instruction-I myself of course being the chief example. Thus when I asked him if I might go on this Sat.u.r.day expedition he readily gave his permission and said that he would write out a pa.s.s for the group, warning me only that I should return before nightfall and that I must keep an eye on the other Negroes, who might fall into the hands of the wise and knowing darkies from some James or Blackwater River plantation; these were smart darkies who had been exposed to white rivermen and traders and thus to vice, and they would literally swindle our innocent backwoods Negroes out of their trousers or their shoes.
Ever since the day I baptized Willis, I had begun to teach him to count and also to read, using my Bible as a primer and spelling out the words on the back wall of the shed next to the carpenter"s shop, with a cattail dipped in lampblack as a kind of brush to write the letters. It pleased me to see how quickly he responded to my instruction; if I persevered, and took advantage of every opportunity, I was sure that it would not be long before he knew the alphabet and would be able to see the connection between the letters and the words in such a simple line as the third verse of the entire Bible, which of course goes: And G.o.d And G.o.d said, Let there be light: and there was light said, Let there be light: and there was light. Willis too was excited at the prospect of going to the camp meeting. Although I myself had never been to such a revival, I knew from tales told long ago by my mother and Little Morning just what sort of colorful bustle and activity might be expected, and thus I was able to tell Willis all about it and infect him with my own antic.i.p.ation. On the afternoon before the day of the camp meeting I borrowed two juicy pullets from Goat"s brood, promising to pay him back in extra work, and I made up a large and festive meal for us Negroes who were going-fried chicken, a rare treat, and a couple of loaves of shortening bread I was able to wheedle out of Abraham"s wife, who had become cook at the big house-and I put the chicken and bread in a small pine box together with a jug of sweet cider, placing all in the carpenter"s shed where it would be safe from pilfering black hands, and then went to bed at a very early hour since we would be leaving for Jerusalem long before dawn the next morning.
At along about midnight I was awakened by a soft whisper and, suspended like clinking bells above my face, the tinkling of a lantern in whose sudden yellow glow the eyes of a little Negro girl were as round as eggsh.e.l.ls. It was one of Wash"s younger sisters-another of Abraham"s numberless children-and she mumbled that I must come down to the cabin right away, her 168.
daddy had sent her, her daddy was miserable sick. I dressed and followed the girl down the slope through the moonlit, frog-filled, balmy night and there in the cabin found Abraham as the girl had said, feverish and in bed, coughing and hacking away, his broad black chest glistening with streams of sweat in the glare of the lamp.
""Tain"t nothin", Nat," he said weakly. "Hit jes" de misery I gits ev"ry springtime. I gwine be awright come next week." After a pause he went on: "But nem"mine dat. Ma.r.s.e Samuel done told me I gots to take dem four boys up to whar de trace begins at two in de mawnin". What time hit now?"
"I just heard the clock ring twelve," I said. "What boys you talking about, Abe?"
"Ma.r.s.e Samuel done hired out four boys to chop tobacco fo" two weeks over to de Vaughans" place. Vaughan"s got a wagon dat"s gwine meet our wagon up whar de trace commences. I uz supposed to carry dem boys up dere but now I got dis misery, so you got to carry "em, Nat. Dat"s at two o"clock, so git on now an"
let dis po" sick man rest his bones. I gwine be awright."
"But I"m goin" to the camp meeting, Abe," I started to protest, "all this time I figured on the camp meeting-"
"You kin still still go to de camp meetin", boy." he insisted, "you jes" go to de camp meetin", boy." he insisted, "you jes"
ain"t gwine git a whole lot of sleepin", dat"s all. Now git on, Nat, and carry dem boys on up dere in de wagon. Dey waitin" right now behin" de stable. Here, you got to take dis yere paper."
Of course Abraham was right about the camp meeting: I might still make it to the beginning of the trace and back, pick up Willis and Little Morning and the others and be off to Jerusalem just as I had planned-provided only that I was willing to do without sleep, a minor burden. What I had not counted on, however, was that among those four Negro boys I must take to meet the Vaughans" wagon, among those sleepy black faces upturned to the moonlight in the hushed luminous s.p.a.ce of ground behind the stable"s lowering wall, was that of Willis himself, and my heart gave a sickening heave as I caught sight of him and as there came over me a chill, clammy sense of betrayal.
"But he said you could go to the camp meeting!" I fumed while I harnessed up the two mules, shortening their traces amid the manure-sweet stable gloom. Willis padded drowsily about barefooted in the darkness, helping me, saying not a word.
169.
"Daggone, Willis!" I whispered urgently. "He didn"t mention nothin nothin" at all about bein" hired out to Major Vaughan. Nothin Nothin"!
