatherings would offer some “whereases” and “be it resol veds,” twist their appreciation into a garland of certain gratifying shape and place it on the brow of one who had sky-rocketed his name and ricoched his body over the country for a space of time covering the waxing and waning of many moons, not to speak of the suns.

There are however still others who do not lift a hand, so to speak, to obtain one of these high offices. They would feel degraded if they did anything on

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the outside looking to their elevation to this dignity. They simply long for it in the mind. It is an inner instead of an outer race for the goal.

Now when through plans or no plans at all, certain aspirants get the garlands mentioned, when after a little snow storm of ballots they are declared elected, even if they never get saved, it has been observed that without exception they burst into tears !