Gabriel Tolliver.
by Joel Chandler Harris.
_Prelude_
"Cephas! here is a letter for you, and it is from Shady Dale! I know you will be happy now."
For several years Sophia had listened calmly to my glowing descriptions of Shady Dale and the people there. She was patient, but I could see by the way she sometimes raised her eyebrows that she was a trifle suspicious of my judgment, and that she thought my opinions were unduly coloured by my feelings. Once she went so far as to suggest that I was all the time looking at the home people through the eyes of boyhood--eyes that do not always see accurately. She had said, moreover, that if I were to return to Shady Dale, I would find that the friends of my boyhood were in no way different from the people I meet every day.
This was absurd, of course--or, rather, it would have been absurd for any one else to make the suggestion; for at that particular time, Sophia was a trifle jealous of Shady Dale and its people. Nevertheless, she was really patient. You know how exasperating a man can be when he has a hobby. Well, my hobby was Shady Dale, and I was not ashamed of it. The man or woman who cannot display as much of the homing instinct as a cat or a pigeon is a creature to be pitied or despised. Sophia herself was a tramp, as she often said. She was born in a little suburban town in New York State, but never lived there long enough to know what home was. She went to Albany, then to Canada, and finally to Georgia; so that the only real home she ever knew is the one she made herself--out of the raw material, as one might say.
Well, she came running with the letter, for she is still active, though a little past the prime of her youth. I returned the missive to her with a faint show of dignity. "The letter is for you," I said. She looked at the address more carefully, and agreed with me. "What in the world have I done," she remarked, "to receive a letter from Shady Dale?"
"Why, it is the simplest thing in the world," I replied. "You have been fortunate enough to marry me."
"Oh, I see!" she cried, dropping me a little curtsey; "and I thank you kindly!"
The letter was from an old friend of mine--a school-mate--and it was an invitation to Sophia, begging her to take a day off, as the saying is, and spend it in Shady Dale.
"Your children," the letter said, "will be glad to visit their father"s old home, and I doubt not we can make it interesting for the wife." The letter closed with some prettily turned compliments which rather caught Sophia. But her suspicions were still in full play.
"I know the invitation is sent on your account, and not on mine," she said, holding the letter at arm"s length.
"Well, why not? If my old friend loves me well enough to be anxious to give my wife and children pleasure, what is there wrong about that?"
"Oh, nothing," replied Sophia. "I"ve a great mind to go."
"If you do, my dear, you will make a number of people happy--yourself and the children, and many of my old friends."
"He declares," said Sophia, "that he writes at the request of his wife.
You know how much of that to believe."
"I certainly do. Imagine me, for instance, inviting to visit us a lady whom you had never met."
Whereupon Sophia laughed. "I believe you"d endorse any proposition that came from Shady Dale," she declared.
She accepted the invitation more out of curiosity than with any expectation of enjoying herself; but she stayed longer than she had intended; and when she came back her views and feelings had undergone a complete change. "Cephas, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for not going to see those people," she declared. "Why, they are the salt of the earth. I never expected to be treated as they treated me. If it wasn"t for your business, I would beg you to go back there and live. They are just like the people you read about in the books--I mean the good people, the ideal characters--the men and women you would like to meet."
Here she paused and sighed. "Oh, I wouldn"t have missed that visit for anything. But what amazes me, Cephas, is that you"ve never put in your books characters such as you find in Shady Dale."
The suggestion was a fertile one; it had in it the active principle of a germ; and it was not long before the ferment began to make itself felt.
The past began to renew itself; the sun shone on the old days and gave them an illumination which they lacked when they were new. Time"s perspective gave them a mellower tone, and they possessed, at least for me, that element of mystery which seems to attach to whatever is venerable. It was as if the place, the people, and the scenes had taken the shape of a huge picture, with just such a lack of harmony and unity as we find in real life.
Let those who can do so continue to import harmony and unity into their fabrications and call it art. Whether it be art or artificiality, the trick is beyond my powers. I can only deal with things as they were; on many occasions they were far from what I would have had them to be; but as I was powerless to change them, so am I powerless to twist individuals and events to suit the demands or necessities of what is called art.
Such a feat might be possible if I were to tell the simple story of Nan and Gabriel and Tasma Tid during the days when they roamed over the old Bermuda hills, and gazed, as it were, into the worlds that existed only in their dreams: for then the story would be both fine and beautiful. It would be a wonderful romance indeed, with just a touch of tragic mystery, gathered from the fragmentary history of Tasma Tid, a child-woman from the heart of Africa, who had formed a part of the cargo of the yacht _Wanderer_, which landed three hundred slaves on the coast of Georgia in the last months of 1858. You may find the particulars of the case of the _Wanderer_ in the files of the Savannah newspapers, and in the records of the United States Court for that district; but the tragic history of Tasma Tid can be found neither in the newspapers nor in the court records.