Now daggone it, you goin" to be over at the Vaughans" for two weeks choppin" tobacco and maybe it"ll bea whole "nother year before you get to go to a camp meetin"." I was nearly frantic with disappointment, and the radiant globe of pleasure and antic.i.p.ation in which I had buoyantly dwelt for so long cracked and fell away from me like shattered gla.s.s as I yanked the mules out onto the moon-drenched lawn and, wildly impatient, urged the boys up into the wagon. "Daggone it," I said, "I fixed fried chicken and there"s cider cider too! C"mon, n.i.g.g.e.r boys, move yo" too! C"mon, n.i.g.g.e.r boys, move yo"
b.u.t.ts!" The three other boys scampered up over the tailgate; young field hands of fifteen or sixteen, they giggled nervously as they clambered into the wagon; all three of them wore rabbits"
feet attached to a leather bracelet on the left ankle-that year a plantation fashion; one boy was able to disgorge at will large bullfrog belches and this he began to do without ceasing, bringing forth from the other boys squeals of childish laughter.
Willis climbed onto the seat beside me. "Git up, mules!" I said angrily. It was the first time I had ever felt even the trace of disillusionment with Ma.r.s.e Samuel and this strange new feeling itself added to my distress. "Daggone Ma.r.s.e Samuel anyway!" I said to Willis as we set forth down the lane. "If he was going to hire you out to the Vaughans for two weeks, how come he didn"t tell me and you first so we wouldn"t get all prepared about goin"
to the camp meeting?"
In a little while my chagrin and anger drained away, fading off into that mood of resignation to which most Negroes become accustomed sooner or later, no matter what the occasion. After all, there were worse blows, I figured as we rocked along slowly through the moon-white woods; suppose Willis could not go to this this camp meeting, did it really matter? Certainly there would come along other revivals I could take him to, and his failure to attend this one would make but a tiny gap in his spiritual education. I looked at him tenderly as the moon spread a pale light over his features; nodding next to me, he was half asleep, his delicate lips apart and his eyelids fluttering in a fight against slumber. I aroused him with a nudge and a question: "What"s two and three?" camp meeting, did it really matter? Certainly there would come along other revivals I could take him to, and his failure to attend this one would make but a tiny gap in his spiritual education. I looked at him tenderly as the moon spread a pale light over his features; nodding next to me, he was half asleep, his delicate lips apart and his eyelids fluttering in a fight against slumber. I aroused him with a nudge and a question: "What"s two and three?"
"Five," he said after a pause, rubbing his eyes.
"And three and four?"
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"Seven." He began to say something else, hesitated, then went on: "Nat, how come you figures Ma.r.s.e Samuel done hired me me out? I"se a "prentice carpenter." out? I"se a "prentice carpenter."
"I don"t know," I said truthfully, "I reckon they need extra hands over there. But that"s all right. Ma.r.s.e Samuel only hires out to good people, I know that, and the Vaughans are quality folk, treat you well. Anyway, listen, it ain"t but for two weeks, no time at all. Then you"ll be back and we"ll have more teaching. What"s three and eight?"
"Fo"teen," he said, yawning hugely.
Behind us in the cart the three boys had gone to sleep, sprawled against each other lifeless and limp in the moonlight. The night was clamorous with frogs and katydids, warm, fragrant with cedar, clear like day, the moon powdering the trees in light as starkly white as the dust of bone. The lop-eared mules, plodding along with a crushed rasping sound against the dewy weeds, found their way ahead as if they knew the road by heart, and I let the reins go slack in my hand, drowsing too, and fitfully slept until the end of the trace, roused only once and then dimly by the high wail of a bobcat miles off in the swamp, its distant scream echoing through some perplexed strange dream like the sound of claws sc.r.a.ped in anguish across the bare face of the heavens.
Presently I felt Willis stir on the seat and sensed the other boys moving about behind me; then I woke with a start and realized that the mules had stopped. Here in the moonlight at the end of the trace I saw the log road stretching east and west through the weeds and now against the trees the outline of the Vaughans"
wagon, huge and canvas-covered and motionless, the floppy white roof making it look like the picture of a sailing ship, foundered now upon the edge of the forest. The figures of two white men disengaged themselves from the shadows of the wagon, and one of them-a portly gentleman with a plump aging face beneath a shiny wide-brimmed planter"s hat-approached as we sat there, and said to me in a not-disagreeable voice: "You Abraham?"
"Nawsuh," I said. "I"se Nat. I"se de numbah-two driver. Abraham he done took sick, ya.s.suh, "deed he took real sick." n.i.g.g.e.r gabble.
