""Well, you"re my property now, and I"ve got a proposition to make to you. There"s my horse outside hitched to that post. Get on him and ride out to my plantation, two miles from here; anybody"ll tell you where it is. Talk to my negroes around the quarters, and then go over to Mr.
Shandon"s and talk to his negroes--find out from any one of them what kind of a master I am, and then come back to me here before sundown and tell me if you want to live with me. If you don"t want to live with me you can go free. Do you understand?"
"My father said it all over again. Aleck looked at the driver, then at the Sheriff, and then at my father. Then he crept out of the room, got on the mare, and rode up the pike.
""You"ve thrown your money away," said the driver, shrugging his shoulders. "You"ll never see that n.i.g.g.e.r again."
"The Sheriff laughed, and they both went out. Father said nothing and waited. About an hour before sundown back came Aleck. Father always said he never saw a man change so in four hours. He went out crouching like a dog, his face over his shoulder, scared to death, and he came back with his head up and a snap in his eye, looking as if he could whip his weight in wildcats.
""I"ll go wid ye, an" thank ye all my life," was all he said.
"Well, it got out around the village, and that night the other two runaways--the man and wife--they were hiding in the town--gave themselves up, and one of our neighbors bought them both and set them to work on a plantation next to ours, and the driver went away happy.
"I was a little fellow then, running around barefooted, but I remember meeting Aleck just as if it were yesterday. He was holding the horse while my father and the overseer stood talking on one side. They were planning his work and where he should sleep. I crept up to look at him.
I had heard he was coming and that he was a runaway slave. I thought his back would be b.l.o.o.d.y and all cut to pieces, and that he"d have chains on him, and I was disappointed because I couldn"t see his skin through his shirt and because his hands were free. I must have gotten too near the mare, for before I knew it he had lifted me out of danger.
""What"s your name?" I asked.
""Aleck," he said; "an" what"s your name, young marster?"
""Sammy," I said.
"That"s the way it began between us, and it"s kept on ever since. I call him "Aleck," and he calls me "Sammy"--never anything else, even today."
"He calls you "Sammy"!" I said, in astonishment. The familiarity was new to me between master and slave.
"Yes, always. There isn"t another person in the world now that calls me "Sammy,"" he answered, with a tremor in his voice.
My travelling-companion stopped for a moment, cleared his throat, drew a silver match-safe from his pocket, relighted his cigar, and continued.
"The overseer put Aleck to ploughing the old orchard that lay between the quarters and the house. I sneaked out to watch him as a curious child would, still intent on seeing his wounds. Soon as Aleck saw me, he got a board and nailed it on the plough close to the handle for a seat, and tied up the old horse"s tail so it wouldn"t switch in my face, and put me on it, and I never left that plough till sundown. My father asked Aleck where he had learned that trick, and Aleck told him he used to take his little brother that way before he died.
"After the orchard was ploughed Aleck didn"t do a thing but look after me. We fished together and went swimming together; and we hunted eggs and trapped rabbits; and when I got older and had a gun Aleck would go along to look after the dogs and cut down the trees when we were out for c.o.o.ns.
"Once I tumbled into a catfish-hole by the dam, and he fished me out; and once, while he had crawled in after a woodchuck, a rock slipped and pinned him down, and I ran two miles to get help, and fell in a faint before I could tell them where he was. What Aleck had in those days I had, and what I had he had; and there was no difference between us till the war broke out.
"I was grown then, and Aleck was six or seven years older. We were on the border-line, and one morning the Union soldiers opened fire, and all that was left of the house, barns, outbuildings, and negro quarters was a heap of ashes.
"That sent me South, of course, feeling pretty ugly and bitter, and I don"t know that I"ve gotten over it since. My father was too old to go, and he and my mother moved into the village and lived in two rooms over my father"s office. The negroes, of course, had to shift for themselves, and hard shifting it was--the women and children herding in the towns and the men working as teamsters and doing what they could.
"The night before I left home Aleck crawled out to see me. I was hidden in a hayrick in the lower pasture. He begged me to let him go with me, but I knew father would want him, and he finally gave in and promised to stay with him, and I left. But no one was his own master in those days, and in a few months they had drafted Aleck and carried him off.