But for this one touch of mystery and tragedy, this chronicle, supposing it to deal only with the childhood and early youth of Nan and Gabriel, would resolve itself into a marvellous fairy tale, made up of the innocent dreams and hopes and beliefs, and all the extraordinary inventions and imaginings of childhood. And even mystery and tragedy have their own particular forms of simplicity, so that, with Tasma Tid in the background the tale would be artless enough to satisfy the most artful. For, even if the reader, seated on the magic cloak of some competent story-teller, were transported to the heart of Africa, where the mountains, with their feet in the jungle, reach up and touch the moon, or to China, or the Islands of the Sea, the hero of the tale would be the same. His name is Dilly Bal, and he carries on his operations wherever there are stars in the sky. He is a restless and a roving creature, flitting to and fro between all points of the compa.s.s.
When King Sun crawls into his trundle bed and begins to snore, Dilly Bal creeps forth from Somewhere, or maybe from Nowhere, which is just on the other side, fetching with him a long broom, which he swishes about to such purpose that the katydids hear it and are frightened. They hide under the leaves and are heard no more that night. That is why you never hear them crying and disputing when you chance to be awake after midnight.
But Dilly Bal knows nothing of the katydids; he has his own duties to perform, and his own affairs to attend to; and these, as you will presently see, are very pressing. It is his business, as well as his pleasure, to be the Housekeeper of the Sky, which he dusts and tidies and puts in order. It is a part of his duty to see that the stars are safely bestowed against the moment when old King Sun shall emerge from his tent, and begin his march over the world. And then, in the dusk of the evening, Dilly Bal must take each star from the bag in which he carries it, polish it bright, and put it in its proper place.
Sometimes, as you may have observed, a star will fall while Dilly Bal is handling it. This happens when he is nervous for fear that King Sun, instead of going to bed in his tent, has crept back and is watching from behind the cloud mountains. Sometimes a star falls quite by accident, as when Lucindy or Patience drops a plate in the kitchen. You will be sure to know Dilly Bal when you see him, for, in handling the stars and dusting the sky, his clothes get full of yellow cobwebs, which he never bothers himself to brush off.
But Dilly Bal"s most difficult job is with the Moon. Regularly the Moon blackens her face in a vain effort to hide from King Sun. If she used s.m.u.t or soot, Dilly Bal"s task would not be so difficult; but she has found a lake of pitch somewhere in Africa, and in this lake she smears her face till it is so black her best friends wouldn"t know her. The pitch is such sticky stuff that it is days and days before it can be rubbed off. The truth is, Dilly Bal never does succeed in getting all the pitch off. At her brightest, the Moon shows signs of it. So said Tasma Tid, and so we all firmly believed.
Yes, indeed! If this chronicle could be confined to the childhood and youth of those children, Dilly Bal would be the hero first and last. He was so real to all of us that we used to wander out to the old Bermuda fields almost every fine afternoon, and sit there until the light had faded from the sky, watching Dilly Bal hanging the stars on their pegs.
The Evening Star was such a large and heavy one that Dilly Bal always replaced it before dark, so as to be sure not to drop it.
Once when we stayed out in the Bermuda fields later than usual, a big star fell from its place, and went flying across the sky, leaving a long and brilliant streamer behind it. At first, Nan thought that Dilly Bal had tried to hang the Evening Star on the wrong peg, but when she looked in the west, there was the big star winking at her and at all of us as hard as it could.
The pity of it was that Nan and Gabriel, and all their young friends, had finally to come in contact with the hard practical affairs of the world. As for Tasma Tid, contact had no special influence on her. She was to all appearance as unchangeable as the pyramids, and as mysterious as the Sphinx. But it was different with Nan and Gabriel, and, indeed, with all the rest. Their story soon ceased to be a simple one. In some directions, it appeared to be a hopeless tangle, catching a great many other persons in its loops and meshes; so that, instead of a simple, entrancing story, all aglow with the glamour of romance, they had troubles that were grievous, and their full share of dulness and tediousness, which are the essential ingredients of everyday life.