He drew closer to the wagon and all of a sudden a tinkling 171.
musical sound and a jaunty little tune interrupted the silence, sending a spooky chill up my back, and then I saw that the man had taken from his vest a silver watch and had opened it, and that it was from this watch that the music was coming, in miraculous plinkety notes, as if he held a tiny spinet piano and tiny pianist-I thought of one of the beribboned Turner ladies-imprisoned in his hand. My wonderstruck eyes must have betrayed me, for the man said then: "Quite a little timepiece, no? A triumph of the watchmaker"s art. That, my boy, is Loodwig van Beethoven." He snapped the watch shut, strangling the music in mid-pa.s.sage. "And you are no more than ten minutes late and deserve praise for your prompt.i.tude. Look alive, boy!" He tossed up at me a plug of chewing tobacco, which I caught in midair. "Now then, Abe-or what"s your name-you have four young hands for the Vaughans here, right? And a paper for me to sign which you will take back to your master." He turned aside from me for an instant and called in a breezy, amiable voice toward the back of the wagon: "All right, boys! Up now into the other wagon! Hop to, lads! We"ve nearly to Greensville County to go tonight." Willis and the other boys scrambled down off their perch and moved somnolently toward the Vaughans" great white wagon across the road.
"Sleepyheads, I see!" he said with a chuckle. "Well, you"ll find the Major"s wagon a cozy enough place for a snooze. Hop to now, me young bucks! Hurry up and we"ll be on our way!"
"Good-bye, Nat," Willis said, starting across the road.
I made a silent, parting wave to Willis and watched as the man spread the paper which Abraham had given me against the footboard beneath my legs and scratched something across it with a stubby quill, humming to himself in a breathy, hoa.r.s.e voice the same tune he had just let loose from his watch. "Todd,"
he whispered, "Jim, Shadrach, Willis . . . There, boy," he added finally, "You take that receipt back to your master, and mind that you don"t lose your way. Go home straight away, do you hear me? Good night, laddie." . . . There, boy," he added finally, "You take that receipt back to your master, and mind that you don"t lose your way. Go home straight away, do you hear me? Good night, laddie."
"Good night, ma.s.sah," I said. I watched him cross the log road and mount the wagon with slow and corpulent difficulty, seating himself next to the other white man, a s.h.a.ggy blur in the moonlight, who tapped all four mules into an ambling start, then gave the hindmost mule a sharp and savage stroke with his whip, causing the wagon to sway out of the ditch, groaning as it picked up a ponderous sluggish speed and continued to totter 172.
and sway in a precarious lopsided angle above the log road and with a great noise like the collision of countless barrels gained a final momentum, the uproar diminishing as the white shape pa.s.sed westward through the moon"s relentless glare and out of sight.
The Vaughans" ain"t west, I thought. The Vaughans" place is east.
I sat there without moving. One of my mules stamped wearily, setting the traces to jingling. Around me in the woods the sound of frogs was deafening, shrilling in a ceaseless insensate choir like wind through a million reeds. Almost imperceptibly the moon sank slowly behind a thicket of cypress trees, and the log road was shadowed in a tangle of bent silhouetted limbs and branches, black as human arms. From the south a gentle breeze sprang up and I heard a whispering and a stirring across the leafy roof of the forest.
"Lord?" I said aloud.
Still I listened to the soft and sibilant rustling among the moonlit treetops, and I held my breath as if waiting for the sound of some immanent, hovering voice.
"Lord?" I called again. But as I sat listening the wind died, and along with it the whispering and rustling, the unspoken voice, and the night once again was enveloped in a shrilling of frogs, the ripe hot chirruping of katydids among the trees.
I must have waited there for an hour or more. Then slowly I started back-with an emptiness such as I had never felt before-knowing that I did not have to read the paper in my hand to make me sure of what I already knew, thinking miserably, fiercely: Willis. And those boys! Gone, Lord. Plain gone for good!
Listen, Lord. Not hired out, not Vaughan"s, not anything but that man with the watch who was nothing but a n.i.g.g.e.r trader. Simple as that, yes, Lord! Not hired out but Jesus Christ Almighty sold . .
. Sold, Lord, sold!
And he was saying: "One might think I was a blockhead not to know why you"ve been moping around for so long and regarding me so accusingly. But though I will take the blame for poor management of an already bungled transaction, I will have to still steadfastly defend myself from any charge of insensibility. For is 173.
that not what you find me guilty of?"
"I don"t understand what that word means," I said. "The charge of-something."
