Читать книгу The Man in Gray - Jr. Thomas Dixon - Страница 9

Phil observed Sam arrayed in a swallowtail coat of immaculate cut stroll by with his best girl. She was dressed in silk with full hoop-skirts, ruffles, ribbons and flowers.

Sid annoyed Sam by calling loudly:

"Doan yer stay too late ter dat party. Ef ye do I'll hatter sing fur ye—

"Run, nigger, run, de patterole ketch you.

Nigger run, de nigger flew,

De nigger loss his best ole shoe!

Run, nigger, run. Run, nigger, run. Run, nigger, run."

Sam waved his arm in a long laugh.

"Dey won't git me, chile. I'se er conjur man, I is!"

Phil had supposed the patrol of the mysterious mounted police of the South—the men who rode at night—were to the slave always a tragic terror.

It seemed a thing for joke and ribald song.

After lunch, the negroes entered on the afternoon's fun or work. The industrious ones plied their trades to earn money for luxuries. The boys who loved to fish and hunt rabbits hurried to the river and the fields. There was always a hound at their service for a rabbit hunt on Saturday afternoons. Some were pitching horse shoes. Two groups began to play marbles.

The marketing done for the house, the mistress of Arlington, with medicine case in hand, started on her round of healing for body and mind. Mary offered to go with her but the mother saw Stuart hovering about and quietly answered:

"No. You can comfort poor Jeb. He looks disconsolate."

Into every cottage she moved, a quiet, ministering angel. Every hope and fear of ailing young or old found in her an ear to hear, a heart to pity and an arm to save.

If she found a case of serious illness, a doctor was called and a nurse set to watch by the bedside. Every delicacy and luxury the big house held was at the command of the sufferer and that without stint.

In all these clean flower-set cottages there was not a single crippled servant maimed in the service of his master. No black man or woman was allowed to do dangerous work. All dangerous tasks were done by hired white laborers. They were hired by the day under contract through their boss. Even ditches on the farm if they ran through swamp lands infested by malaria, were dug by white hired labor. The master would not permit his slave to take such risks.

But the most important ministry of the mistress of Arlington was in the medicine for the soul which she brought to the life and character of each servant for whose training she had accepted responsibility.

To her even the master proudly and loyally yielded authority. Her sway over the servants was absolute in its spiritual power. Into their souls in hours of trial she poured the healing and inspiration of a beautiful spirit. The mistress of Arlington was delicate and frail in body. But out of her physical suffering the spirit rose to greater heights with each day's duty and service.

This mysterious power caught the warm imagination of the negroes. They were "servants" to others. They were her slaves and they rejoiced in the bond that bound them. They knew that her body had no rest from morning until far into the hours of the night if one of her own needed care. The master could shift his responsibility to a trained foreman. No forewoman could take her place. To the whole scheme of life she gave strength and beauty. The beat of her heart made its wheels go round.

The young Westerner studied her with growing admiration and pity. She was the mistress of an historic house. She was the manager of an estate. She was the counselor of every man, woman and child in happiness or in sorrow. She was an accomplished doctor. She was a trained nurse. She taught the hearts of men and women with a wisdom more profound and searching than any preacher or philosopher from his rostrum. She had mastered the art of dressmaking and the tailor's trade. She was an expert housekeeper. She lived at the beck and call of all. She was idolized by her husband. Her life was a supreme act of worship—a devotion to husband, children, friends, the poor, the slave that made her a high-priestess of humanity.

The thing that struck Phil with terrific force was that this beautiful delicate woman was the slave of slaves.

As a rule, they died young.

He began to wonder how a people of the intelligence of these proud white Southerners could endure such a thing as Slavery. Its waste, its extravagance, its burdens were beyond belief.

He laughed when he thought of his mother crying over Uncle Tom's Cabin. Yet a new edition of a hundred thousand copies had just come from the press.

Early Sunday morning Custis asked him to go down to the quarters to see Uncle Ben, the butler, who had not yet resumed his duties. He had sent an urgent message to his young master asking him to be kind enough to call on Sunday. The message was so formal and reserved Custis knew it was of more than usual importance.

They found the old man superintending a special breakfast of fried fish for two little boys, neatly served at a table with spotless cloth. Robbie and his friend, John Doyle, were eating the fish they had caught with Uncle Ben the day before. They were as happy as kings and talked of fish and fishing with the unction of veteran sportsmen.

The greeting to Custis was profound in its courtesy and reverence. He was the first born of the great house. He was, therefore, the prospective head of the estate. Jeffersonian Democrats had long ago abolished the old English law of primogeniture. But the idea was in the blood of the Virginia planter. The servants caught it as quickly as they caught the other English traits of love of home, family, kin, the cult of leisure, the habit of Church, the love of country. It was not an accident that the decisions of the courts of the Old South were quoted by English barristers and accepted by English judges as law. The Common Law of England was the law of Southern Seaboard States. It always had been and it is to-day.

"How is you dis mornin', Marse Custis?" Ben asked with a stately bow.

"Fine, Uncle Ben. I hope you're better?"

"Des tolerble, sah, des tolerble—" he paused and bowed to Phil. "An' dis is you' school-mate at Wes' Pint, dey tells me about?"

"Yes, Uncle," Phil answered.

"I'se glad ter welcome yer ter Arlington, sah. And I'se powerful sorry I ain't able ter be in de big house ter see dat yer git ebry thing ter make yer happy, sah. Dese here young niggers lak Sam do pooty well. But dey ain't got much sense, sah. And dey ain't got no unction'tall. Dey do de best dey kin an' dat ain't much."