"Three years after that my mother fell ill, and I heard of it and came back in disguise, and was arrested as a suspicious character as I entered the town. I didn"t blame them, for I looked like a tramp and intended to. The next day I was let out and went home to where my mother and father were living. As I was opening the garden-gate--it was night--Aleck laid his hand on my shoulder. He had on the uniform of a United States soldier. I couldn"t believe my eyes at first. I had lost track of him, and, as I found out afterward, so had my father. We stood under the street-lamp and he saw the look in my face and threw his hands up over his head as a negro does when some sudden shock comes to him.
""Don"t turn away f"om me, Sammy," he cried; "please don"t, Sammy.
"Tain"t my fault I got on dese clo"es, "deed it ain"t. Dey done fo"ced me. I heared you was here an" I been tryin" to git to ye all day. Oh, I so glad to git hold ob ye, Sammy, so glad, so glad." He broke out into sobs of crying. I was near it myself, for he was the first one from home I had seen, and there was something in his voice that went through me.
"Then he unb.u.t.toned his coat, felt in his pocket, pushed something into my hand, and disappeared in the darkness. When I got inside and held it out to the light, he had given me two five-dollar greenbacks!
"I was sitting by my mother the next night about ten o"clock--she wouldn"t let me out of her sight--when there came a rap at the door and Aleck came in. I knew how my father would feel about seeing him in those clothes. I didn"t know till afterward that they were all he had and that the poor fellow was as bad off as any of us.
"Father opened upon Aleck right away, just as I knew he would, without giving him a chance to speak. He upbraided him for going into the Army, told him to take his money back, and showed him the door. The old gentleman could be pretty savage when he wanted to, and he didn"t spare Aleck a bit. Aleck never said a word--just listened to my father"s abuse of him--his hands folded over his cap, his eyes on the two bills lying on the table where my father had thrown them. Then he said, slowly:
""Ma.r.s.e Henry, I done hearn ye every word. You don"t want me here no mo", an" I"m gwine away. I ain"t a-fightin" agin you an" Sammy an" neber will--it"s "cause I couldn"t help it dat I"m wearin" dese clo"es. As to dis money dat you won"t let Sammy take, it"s mine to gib "cause I saved it up. I gin it to Sammy "cause I fotched him up an" "cause he"s as much mine as he is your"n. He"ll tell ye so same"s me. If you say I got to take dat money back I got to do it "cause I ain"t neber dis"beyed ye an"
I ain"t gwine to begin now. But I don"t want yer ter say it, Ma.r.s.e Henry--I don"t want yer to say it. You is my marster I know, but Sammy is my _chile_. An" anudder thing, dey ain"t gwine to let him stay in dis town more"n a day. I found dat out yisterday when I heared he"d come.
Dar ain"t no money whar he"s gwine, an" dis money ain"t nothin" to me "cause I kin git mo" an" maybe Sammy can"t. Please, Ma.r.s.e Henry, let Sammy keep dis money. Dere didn"t useter be no diff"ence "tween us, and dere oughtn"t to be none now."
"My father didn"t speak again--he hadn"t the heart, and Aleck went out, leaving the money on the table."
Again my companion stopped and fumbled over the matches in his safe, striking one or two nervously and relighting his cigar. It was astonishing how often it went out. I sat with my eyes riveted on his face. I could see now the lines of tenderness about his mouth and I caught certain cadences in his voice which revealed to me but too clearly why the negro loved him and why he must always be only a boy to the old slave. The cigar a-light, he went on:
"When the war closed I came home and began to pick up my life again.
Aleck had gone to Wisconsin and was living in the same town as young Cruger, one of my father"s law-students. When my father died, I telegraphed Cruger, inviting him to serve as one of the pall-bearers, and asked him to find Aleck and tell him. I knew he would be hurt if I didn"t let him know.
"At two o"clock that night my niece, who was with my mother, rapped at my door. I was sitting up with my father"s body and would go down every hour to see that everything was all right.
""There"s a man trying to get in at the front door," she said. I got up at once and went downstairs. I could see the outlines of a man"s figure moving in the darkness, but I could not distinguish the features.