"The charge of insensibility. The charge that I somehow blithely allowed you to arrange to take the boy to a camp meeting while fully aware that he was to be sold before you ever got to Jerusalem. Which brings me to another matter that I should mention in pa.s.sing. And that is the camp meeting itself. I was in Jerusalem that Friday, which as you may remember was the first day of the revival. I believe I counted no more than twenty-four of the faithful, not including several stray cats and dogs, at the meeting grounds.They packed up and left the next day, and had you gone there with your wagonload of wild-eyed apostles you would have been greeted by a deserted field of gra.s.s. Which only goes to show that this benighted countryside cannot sustain a religious revival any more than it can feed itself. So I mention in pa.s.sing that I saved you from a bad disappointment. But as for the lad in question, I must only repeat that I had no more idea that you were taking him him to that camp meeting than I had knowledge that the two of you were what you describe as inseparable friends. Lacking eyes in the back of my head, or a seventh sense, I can scarcely be asked to mark the relationship between every human being among the eighty or so of all colors that exist on this property. And I think it was a great Frenchman, Voltaire, who said that the beginning of wisdom is the moment when one understands how little concerned with one"s own life are other men, they who are so desperately preoccupied with their own. I knew to that camp meeting than I had knowledge that the two of you were what you describe as inseparable friends. Lacking eyes in the back of my head, or a seventh sense, I can scarcely be asked to mark the relationship between every human being among the eighty or so of all colors that exist on this property. And I think it was a great Frenchman, Voltaire, who said that the beginning of wisdom is the moment when one understands how little concerned with one"s own life are other men, they who are so desperately preoccupied with their own. I knew nothing nothing about you and that boy, nothing at all." about you and that boy, nothing at all."
I remained silent, wetting my lips with my tongue and feeling desolate and miserable, gazing at the library floor.
"I have told you more than once now that had you come to me the next day and stated your case-had you made yourself immediately clear instead of for two weeks casting me these looks of canine canine reproach-I should have taken steps to get the boy back, buy him back even though that might mean money and travel to an extent quite out of the ordinary. But I must try to convince you that surely by now he has pa.s.sed through the Petersburg market-though even of the place I cannot be really certain, it may be that he was taken to a sale in Carolina-whatever, that he has been pa.s.sed on into some buyer"s hands and must now be on the way to Georgia or Alabama, though one can hope that a kindly providence has The Confessions of Nat Turner reproach-I should have taken steps to get the boy back, buy him back even though that might mean money and travel to an extent quite out of the ordinary. But I must try to convince you that surely by now he has pa.s.sed through the Petersburg market-though even of the place I cannot be really certain, it may be that he was taken to a sale in Carolina-whatever, that he has been pa.s.sed on into some buyer"s hands and must now be on the way to Georgia or Alabama, though one can hope that a kindly providence has 174.
seen fit that he somehow remain in Virginia. This, however, I sincerely doubt. The fact remains that he would now seem to be all but irrecoverable. I am in no way blaming you for lacking the presence of mind to come to me earlier when I may have been able to do something about it. I am only asking you now to try to understand the impossibility of my position. Do you see what I mean?"
"Yes," I said after a moment. "Yes, I do but-"
"Yes, but but again," he interrupted, "you are still eaten up about that one thing that will not let you alone. Even though you say you told him of your own surprise, you are devoured by the terrible idea that the boy for the rest of his life will think that you were a party to, an accomplice in, his disposal. Am I correct in this? Isn"t that what you said you are unable to shake from your mind?" again," he interrupted, "you are still eaten up about that one thing that will not let you alone. Even though you say you told him of your own surprise, you are devoured by the terrible idea that the boy for the rest of his life will think that you were a party to, an accomplice in, his disposal. Am I correct in this? Isn"t that what you said you are unable to shake from your mind?"
"Yes," I replied, "that"s right."
"Then what can I say? Say that I too am sorry? I"ve said that over and over to you before. Perhaps he will think that, perhaps not. Possibly it would be better for your peace of mind if you envisioned him thinking charitably of you-if indeed it occurs to him to think of you as being involved in his disposition at all-envisioned him thinking of you only as an unwitting and ignorant dupe in the whole transaction, which you were. But if he thinks otherwise, I can only repeat again and for the last time that I am sorry. There is nothing else that I can say. Understand again: I had no idea that Abraham would fall ill and that you would become the-the instrument by which those boys were delivered into-into other hands." He halted then and looked at me, lapsing into silence.
"But-" I began slowly, "but I-"
"But what?"
"All right," I went on, "I see pretty well, I guess, about Willis, you didn"t know about him and I. How I was teaching him and all. But this other thing I don"t understand. I mean, going out at night like that and thinking they was going to be hired out at the Vaughans"." I paused. "I mean, everyone was going to know what really happened anyway, by and by. Or not by and by.