After all, it is perhaps fortunate that the marvellous dreams of Nan and Gabriel, and the quaint imaginings of Tasma Tid are not to be chronicled. The spinning of this glistening gossamer once begun would have no end, for Nan was an expert dreamer both night and day, and in the practice of this art, Gabriel was not far behind her; while Tasma Tid, who was Nan"s maid and bodyguard, could frame her face in her hands, and tell you stories from sunrise to sundown and far into the night.
Tasma Tid, though she was only a child in stature and nature, was growner in years, as she said, than some of the grownest grown folks that they knew. She was a dwarf by race, and always denied bitterly, sometimes venomously, that she was a negro, declaring that in her country the people were always at war with the blacks. Her color was dark brown, light enough for the blood tints to show in her face, and her hair was straight and glossy black. From the _Wanderer_, she soon found herself in the slave market at Malvern, and there she fell under the eye of Dr. Randolph Dorrington, Nan"s father, who bought her forthwith. He thought that a live doll would please his daughter. The dwarf said that her name was Tasma Tid in her country, and she would answer to no other.
It was a very fortunate bargain all around, especially for Nan, for in the African woman she found both a playmate and a protector. Tasma Tid was far above the average negro in intelligence, in courage and in cunning. She was as obstinate as a mule, and no matter what obstacles were thrown in her way, her own desires always prevailed in the end, a fact that will explain her early appearance in the slave market. Those of her owners who failed to understand her were not willing to see her spoil on their hands, like a barrel of potatoes or a basket of shrimps.
The African was uncanny when she chose to be, outspoken, vicious, and tender-hearted, her nature being compounded of the same qualities and contradictions as those which belong to the great ladies of the earth, who, with opportunity always at their elbows, have contrived to create a great stir in the world.
When Dr. Dorrington fetched Tasma Tid home, he called out to Nan from his gig: "I have brought you a live doll, daughter; come and see how you like it."
Nan went running--she never learned how to walk until she was several years older--and regarded Tasma Tid with both surprise and sympathy.
The African, seeing only the sympathy, leaped from the gig, seized Nan around the waist, lifted her from the ground, ran this way and that, and then released her with a loud and joyous laugh.
"What do you mean by that?" cried Nan, somewhat taken aback.
"She stan" fer we howdy," the African answered.
"Well, let"s see you tell popsy howdy," suggested Nan, indicating her father.
"Uh-uh! he we buckra."
From that hour Tasma Tid attached herself to Nan, following her everywhere with the unquestioning fidelity of a dog. She sat on the floor of the dining-room while Nan ate her meals, and slept on a pallet by the child"s bed at night. If the African was sweeping the yard, a task she sometimes consented to perform, she would fling the brushbroom away and go with Nan if the child started out at the gate. At first this constant attendance was somewhat annoying to Nan, for she was an independent la.s.s; but presently, when she found that Tasma Tid was a most accomplished and versatile playfellow, as well as the depositary of hundreds of curious fables and quaint tales of the wildwood, Nan"s irritation disappeared.
As for Gabriel--Gabriel Tolliver--he was almost as indispensable as the African woman. Children learn a good many things, as they grow older, and I have heard that Nan and Gabriel were thought to be queer, and that all who were much in their company were also thought to be queer. No one knows why. It was a simple statement, and simple statements are readily believed, because no one takes the trouble to inquire into them.
A man who has views different from those of the majority is called eccentric; if he insists on promulgating them, he is known as a crank.
In the case of Nan and Gabriel, it may be said by one who knows, that, while they were different from the majority of children, they were neither queer nor eccentric.
They, and those whom they chose as companions, were children at a time when the demoralisation of war was about to begin--when it was already casting its long shadow before it--and when their elders were discussing as hard as ever they could the questions of State rights, the true interpretation of the Const.i.tution, squatter sovereignty, the right of secession--every question, in short, except the one at issue. In this way, and for this reason, the two children and their companions were thrown back upon themselves.
Of those who formed this merry little company, not one went to the academies that had been established in the town early enough to be its most ancient inst.i.tutions. Nan was taught by her father, Randolph Dorrington, and Gabriel and I said our lessons to his grandmother, Mrs.
Lucy Lumsden. Thus it happened that we were through with our school tasks before the children in the two academies had begun their morning recess.
"We would never have been such good friends," said Nan on one occasion, "if I hadn"t wanted to go to your house, Gabriel, to see how your grandmother wavies her hair. I saw Cephas, and asked him to go along with me." Child as she was, Nan had her little vanities. She desired above all things that her hair should fall away from her brow in little rippling waves, like those that shone in the silver-grey hair of Gabriel"s grandmother.
"Why, my grandmother doesn"t wavie her hair at all," protested Gabriel.