CONTENTS.

[6]

[7]

OTHER FOOLS AND THEIR DOINGS.

CHAPTER I. THE BEAN ISLAND PEOPLE.

“O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise As ta’en thy ain wife Kate’s advice!”

—Tam O’Shanter.

It was April, 1876, and Deacon Atwood and Captain Black were riding along the sandy highway in the sparsely settled vicinity of Bean Island, in the State of South Carolina.

Though the sun shone uncomfortably hot, neither the men nor the horses they bestrode seemed anxious to escape its rays, for they traveled quite leisurely several miles, till they reached a point where the road forked.

There they paused a few moments, and continued their conversation in the same low, earnest tones they had previously employed.

The Deacon was fifty years of age, large, broad-chested, red-faced, with full fiery red beard and thin brown hair,[8] which gathered in sodden, tapering hanks about his short neck and large ears; and his pale-blue eyes looked out of little triangular orifices on either side of a pyramidal nose, upon the apex of which was balanced a narrow forehead of a “quirked ogee” pattern. His hands were large and freckled, and he kept them in constant motion, like his huge feet, which seemed even too heavy for his clumsy legs. His snuff-colored suit, and the slouched hat he wore on the back part of his head, were dusty with travel.

His companion was younger, taller, and less stoutly built than he. His eyes were large and dark, and his head, crowned with bushy black hair, was poised upon a long, slim neck. His manners indicated more culture than the Deacon had received.

“Well, Deacon,” said he, rising in his stirrups, “we have submitted long enough, and too long, and there must be a change: and I am bound to do my share to secure it.”

“And I won’t be behind yo’, Cap’n,” replied Deacon Atwood. “These niggers must be put down where they belong, and the carpet-baggers driven back where they came from.”

“It’s doubtful whether many of them would be received there. I apprehend that the most of them “left their country for their country’s good” when they came here. A man don’t emigrate for nothing, and I expect they have been run out of the North for some mean acts, and have come to the South to prey upon a conquered people.”

“I reckon that’s so, and I wonder how yo’ men that[9] ’a’n’t no church obligations on yo’ ken keep from swearing when yo’ think of it. I declar, when I get to turning it over in my mind I get so mad that I can’t hardly keep from it myself. As yo’ war saying, it reaches everywhere. Less than half the people is white to be sure, but then we own nine-tenths o’ the land, and yet we must be taxed to support nigger schools, and niggers and carpet-baggers in all the offices, and new offices trumped up where there a’n’t enough to serve them as wants ’em—health officers in every little town, and scavengers even, under pretense of fear of yellow fever, to give salaries to dumb niggers as don’t know nothing only how to rob Southern gentlemen, and all sorts of yankee “public improvements” as they call ’em! Why, I’m taxed this year to mend a road that runs down past me there, and nobody but niggers never travels on it. It is positively insulting and oppressive!”

“Well, Deacon, I suppose your statement that niggers and carpet-baggers are in all the offices might be called a slight exaggeration, but then we could sit here till dark and not finish enumerating the grievances this State government, backed by that Cæsar Grant, at Washington, imposes upon the people of South Carolina—those that ought to be the ruling class—the South Carolinians.

“But the best thing we can do is to take hold of these military clubs and work them; and in that way bring about a better state of things. I, for one, am determined this State shall go Democratic this coming fall; and if we unite in this method I’ve been explaining to you, we can effect it.[10] Just bring this Mississippi method up in your club to-night—or support Lamb, if he does—and we’ll whip the rascals. Nigger voters are too thick—must be weeded out!”

“That’s just what I’m going to do,” replied Deacon Atwood; “and in order to do it, I reckon we’ll have to go on.”

“Yes; my sabre club meets this evening, too, for drill. So good evening!”

“Good evening, Captain.” And the two men separated. The Captain kept the main road, and the Deacon took a sort of back, plantation route, seldom traveled except by the farmers residing upon it, where he soon fell into deep meditation, his chin dropping upon his breast, and his respiration becoming slow and heavy. His old white horse, even, seeming to pass into a similar state of somnambulency, walked dreamily along, till his nose, far down towards the ground, came in contact with a fresh and tender shrub, around which his long tongue instinctively wrapped itself, and he came to a full stop.

“Hud up!” said the startled Deacon, gathering up his bridle with a nervous jerk; and his small eyes quickly swept a circle around him.

With something like a shudder and an audible sigh of relief, he composed himself again, for only a quiet landscape had met his vision.