"Oh, I'm having a fine time, Uncle Ben," Phil assured him.

"Praise de Lord, sah."

"Sam told me you wanted to see me, Uncle Ben," Custis said.

"'Bout sumfin mos' particular, sah—"

"At your service."

The old man waved to his wife to look after the boys' breakfast.

"Pile dem fish up on der plates, Hannah. Fill 'em up—fill'em up!"

"We're mos' full now!" Robbie shouted.

"No we ain't," John protested. "I jis begun."

Ben led the young master and his friend out the back door, past the long pile of cord wood, past the chicken yard to a strong box which he had built on tall legs under a mulberry tree. It was constructed of oak and the neatly turned gable roof was covered with old tin carefully painted with three coats of red. A heavy hasp, staple and padlock held the solid door.

Ben fumbled in his pocket, drew forth his keys and opened it. The box was his fireproof and ratproof safe in which the old man kept his valuables. His money, his trinkets, his hammer and nails, augur and bits, screwdriver and monkeywrench. From the top shelf he drew a tin can. A heavy piece of linen tied with a string served as a cover.

He carefully untied the string in silence. He shook the can. The boys saw that it was filled with salt of the coarse kind used to preserve meats.

Ben felt carefully in the salt, drew forth a shriveled piece of dark gristle, and held it up before his young master.

"Yer know what dat is, Marse Custis?"

Custis shook his head.

From the old man's tones of deep emotion he knew the matter was serious. He thought at once of the Hoodoo. But he could make out no meaning to this bit of preserved flesh.

"Never saw anything like it."

"Nasah. I spec yer didn't."

Ben pushed the gray hair back from his left ear. He wore his hair drawn low over the tips of his ears. It was a fad of his, which he never allowed to lapse.

"See anything funny 'bout de top o' dat year, sah?"

Custis looked carefully.

"It looks shorter—"

"Hit's er lot shorter. De top ob hit's clean gone, sah. Dat's why I allus combs my ha'r down close over my years—"

He paused and held up the piece of dried flesh.

"An' dat's hit, sah."

"A piece of your ear?"

"Hit sho is. Ye see, sah, a long time ergo when I wuz young an' strong ez er bull, one er dese here uppish niggers come ter our house drivin' a carriage frum Westover on de James, an' 'gin ter brag 'bout his folks bein' de bes' blood er ole Virginia. An' man I tells him sumfin. I tells dat fool nigger dat de folks at Westover wuz des fair ter midlin. Dat our folks wuz, an' allus wuz, de very fust fambly o' Virginy! I tells him, dat Marse Robert's father was General Light Horse Harry Lee dat help General Washington wid de Revolution. Dat he wuz de Govenor o' ole Virginy. Dat he speak de piece at de funeral o' George Washington, dat we all knows by heart, now—

"'Fust in war, fust in peace and fust in de hearts o' his countrymen.'

"I tells him dat Marse Robert's mother wuz a Carter. I tells him dat he could count more dan one hundred gemmen his kin. Dat his folks allus had been de very fust fambly in Virginy. I tells him dat he marry my Missis, de gran' daughter o' ole Gineral Washington his-salf—an' en—"

He paused.

"An' den, what ye reckon dat fool nigger say ter me?"

"Couldn't guess."

"He say General Washington nebber had no children. And den man, man, when he insult me lak dat, I jump on him lak a wil' cat. We fought an' we fit. We fit an' we fought. I got him down an' bit one o' his years clean off smooth wid his head. In de las' clinch he git hol' er my lef year a'fo' I could shake him, he bit de top of hit off, sah. I got him by the froat an' choke hit outen his mouf. And dar hit is, sah."

He held up the dried piece of his ear reverently.

"And what do you want me to do with it, Uncle Ben?" Custis asked seriously.

"Nuttin right now, sah. But I ain't got long ter live—"

"Oh, you'll be well in a few days, Uncle Ben."

"I mought an' den agin I moughtent. I been lyin' awake at night worryin' 'bout dat year o' mine. Ye see hit wouldn't do tall fur me ter go walkin' dem golden streets up dar in Heben wid one o' my years lopped off lake a shoat er a calf dat's been branded. Some o' dem niggers standin' on dat gol' sidewalk would laugh at me. An' dat would hurt my feelin's. Some smart Aleck would be sho ter holler, 'Dar come ole Ben. But he ain't got but one year!' Dat wouldn't do, tall, sah."

Phil bit his lips to keep from laughing. He saw the thing was no joke for the old man. It was a grim tragedy.

"What I wants ter axe, Marse Custis, is dat you promise me faithful, ez my young master, dat when I die you come to me, get dis year o' mine outen dis salt box an' stick hit back right whar it b'long 'fore dey nail me up in de coffin. I des can't 'ford ter walk down dem golden streets, 'fore all dat company, wid a piece er my year missin'. Will ye promise me, sah?"

Custis grasped the outstretched hand and clasped it.

"I promise you, Uncle Ben, faithfully."

"Den hit's all right, sah. When a Lee make a promise, hit's des ez good ez done. I know dat case I know who I'se er talkin' to."

He placed the piece of gristle back into the tin can, covered it with salt, tied the linen cover over it carefully, put it back on the shelf, locked the heavy oak door and handed Custis the key.

"I got annudder key. You keep dat one, please, sah."

Custis and Phil left the old man more cheerful than he had been for days.