Soon."
He looked away from me and when he spoke at last his voice was faint and faraway; suddenly I realized how weary he 175.
seemed, how gaunt were his cheeks and how red-rimmed and vacant were his eyes. "I will be truthful with you. I was quite simply troubled-afraid. I got confused, lost my bearings. Only twice do I recall darkies ever being sold away from here-both times by my father, both of the darkies, I"m afraid, crazy people who were a threat to the community. Furthermore and aside from that, there has never until now been any need. So I had never sold off hands before, and as I have readily admitted, it was a bungled transaction. I had not wanted the word to get around, I was afraid of the trouble and unrest that would ensue once the darkies knew that some of the people were being sold. So in my confusion I conceived the idea of disposing of the first four under the cover of night and in the guise of a fortnight"s hire to Major Vaughan. I thought that somehow the shock would be less this way, that it would be easier for the place to become accustomed to their absence. Worst of all, I conspired with a trader. It was folly to expect anything to come of this method. It was devious and cowardly. The duplicity! The masquerade! I should have done it in broad daylight with all the plantation as gaping onlookers to a plain and simple sale, with money changing hands in full view. Of the entire proceedings the only redeeming feature may be that at least I tried to make certain that my first sale would involve no separation of families. It was unfortunate for you, perhaps imponderably unfortunate for your young friend, that my resolve to pick only boys who were old enough to make the break, boys who additionally had already been orphaned and who thus had no family ties to sever-well, it was unfortunate that he he was one of four who answered to that description." He halted again, remaining silent, then said in a faint voice: "I"m sorry. G.o.d, how sorry I am, that Willie . . ." was one of four who answered to that description." He halted again, remaining silent, then said in a faint voice: "I"m sorry. G.o.d, how sorry I am, that Willie . . ."
"Willis," I said. "And so you just had to sell them. There just wasn"t any other way."
His back was to me now, he stood facing the great high window open to the spring garden, and his voice, dim enough at the outset, was barely audible and I had to strain to hear it, as if it belonged to someone so infirm and depleted, or so lacking in spirit or hope, that whether the words could be understood was at last a matter of indifference. He went on as if he hadn"t heard me.
"Well, soon all of them will be gone-everything-not just the land now utterly consumed by that terrible weed, not just the wagons and the pigs and the oxen and the mules but the men 176.
too, the white men and the women and the black boys-the w.i.l.l.i.e.s and the Jims and the Shadrachs and the Todds-all gone south, leaving Virginia to the thorn bushes and the dandelions.
And all this we see here will be gone too, and the mill wheel will crumble away and the wind will whistle at night through these deserted halls. Mark my word. It is coming soon."
He paused, then said: "Yes, I had to sell those boys because I needed the money. Because anything non-human I had to sell was unsellable. Because those boys were worth over a thousand dollars and only through their sale could I begin to make the slightest inroad upon those debts I have acc.u.mulated for seven years-seven years during which I have lied to myself night and day in an effort to believe that what I saw around me was an illusion, that this mutilated and broken Tidewater would survive in spite of itself, that no matter how wrecked and eaten up the soil, no matter how many men and chattel began to move south to Georgia and Alabama, Turner"s Mill would forever be here grinding out timber and meal. But now it is timber and meal for ghosts." He ceased speaking for a moment, then again the weary voice resumed: "What should I have done instead? Set them free? What a ghastly joke! No, they had to be sold, and the rest of them will be sold too, and soon Turner"s Mill will stand a dead hulk like the others on the landscape, and somewhere in the far South people may remember it but it will be remembered as if it were the fragment of a dream."
For a long time now he fell silent and then finally he said (or I think think he spoke my name, I was straining so hard to hear), " he spoke my name, I was straining so hard to hear), "Nat . . . .
." And when he spoke again, his voice was the barest murmur as if whispering from the far bank of a stream against a rising wind.
"I sold them out of the desperation to hang on pointlessly a few years longer." He made an abrupt gesture with his lifted arm, and it seemed that he pa.s.sed his hand in a quick angry motion across his eyes. "Surely mankind has yet to be born. Surely Surely this is true! For only something blind and uncomprehending could exist in such a mean conjunction with its own flesh, its own kind. this is true! For only something blind and uncomprehending could exist in such a mean conjunction with its own flesh, its own kind.
How else account for such faltering, clumsy, hateful cruelty?