""Who is it?" I asked, throwing open the door and peering out.
""It"s me, Sammy--it"s Aleck. Take me to my ole marster."
"He came in and stood where the light fell full upon him. I hardly knew him, he was so changed--much older and bent, and his clothes hung on him in rags.
"I pointed to the parlor-door, and the old man went on tip-toe into the room and stood looking at my father"s dead face for a long time--the body lay on a cot. Then he placed his hat on the floor and got down on his knees. There was just light enough to see his figure black against the white of the sheet that covered the cot. For some minutes he knelt motionless, as if in prayer, though no sound escaped him. Then he stretched out his big black hand and pa.s.sed it over the body, smoothing it gently and patting it tenderly as one would a sleeping child. By and by he leaned closer to my father"s face.
""Ma.r.s.e Henry," I heard him say, "please, Ma.r.s.e Henry, listen. Dis yere"s Aleck. Ye"r wouldn"t hear me the las" time but yer got ter hear me now. It"s yo" Aleck, Marster, dat"s who it is. I come soon"s I could, Ma.r.s.e Henry, I didn"t wait a minute." He stopped as if expecting an answer, and went on. "I ain"t neber laid up nothin" agin ye though, Ma.r.s.e Henry. When ye turned me out dat night in the col" "cause I had dem soger clo"es on an" didn"t want me to gin dat money to Sammy, I knowed how yer felt, but I didn"t lay it up agin ye. I ain"t neber loved n.o.body like I loved you, Ma.r.s.e Henry, you an" Sammy. Do yer "member when I fust come? "Member how ye tuk me out o" jail, an" gin me a home?
"Member how ye nussed me when I was sick, an" fed me when I was hongry, an" put clo"es on me when I was most naked? n.o.body neber trusted me with nothin" till you trusted me, dey jus" beat me an" hunt me. An" don"t yer "member, Ma.r.s.e Henry, de time ye gin me Sammy an" tol" me to take care on him? you ain"t forgot dat day, is yer? He"s here, Marster; Sammy"s here. He"s settin" outside a-watch-in". Him an" me togedder, same"s we useter was."
"He got upon his feet, and looked earnestly into the dead face. Then he bent down and picked up one corner of the white sheet, and kissed it reverently. He did not touch the face. When he had tiptoed out of the room, he laid his hand on my shoulder. The tears were streaming down his face: "It was jes" like ye, Sammy, to send fo" me. We knows one anudder, you an" me--" and he turned toward the front door.
[Ill.u.s.tration: I hardly knew him, he was so changed.]
""Where are you going, Aleck?" I asked.
""I dunno, Sammy--some place whar I kin lay down."
""You don"t leave here to-night, Aleck," I said. "Go upstairs to that room next to mine--you know where it is--and get into that bed." He held up his hand and began to say he couldn"t, but I insisted.
"The next morning was Sunday. I saw when he came downstairs that he had done the best he could with his clothes, but they were still pretty ragged. I asked him if he had brought any others, but he told me they were all he had. I didn"t say anything at the time, but that afternoon I took him to a clothing store, had it opened as a favor to me and fitted him out with a suit of black, and a shirt, and shoes and a hat--everything he wanted--and got him a carpet-bag, and told Abraham, the clothier, to put Aleck"s old things into it, and he would call for them the next day.
"When we got outside, Aleck looked himself all over--along his sleeves, over his waistcoat, and down to his shoes. He seemed to be thinking about something. He would start to speak to me and stop and look over his clothes again, testing the quality with his fingers. Finally he laid his hand on my arm, and, with a curious, beseeching look, in his eyes, said:
""Sammy, all yesterday, when I was a-comin", I was a-studyin" about it, an" I couldn"t git it out"n my mind. It come to me agin when I saw Ma.r.s.e Henry las" night, an" I wanted to tell him. But when I got up dis mawnin" an" see myself I knowed I couldn"t ask ye, Sammy, an" I didn"t.
Now I got dese clo"es, it"s come to me agin. I kin ask ye now, an" I don"t want ye to "fuse me. I want ye to let me drive my marster"s body to de grave."
"I held out my hand, and for an instant neither of us spoke.
""Thank ye, Sammy," was all he said."