A swampy forest was on his left hand, and long stretches of scrub palmettos, interspersed with cotton-patches, on his right.

[11]

Seeing two colored men at work in one of the latter, and probably feeling a need of human companionship, he rode up to the crooked rail fence, and shouted “Howdy?”

“Why, howdy? Deacon, howdy?” was the friendly response, as one of the men laid down his heavy cotton hoe, and approached the fence.

“How is work, January?” asked Deacon Atwood, pleasantly.

“I gets along mighty well, I thank yo’. I hope yo’ do,” said the freedman, who, though about the age of his neighbor, was too much accustomed to being addressed as a boy, and by his Christian name, to take offense at the familiarity.

“Well, I’ll be blamed if yo’ niggers don’t get along better’n the white folks! These confounded carpet-baggers are larnin’ yo’ how to fleece us that owns the land, and blowed if yo’ ain’t doing it!”

“Why, Deacon, I don’t know what yo’ mean. I ha’n’t been fleecing nobody, I’m shor’. If God Almighty gives me my freedom, and gives me strength to work what land I’m able, and makes the crops grow, why ha’n’t I a right to get ’long? I can’t see who’s hurt, not to my serious knowledge?”

“It a’n’t yo’r working, it’s yo’r voting. Yo’ vote them villains into office, and they’re bleeding the country to death with taxes. Now, we a’n’t gwine to stand it. All the gentleman has agreed together that yo’ve got to come over to our side. It’s for yo’r interest to be thar.”

[12]

“Can’t do it, nohow, Deacon,” replied the negro, smiling good-humoredly.

“If yo’ don’t there’ll lots of yo’ be killed,” said Deacon A., kindling.

“Now, Deacon Atwood,” said January Kelly, deliberately, “I think a parcel of gentleman that was raised and been college-bred, men that would undertake to ride over things by killing out a few niggers—well, I think its a very small idea for an educated man. I think they must have lost all conscience of heart; I think all conscience of heart are gone when they come to do that, I do; but you a’n’t in earnest, Deacon? You’re a Christian man. I ha’nt got no neighbors as would hurt me. I’m a honest man as works hard, and minds my own business, and takes care o’ my family; and nobody ain’t gwoine to kill me, nohow.”

“Oh, no, January; nobody won’t hurt honest, hard-working darkies like you, if they let politics alone; but then there’ll be lots of the leaders be killed, ’fo’ election, if just such men as yo’ don’t come over and help us save the State,” said the Deacon.

“Why the State is all here. I don’t see as it’s lost, nor gwoine to smash, either; and if we have a Government we’ve got to have leaders. If all the men stayed to home and worked land like I do, there wouldn’t be no Government.”

“So much the better,” snapped the Deacon. “The strong could take care of themselves and look out for the weak ones too.”

[13]

“Well, I don’t know about that. The rogues would steal and kill all the same, and who’d take care of our lives and our property, and collect the taxes, and build the bridges the war burned down, and the school-houses, and pay the teachers, and all them things?”

“There is too many of them now; and South Carolinians shall rule South Carolina!” broke forth Deacon Atwood, with great vehemence; “and I want you to come over to the democratic party where you won’t get hurt. We’ll all help you if you will.”

“Why Deacon, I thought yo’ was just saying we is getting along the best. I was born in South Car’lina, an’ so was mos’ all the collud people in the State to-day, and ain’t we South Carolinians then? Now all I has got to say is, that it’s a mighty mean man as won’t stand to his own. It war the ’publican party as made me a free man, an’ I reckon I shall vote ’publican long as I breaves! That is all I can say, Deacon. I don’t know no mo’.”

“Hud up!” said the Deacon, and he rode abruptly away.

“What on earth has come over Deacon Atwood, I wonder,” said Mr. Kelley, to a tall, muscular black man, who, swinging his hoe lazily, had at length planted his row abreast with the spot where his employer had dropped his when the Deacon saluted him.

“Talking ’bout politics, I reckon!” was the drawling reply.

“Yes, and he did make some awful threats! Why, Pompey, he said they’d lots of the niggers ’round here get[14] killed ’fo’ election if we didn’t come ovah to the democratic party! Now I’ve hearn that kind o’ talk ever since reconstruction, but I never did, myself, hear the Deacon, nor no such ’spectable and ’ligious men talk it ’fo’; though they say they did talk it, an’ gone done it, too, in some places. He says it’s a general thing now, from shor’ to shor’ this time ’mong the gem’men. He says the taxes is ruining the country, an’ niggers an’ carpet-baggers is in all the offices, an’ the money is wasted, an’ there’s got to be a change.”