Even the possums and the skunks know better! Even the weasels and the meadow mice have a natural regard for their own blood and kin. Only the insects are low enough to do the low things that people do-like those ants that swarm on poplars in the summertime, greedily husbanding little green aphids for the honeydew they secrete. Yes, it could be that mankind has yet to 177.
be born. Ah, what bitter tears G.o.d must weep at the sight of the things that men do to other men!" He broke off then and I saw him shake his head convulsively, his voice a sudden cry: "In the name of money! Money! Money! " "
He became silent and I stood waiting for him to continue, but he said nothing, turned with his back toward me in the dusk. Afar and high above I heard Miss Nell call out: "Sam! Samuel! Samuel! Is there anything wrong?" Yet again for a long while he made no sign, no motion, so at last I moved quietly toward the door and left the room. Is there anything wrong?" Yet again for a long while he made no sign, no motion, so at last I moved quietly toward the door and left the room.
Three years after this episode (and a galloping swift three years they seemed to me)-a month before my twenty-first birthday and at just about the time I had originally been destined to start my life anew in Richmond-I was removed from Ma.r.s.e Samuel"s purview and pa.s.sed into the temporary custody of, or fell under the protection of, or was rented out to, or was borrowed by, a Baptist preacher named the Reverend Alexander Eppes, pastor to an impoverished flock of farmers and small tradesmen living in a district called Shiloh about ten miles to the north of Turner"s Mill. For a long time I was never quite clear as to the relationship between me and the Reverend Eppes. Yet, one thing is certain, and this is that I was not "sold," in the unadorned, mercenary sense of the word. The other Negroes at Turner"s Mill might be sold-and sold they were, with depressing regularity-but the notion that I I could be disposed of in this way was, up to and including the moment when I pa.s.sed into the hands of the Reverend Eppes, quite inconceivable. Thus for the next three years, aware though I might have been of the uncertainty of the future that lay before me, I never thought once that Ma.r.s.e Samuel would not still ensure my freedom in Richmond as he had so eagerly promised-and I kept up this sunny optimism and complacency even as I watched Turner"s Mill and all of its land and its people and its chattel and its livestock disintegrate before my eyes like one of those river islands at flood time which slowly crumbles away at the edges, toppling all of its drenched and huddled ragtag occupants, c.o.o.ns and rabbits and blacksnakes and foxes, into the merciless brown waters. could be disposed of in this way was, up to and including the moment when I pa.s.sed into the hands of the Reverend Eppes, quite inconceivable. Thus for the next three years, aware though I might have been of the uncertainty of the future that lay before me, I never thought once that Ma.r.s.e Samuel would not still ensure my freedom in Richmond as he had so eagerly promised-and I kept up this sunny optimism and complacency even as I watched Turner"s Mill and all of its land and its people and its chattel and its livestock disintegrate before my eyes like one of those river islands at flood time which slowly crumbles away at the edges, toppling all of its drenched and huddled ragtag occupants, c.o.o.ns and rabbits and blacksnakes and foxes, into the merciless brown waters.
The Negroes-because they were by far the most valuable of the property, because at anywhere between four hundred and six hundred dollars apiece they represented the only safe, solid capital which Ma.r.s.e Samuel could liquidate in order to meet his creditors" incessant demands (the creditors too were packing up 178.
and leaving the Tidewater, hence an urgency in their claims)-the Negroes began to be sent off at a steady rate, in twos and threes or singly, a family here, another there, though often months might go by without a sale. All at once would appear a man in a gig, a gentleman with white side whiskers and a thick gold watch chain, stamping the mud from his mirror-bright boots. In the library I would serve biscuits and port from a silver tray, listening to Ma.r.s.e Samuel"s voice wan and weary in the summer dusk: "It is the traders who are an abomination, sir, the traders! That they will generally pay more means nothing to me.
They are unscrupulous, sir, and would think nothing of separating a mother from her only child. That is why, helpless as I am in this dreadful situation, I can at least insist upon dealing with a gentleman . . . Yes, with one bad exception, so far all my sales have been with gentlemen like yourself . . . You are from the York County Fitzhughs, you say? Then you must be a cousin of Thaddeus Fitzhugh, a cla.s.smate of mine at William & Mary . .
. Yes, the last lot of people I sold was to a gentleman heading west to the Boonslick country, I believe, in Missouri; I sold him a family of five . . . A most humane and learned gentleman from Nottoway he was . . . You are favored by the G.o.ds, sir as you must know, to have a mill situated near a city like Richmond, free of the burden, the curse of land . . . I do not know, sir, it is clear that time is drawing short for me here. Perhaps I shall go to Kentucky or Missouri too, though I have heard of interesting prospects in Alabama . . . Come now, I will show you George and Peter, the best mill hands I have left, you may be sure that they are uncommonly likely Negroes . . . Only a few of my darkies will have been fortunate enough to remain in Virginia . . ."
