Si turned the wagon off, and had gone but a few hundred yards, when he and Shorty saw a house at a little distance, which seemed to promise to furnish something eatable. He and Shorty jumped off and cut across the fields toward it, telling the Deacon they would rejoin him before he reached the picket-line, a mile or so ahead.
The Deacon jogged on, musing intently of the stirring events of the day, until he was recalled to the things immediately around him by hearing a loud voice shout:
"Stop, there, you black scoundrel! I"ve ketched ye. I"m gwine to blow your onery head off."
He looked up and saw a man about his own age, dressed in b.u.t.ternut homespun, and riding a fine horse. He wore a broad-brimmed slouch hat, his clean-shaven face was cold and cruel, and he had leveled a double-barreled shotgun on a fine-looking negro, who had leaped over from the field into the middle of the road, and was standing there regard ing him with a look of intense disappointment and{248} fear.
[Ill.u.s.tration: I"M GWINE TER KILL YE, RIGHT HERE 246]
"You devil"s ape," continued the white man, with a torrent of profanity, "I"ve ketched ye jest in the nick o" time. Ye wuz makin" for the Yankee camp, and "d almost got thar. Ye thought yer 40 acres and a mule wuz jest in sight, did ye? Mebbe ye reckoned y"d git a white wife, and be an officer in the Yankee army. I"m gwine to kill ye, right here, to stop yer deviltry, and skeer off others that air o" the same mind."
"Pray G.o.d, don"t kill me, ma.s.sa," begged the negro. "I hain"t done nuffin" to be killed foh."
"Hain"t done nothin" to be killed for!" shouted the white man, with more oaths. "Do ye call sneakin" off to jine the enemy and settin" an example to the other n.i.g.g.e.rs nothin"? Git down on yer knees and say yer prayers, if ye know any, for ye ain"t a minnit to live."
The trembling negro dropped to his knees and be gan mumbling his prayers.
"What"s the matter here?" asked the Deacon of the teamster.
"O, some man"s ketched his n.i.g.g.e.r tryin" to run away to our lines, an"s goin" to kill him," answered the teamster indifferently.
"Goin" to kill him," gasped the Deacon. "Are we goin" to "low that?"
""Tain"t none o" my business," said the teamster coolly. "It"s his n.i.g.g.e.r; I reckon he"s a right to do as he pleases."
"I don"t reckon nothin" o" the kind," said the Deacon indignantly. "I won"t stand and see it done."
"Better not mix in," admonished the teamster. "Them air Southerners is pretty savage folks, and{249} don"t like any meddlin" twixt them and their n.i.g.g.e.rs. What"s a n.i.g.g.e.r, anyway?"
"Amounts to about as much as a white-livered teamster," said the Deacon hotly. "I"m goin" to mix in. I"ll not see any man murdered while I"m around. Say, you," to the white man; "what are you goin" ter do with that man?"
"Mind yer own bizniss," replied the white man, after a casual glance at the Deacon, and seeing that he did not wear a uniform. "Keep yer mouth shet if ye know when y"re well off."
"O, ma.s.sa, save me! save me!" said the negro, jumping up and running toward the Deacon, who had slipped down from the fodder, and was standing in the road.
"All right, Sambo; don"t be scared. He sha"n"t kill you while I"m around," said the Deacon.
"I tell ye agin to mind yer own bizniss and keep yer mouth shet,"
said the white man savagely. "Who air ye, anyway? One o" them slinkin"
n.i.g.g.e.r-stealin" Abolitionists, comin" down here to rob us Southerners of our property?"
He followed this with a torrent of profane denunciation of the "whole Abolition crew."
"Look here, Mister," said the Deacon calmly, reaching back into the wagon and drawing out a musket, "I"m a member o" the church and a peaceable man. But I don"t "low no man to call me names, and I object to swearin" of all kinds. I want to argy this question with you, quietly, as between man and man."
He looked down to see if there was a cap on the gun.{250}
"What"s the trouble "twixt you and this man here?"
"That ain"t no man," said the other hotly. "That"s my n.i.g.g.e.r bought with my money. He"s my property. I"ve ketched him tryin" to run away tryin"
to rob me of $1,200 worth o" property and give it to our enemies. I"m gwine to kill him to stop others from doin" the same thing."
"Indeed you"re not," said the Deacon, putting his thumb on the hammer.
"Do you mean to say you"ll stop me?" said the master, starting to raise his shotgun, which he had let fall a little.
"Something like that, if not the exact words," an swered the Deacon calmly, looking at the sights of the musket with an interested air.
The master resumed his volley of epithets.
The Deacon"s face became very rigid, and the musket was advanced to a more threatening position. "I told you before," he said, "that I didn"t allow no man to call me sich names. I give you warnin" agin. I"m liable to fall from grace, as the Methodists say, any minnit. I"m dumbed sure to if you call me an other name."
The master glared at the musket. It was clearly in hands used to guns, and the face behind it was not that of a man to be fooled with beyond a certain limit. He lowered his shotgun, and spoke sharply to the negro:
"Sam, git "round here in front of the hoss, and put for home at once."
"Stay where you are, till I finish talkin" to this man," commanded the Deacon. "Are you a loyal man?" he inquired of the master.{251}
"If ye mean loil to that rail-splittin" gorilla in Washington," replied the master, hotly; "to that low-down, n.i.g.g.e.r-lovin", n.i.g.g.e.r-stealin"--"
"Shet right up," said the Deacon, bringing up his gun in a flash of anger. "You sha"n"t abuse the President o" the United States any more"n you shall me, nor half so much. He"s your President, whom you must honor and respect. I won"t have him blackguarded by an unhung rebel. You say yourself you"re a rebel. Then you have no right whatever to this man, and I"m goin" to confiscate him in the name o" Abraham Lincoln, President o" the United States, an" accordin" to his proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation, done at Washington, District o" Columbia, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-three and of our Independence the 87th.
"Now, you jest turn your hoss around and vacate these parts as quick as you can, and leave me and this colored man alone. We"re tired o" havin"
you "round."
The master was a man of sense. He knew that there was nothing to do but obey.
CHAPTER XXI. THE PERPLEXED DEACON
TROUBLED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THE FREEDMAN.
"WHAT is yer a-gwine tub do wid me, mas"r?" asked the negro, with a look and an att.i.tude curiously like a forlorn stray dog which had at last found an owner and protector.
"Wish to gracious I knowed," answered the Deacon, knitting his brows in thought. "I don"t know as I"ve anything to do with you. I"ve about as much idee what to do with you as I would with a whale in the Wabash River. I"m neither John Brown nor a colonization society. I"ve about as much use for a n.i.g.g.e.r, free or slave, as a frog has for a tail. You"re free now that"s all there is of it. n.o.body"s got nothin" to do with you.
You"ve got to do with yourself that"s all. You"re your own master. You go your way and let other folks go theirs."
In the simplicity of his heart the Deacon thought he had covered the whole ground. What more could the man want, who had youth, health and strength, than perfect liberty to go where he pleased and strive for what he wanted?
The negro looked dazed and perplexed.
"Isn"t yo" a-gwine tuh take me wid yo", mas"r?" he asked.
"Take you with me!" repeated the Deacon in{253} astonishment and some petulance. "Certainly not. I don"t want you. And you mustn"t call me master. You mustn"t call any man master. You"re no longer a slave.
You"re your own master. You"re free; don"t you understand?"
"But whah"m I tuh go?" reiterated the negro hopelessly.