“Oh, —— —— him! It’s just the odder way about—shutting up offices—doing away wid ’em, an’ turning de niggahs out to make room for old confederate soldiers! I hearn Kanrasp, an’ Striker, an’ Rathburn, an’ some o’ them big fellahs talkin’ ’bout it dar in Aiken.”

(Pompey had boarded in a certain public institution at the county seat for the greater safety of the contents of market-wagons in the town where he resided.)

“The land mos’ all b’longs to the white folks, sho nuff, an’ the rent is so awful high that a nigger has got to work hisself an’ his family mos’ to death to keep from gittin’ inter debt to de boss, let alone a decent livin’, an’ now the gem’men is bound to resist the taxes fo’ the schools, so our chillun can’t have no schools. I thinks it’s toughest on our side!” said Kelley.

“Kanrasp said de Governor is doin’ splendid,” continued Pompey, “cuttin’ down expenses so dey is a gwoine to save a million an’ seventeen hundred an’ nineteen thousand dollars an’ mo’ in one year; or he did save it last year.”

[15]

(Pompey had a memory for numbers, though neither gift nor training for mathematical calculations.)

“Striker, he was mad cause de Governor made ’em put down an’ print just ebberyting wouldn’t let ’em buy no “sundies” or somethings—I do’nt know. De white folks wouldn’t let de niggers have no money in old slave times, an’ now dis Governor Chamberlain dat ’tends to be a ’publican, he makes de nigger an’ de Legislature men as come from de North be mighty careful dey don’t get no cent o’ de white folk’s taxes ’thout printing jes’what it’s all boughtened.”

“Well, now, that’s right and honest like,” replied Kelly, “‘cause they’ve been thieves don’t make it right for us to steal; and then the niggers pays taxes, too, and don’t ort to be cheated neither; and I’d like to know if them ways don’t make the taxes easier? They do say they was a mighty sight o’ stealin’ from the treasury going on thar in Columbya a while ago. I reckon Governer Chamberlain is a honest man, and don’t steal hisself neither.”

“Certainly, de taxes is easier. Lawyer Crafty, dar in Aiken—he’s a democrat too, you know—he joined in de talk some, and he said it is easier’n it was; fo’ de taxes used to be thirteen or sixteen mills on a dollar (if yo’ know what dat means), but now it is only eleven.”

“I don’t prezackly understood it,” said Kelly, “but I know eleven ain’t so much as thirteen nor sixteen; and I do reckon it makes it easier. I reckon it’s mo’ cause the white folks wants all the money and the offices theirselves, as makes the fuss.”

[16]

“Yes,” drawled Pompey, “and dey makes any man a carpet-bagger dat wa’n’t baun in de South, an’ some ’publicans as was. De Governor has been in de State, an’ all he’s got, now ’leven year; Kanrasp said so; an’ Cummings—de head teacher o’ de big school in Columby—de Versity dey calls it—he’s been in de South thirty year an’ mo’; an’ dey calls him a carpet-bagger, too, an’ all his boys; but de boys was baun here. But den dey is ’publicans an’ teaches niggers, too, I wonder is dey any carpet-baggers up North or anywhere?”

“I don’t know, I never did hear tell of ’em; but the No’th beat in the wa’, you know. But ’bout this killin’ niggers; I’m a thinken, the Lo’d knows we has had enough o’ that: but I can’t help thinking,” said Kelly, and the two men entered into a long conversation upon the subject which we will not follow, as our present interest is with Deacon Atwood, who had resumed his way with Kelly’s quaint and expressive phrase “must have lost all conscience of heart,” as his constant and sole companion, for he had not yet “lost all conscience of heart.”

Arrived at home, he ate his evening meal in haste and silence, and immediately set out for the hall where his Rifle Club met, accompanied by his eldest son, who was a minor by a few months.

Mrs. A. shouted after him, admonishing to an early return, as she did “detest these night meetings, anyhow.”

The father and son rode in silence, while the short Southern twilight faded, and night settled upon the picturesque[17] landscape, soft as the brooding wing of peace; and balmy breezes rustled through the gigantic long-leaved pines and mammoth live-oaks, and over fields of sprouting corn and cotton; and the dark soil seemed to sleep calmly and sweetly under the white moonlight and a sprinkling of white sand, which sparkled like snow.