So George and Peter would go, or Sam and Andrew, or Lucy and her two young boys, packed off in a wagon which I myself would often drive to deliver them in Jerusalem, and always I was haunted and perplexed by the docile equanimity and good cheer with which these simple black people, irrevocably uprooted, would set out to encounter a strange and unknown destiny.
Although they might cast backward what appeared to be the faintest glimmer of a wistful glance, this final parting from a place which had been their entire universe for years caused them no more regret than did the future cast over them worry or foreboding: Missouri or Georgia were as far away as the stars, or as near as the next plantation, it was all the same to them, and with despair I marked how seldom they seemed to bother even bidding farewell to their friends. Only the rupture of some family tie I felt could grieve them, and such calamities did not happen 179.
here. Twittering and giggling, they mounted the wagon poised to carry them to an impossible fate at the uttermost ends of the earth, and they could speak only of an aching knee, the potency of a hairball from a mule"s stomach as a charm against witches, the proper way to train a dog to tree a possum, and mumble incessantly about eating. Slumbrous in broad daylight, they would flop asleep against the side boards of the wagon, pink lips wet and apart, nodding off into oblivion even before they had been taken beyond the gate, even before they were carried past the bounds of that land which had composed the entire smell and substance and geography of their lives and whose fields and meadows and shimmering woodland now dwindled away behind them, unseen and unremarked, forever. They cared nothing about where they came from or where they were going, and so snored loudly or, abruptly waking, skylarked about, laughing and slapping each other, and trying to clutch at the pa.s.sing overhead leaves. Like animals they relinquished the past with as much dumb composure as they accepted the present, and were unaware of any future at all. Such creatures deserved to be sold, I thought bitterly, and I was torn between detestation for them and regret that it was too late for me to save them through the power of the Word.
And so at last an alien quietude and stillness settled over the plantation, a hush so profound that it was in itself like the echo or reverberation of a faint remembered sound upon the ear. Finally it was not alone the Negroes who were disposed of but all the rest-the mules and the horses and the pigs, the wagons and the farming implements and the tools, saws and spinning wheels and anvils and house furniture, buggies and buggy whips and spades and scythes and hoes and hammers, all and anything movable or unhingeable and detachable and worth more than half a dollar. And the absence of these things left a silence astonishing and complete. The great mill wheel, its last revolution accomplished, lay idle on its oaken shaft bedecked with dried mattings of greenish pond weed and gra.s.s, motionless now, the deep-throated steady grumble and roar as much a memory as those other diurnal sounds, far more faint yet persistent, that had echoed in all weathers season after season from dawn till dusk: the c.h.i.n.k-c.h.i.n.king c.h.i.n.k-c.h.i.n.king of hoes in the distant cornfields, sheep bleating on the lawn and a Negro"s sudden rich laughter, an anvil banging in the blacksmith"s shop, a s.n.a.t.c.h of song from one of the remotest cabins, the faint crashing in the woods of a felled tree, a stirring within the big house, a fidget and a buzz, a soft musical murmuration. Slowly these sounds The Confessions of Nat Turner of hoes in the distant cornfields, sheep bleating on the lawn and a Negro"s sudden rich laughter, an anvil banging in the blacksmith"s shop, a s.n.a.t.c.h of song from one of the remotest cabins, the faint crashing in the woods of a felled tree, a stirring within the big house, a fidget and a buzz, a soft musical murmuration. Slowly these sounds 180.
diminished, faded, became still altogether, and the fields and rutted roadways lay as starkly deserted as a place ravaged by the plague: weeds and brambles invaded the cornfields and the meadows; sills, frames, and doors fell apart in the empty outbuildings. At night, where once glowing hearths lit each cabin down the slope, now all lay in suffocating dark like the departure of the campfires of some army on the plains of Israel.
As I have already said, Ma.r.s.e Samuel soon found that it was not possible for me to be delivered to that Mr. Pemberton in Richmond on my twenty-first birthday as he had hoped. Through the solemn moments of one evening after supper he explained to me how the depression which afflicted the Tidewater had washed over the city too, and how the market for such clever labor as I might provide had severely diminished-indeed was "busted," as the saying goes. Thus my master was faced with a troublesome dilemma. He could not on the one hand simply set me free without a period of "seasoning" in the hands of a responsible person: all too manyyoung Negroes, given their freedom without sponsorship, without some protection, had found themselves one morning beaten senseless, their papers stolen, b.u.mping about in a daze as the wagon wheels rumbling underneath their cracked skulls bore them south to the fields of cotton. At the same time to take me with him to Alabama (that is where, almost at the last moment, he decided to try the remnants of his luck) would altogether defeat his plans for me, since opportunities for the rich life of a free Negro craftsman were almost nonexistent down in those townless river-bottom swamps and stews. So finally Ma.r.s.e Samuel had decided upon a provisional course, entrusting my body to the good Christian shepherd of whom I have spoken, the Reverend Eppes-this devoted and pious gentleman who could be expected to complete the doc.u.ments in regard to my freedom as soon as the times got better up in Richmond (as they surely would) and who as recompense for his compa.s.sion and his overseeing of my destiny would receive the fruits of my labor for a while, gratis gratis.
And so there came a September morning, hot and throbbing with the sound of locusts, when Ma.r.s.e Samuel bade me farewell for all time.
"I told him we were leaving this morning," he said to me, "so the Reverend Eppes should be here to fetch you sometime around noon, maybe before. As I have told you before, Nat, you need have nothing to worry about. Although a Baptist, the Reverend 181.
Eppes is a gentleman of great probity and kindliness and will treat you in exactly the manner I would wish. You will find him a man of simplicity, and of modest resources, but he will be good to you. I shall be in touch with him by post from Alabama, and I shall be in touch with my own representatives in Richmond. And thus after a year or so, no more, the Reverend Eppes will arrange for your apprenticeship in Richmond and your eventual emanc.i.p.ation in just the same way I would have done had I been here. It is all written up in the agreement we made in Jerusalem and its legality is unquestioned. More important, though, Nat, is the trust I have in the Reverend Eppes. He will provide for all your needs, physical and spiritual. He is truly a gentleman of humanity and honor."
We stood in the shade of a great sycamore tree; the day was sultry, breathless, the air close and damp like a warm mouth-enveloping hand. The four wagons with which Ma.r.s.e Samuel would make the long trip were ready, waiting, the mules stamping and stirring in their traces. The rest of the family-the older nephew and his wife, Miss Emmeline, Benjamin"s widow, Miss Nell-had gone away already; they had stopped down in Raleigh with cousins or (in the case of the older ladies) had begun a sojourn in Petersburg, from whence Ma.r.s.e Samuel would summon them once all was safely established on Alabama soil. Of the Negroes, only Prissy and Little Morning and Abraham and his family were left; house Negroes, they had memories of happy times, and they wept loudly, the mourning lot crammed into one wagon. In tears I had said good-bye to them all, kissing Prissy and clasping Abraham in a warm mute embrace and, at last, taking Little Morning"s cold old-leathery feeble hand and pressing it to my lips; hair white as frost now, palsied and totally gone in the head, he lay propped sightless and uncomprehending at the rear of the wagon, heading south at his life"s withered and weary end from the only home he had ever known. The mules stirred and stamped in their traces. Try as I might, I seemed unable to stifle my grief.
"You mustn"t take on so, Nat," Ma.r.s.e Samuel said, "it is not like a death, it is like a new life for all of us. We shall always be in touch by the post. And you-" He paused for an instant, and I knew that he too was moved. "And you- you, you, Nat-think of the freedom that you will have, after all! Keep that in mind always and the sorrow of this parting will fade in your memory. The Nat-think of the freedom that you will have, after all! Keep that in mind always and the sorrow of this parting will fade in your memory. The future future is all that matters in our lives." is all that matters in our lives."
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Again he ceased speaking and then, as if struggling to choke back his own feelings, began to say all sorts of commonplace things in a forced voice touched with false cheeriness: "Come now, Nat, chin high! . . . The receiver of the land, Judge Bowers in Jerusalem, is sending around a man who will remain here as the custodian and he might even be here today . . . Meanwhile, Prissy has left noontime dinner for you in the kitchen . . . Chin high, Nat, chin high always and good-bye! . . . Good-bye! . . .
Good-bye!"
He embraced me awkwardly, swiftly. I felt his whiskers against my cheek, and heard Abraham"s bullwhip crack far ahead like a musket. Then he turned about and was gone, and the wagons were gone, and it is the last I ever saw of him.
I stood in the lane until the final echo of the wheels vanished rattling in the distance. My desolation was complete. As sundered from my root and branch as a falling leaf fluttering on eddies of air, I was adrift between that which was past and those things yet to come. Great boiling clouds hung on the far horizon.
For a long moment I felt myself like Jonah cast into the deep, in the midst of the seas, with floods compa.s.sing me about and all G.o.d"s billows and waves pa.s.sing over me.
And now I began to look forward to the coming of the Reverend Eppes, but it took an almighty long time for him to fetch me. All morning I sat on the steps of the bare veranda, stripped of its furniture, waiting for the clergyman to arrive, awaiting the sound of hoofbeats, the rattle of some conveyance coming up the lane.