“Watson, my son,” said the Deacon at length.

“Yes, father.”

An ominous silence warned the boy of a weighty communication forthcoming.

“I’d rather yo’d ’a ’staid to home to-night, but as I’d promised yo’ going, it couldn’t be helped. I reckon we’ll have an exciting time, but now as yo’ are a going, try to keep cool. Like enough thar’ll be some things said that better not; but as yo’ll be present, now mind what I say, and keep cool. Try to be careful. Don’t get excited nor be imprudent. It’ll do for us to foller the rest. Just let them take the lead and the responsibility.”

“Well, father,” replied the youth demurely, well knowing that his cautious parent would be the first tinder to take fire and lead any conflagration that might be imminent.

It is not to our purpose to report the doings of that political Rifle Club’s meeting—the stirring speeches of citizens of the State, who forgot that they were also citizens of the Nation against which their treasonable resolutions were moved, discussed, and voted; nor the inflammatory harangues of Deacon Atwood; nor the courageous utterances of one little man of broader intelligence and views than his[18] neighbors, who urged that the coming political campaign be prosecuted in a fair, straightforward, lawful and honest manner, which should command respect everywhere, and convince the hitherto intractable colored voters that their former masters were disposed to accept the situation resultant upon the war, and with their support, reconstruct the politics of the State upon a basis of mutual interests, in place of the antagonism of races which had prevailed ever since the emancipation and enfranchisement of the slaves.

While these discussions relieved over-accumulations of eloquence and over-wrought imaginations, they also disclosed the true state of feeling, and the deep smouldering embers of bitterness that once “fired the Southern heart” to fratricidal war.

Unfortunately, good and calming counsels often gain least by interchange of expression with those of passion, and so it came that young men, and men whose years should have brought them ripe judgment, but did not, shuddered the next morning at the recollection of words they had uttered, and decisions made in that club-room, from which it would be difficult to recede.

Betrayed by his sanguine temperament and his implacable foe—the love of strong drink—Deacon Atwood was one of these.

“It’s a pretty pass when a man at yo’r time of life stays out till two o’clock in the mornin’ drinkin’, and mercy knows what, I do declar!” said Mrs. A. as she met her liege lord at the door of their domicile, “And takin’ his[19] only son out to initiate him, too, and yo’ a church officer.”

“Wh—wh—why didn’t yo’ go to bed, Ja—Ja—Janette, I didn’t ex—ex—expect to find yo’ up.”

“No, I shouldn’t reckon yo’ did, judging by yo’ exes. Making a fool and a beast o’ yo’self, and tempting yo’ son, when we’ve been praying for his conversion so long.”

“Wal Ja—Janette, yo’ ’ort to ha’ prayed for me, too, fo’ I’ve made a ’nough sight mo’ fool o’ myself than Wat has o’ hissen. But I’ve been true to the State,” drawled and stammered the Deacon, with thick and maudlin utterance, “and if I could stand as much w’iskey as some on em, I’d a’ been true to myself also. But who’s been here, Ja—Janette?” Vainly trying to stand erect, and pointing with nerveless finger to an armful of crooked sticks that lay upon the blazing hearth. “Who brung ’em in?”

“It wa’n’t yo’, Deacon Atwood; I might ha’ froze to death walking this house, and nigh fainting with fear, thinking some nigger had outened yo’ smoke fo’ yo’ fo’ allus’ on this earth.” (He was fumbling in his pocket for an old clay pipe he carried there.) “I do believe uncle Jesse and aunt Phebe are the best Christians on this plantation. Yo’r old mother took her toddy, and went to snoring hours ago, thinking nothing o’ what might happen yo’—her only son, who she’s dependent on to manage all her thousand acres o’ land; though gracious knows I wish she’d give yo’ a foot or two of it, without waiting to all eternity fo’ her to die ’fo’ we can call an earthly thing our own. I couldn’t get that story I hearn yo’ telling Den[20] Bardon ’to’ther day, out o’ my head, and I war that scarred I couldn’t go to bed.”

“What story was that?” asked Watson, as he hung his whip and saddle upon a wooden peg in a corner of the kitchen where the trio were.

“Why, about that Texas Jack that is around here, killing niggers and everybody; and he don’t have more ’n a word with a man till he shoots him down. If I had a knowed yo’ was coming home tight, father, I’d a been scarred ’clar to death shor’. A pretty mess yo’ll hev’ in the church now, Deacon Atwood! Elder Titmouse’ll be after yo’ shor.”