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PETER AND MELINDA ANN.

CHAPTER IV.

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WALL, it wuzn’t more than a few days after the marriage and departure of Peter and Melinda Ann, when I got a letter from Cousin John Richard—he wuz then in South Carolina, hard at work agin, literally follerin’ the example of Him who went about doin’ good.

The letter wuz writ in pure friendship, and then he wanted to find out the ingredients of that spignut syrup I had give him when he wuz at Jonesville, his throat wuz a botherin’ him agin, and he said that had helped him.

That is a good syrup, very, though mebby I hadn’t ort to say it. It is one that I made up out of my own head, and is a success.

Yeller dock, and dandelion roots, and spignut, steeped up strong, and sweetened with honey.

I sent it to him to once, with some spignut roots by mail; I wuz afraid he couldn’t get ’em in the South.

And in my letter I asked him out of politeness, as it were, how he wuz a gettin’ along colporterin’, and if things looked any brighter to him in the South.

And such a answer as I got—such a letter! why, it wuz a sermon almost. Jest as skairful, jest as earnest, and jest as flowery as the talk he had talked to us when he wuz with us.

Why, it fairly sent the cold chills over me as I read it.

But it madded Josiah. He wuz mad as a hen to hear it, and he said agin that he believed Cousin John Richard (Josiah knew he wuz jest as good as gold, and he wouldn’t brook a word from anybody else agin him), but he said he believed he wuz a losin’ his faculties.

He didn’t believe a word on’t. He didn’t believe there wuz any danger nor any trouble; if folks would only let the South alone and mind their own bizness, it would get along well enough. But some folks had always got to be a putterin’ around, and a meddlin’, and he shouldn’t wonder a mite if John Richard wuz a doin’ jest such a work as that.

And I sez mildly, “Sometimes things have to be meddled with in order to get ahead any.”

“Wall,” sez he, “don’t you know how, if there is any trouble in a family, the meddlers and interferers are the ones that do the most mischief?”

“But,” sez I, “teachin’ religion and distributin’ tracts and spellin’ books hadn’t ort to do any hurt.”

“Wall, I d’no,” sez Josiah. “I d’no what kind of tracts he is a circulatin’, mebby they are inflamitory. If they are offen a piece with some of his talk here, I should think the South would ride him out.”

And so Josiah went on a runnin’ John Richard’s work and belief down to the lowest notch; and I wuz glad enough when Deacon Henzy come in on a errant, for I wuz indeed in hopes that this would change the subject.

But my hopes, as all earthly expectations are liable to be, wuz blasted. For Josiah went right on with his inflamed speeches and his unbelief about any danger a threatenin’ the nation from the South.

And I truly found myself in the condition of the one mentioned in Scripture (only different sex and circumstances), where it sez the last state of that man wuz worse than the first. For while my pardner’s talk had consisted mostly of the sin of unbelief, Deacon Henzy’s remarks wuz full of a bitter hatred and horstility towards the ex-slaveholders of the Southern States.

He truly had no bowels of compassion for ’em, not one.

He come from radical abolitionist stock on both sides, and wuz brung up under the constant throwin’ of stuns, throwed by parents and grandparents at them they considered greater sinners than themselves.

And Deacon Henzy had gathered up them stuns and set ’em in a settin’ of personal obstinacy and bigotry, and wore ’em for a breastplate.

And hard it wuz to hit any soft place under them rocky layers of prejudices inherited and acquired.

And he and his folks before him didn’t know what the word mejum wuz, not by personal experience.

It needed only a word to set him off. Josiah spoke that word, and the wheel begun to turn and grind out denunciations of the Southerners as a class and as a people.

Oh, how he rolled out big-soundin’ terms of scathin’ reproaches and burnin’ rebukes, and the horrible wickedness of one human bein’ enslavin’ another one and enrichin’ himself on the unpaid labor of a brother man!

Why, it wuz fairly skairful to hear him go on, fur skairfuller than Josiah’s talk.

He had always talked rampant on the subject I knew, but as rampant as he had always been he wuz now fur rampanter than I had ever known him to be.

But as I found out most imegiatly, he wuz agitated and excited on this occasion almost more than he could bear, when he first come in.

For he soon went on and told us all about it.

A boy he had took—Zekiel Place by name—had run away and left him; or, that is, he had made all his preparations to go when the Deacon found it out, and the boy give him the chance of lettin’ him go or keepin’ him and payin’ him wages for his work.

Now, Deacon Henzy, like so many other human creeters, wuz so intent on findin’ out and stunin’ other folks’es faults, that he didn’t have time to set down and find out about his own sins and stun himself, so to speak.

He never had thought, so I spoze, what a hard master he wuz, and how he had treated Zekiel Place.

But I knew it; and all the while he went on a talkin’ about “the ignorance and wastefulness and shiftlessness of this class of boys, and how impossible it wuz to manage ’em and keep ’em down in their places; how you had to set down on ’em and set heavy if you didn’t want to be bairded to your face and run over by ’em; how if you give ’em an inch they would take a ell, and destroy and waste more than their necks wuz worth,” etc., etc., etc.—

All the while he wuz a goin’ on and a sayin’ all this I kep’ up a thinkin’, for I knew that Zekiel was a middlin’ good boy, and had been misused by the Deacon, so I had hearn—had been worked beyend his strength, and whipped, and didn’t get enough to eat, so the boy said.

The Deacon had took him for his board and clothes; but his board wuz hard indeed, and very knotty, and his clothes wuz very light, very.

And so, bein’, as I spoze, sort o’ drove to it, he riz. And as I say, the Deacon was madder than any hen I ever see, wet or dry.

“The idee,” sez he, “of that boy, that I have took care on ever sence he wuz a child, took care on him in health, and nussed him, and doctored him when he wuz sick” (lobelia and a little catnip wuz every mite of medicine he ever give him, and a little paregoric, so I have been told)—“the idee of that boy a leavin’ me—a rizin’ up and a sayin’ as pert as a piper, ‘If you don’t want to hire me, let me go.’”

“Wall, which did you do, Deacon?” sez I.

“Why, I hired the dumb upstart! I couldn’t get along without his work, and he knew it.”

“‘The laborer,’ Deacon Henzy,” sez I, solemn, “‘is worthy of his hire.’”

“Wall, didn’t I lay out to pay him? I laid out this very fall to get him a pair of pantaloons and a vest and a cravat. I laid out to pay him richly. And he had better a trusted to me, who have been a perfect father and gardeen to him, than to have riz up and demanded his pay. But,” sez he, “there is no use of talkin’ about it now, it only excites me and onmans me, and I come in merely to borry a augur and have a little neighborly visit.”

And then wantin’, I spoze, to take his mind offen his own troubles, he sort o’ launched off agin onto his favorite theme of runnin’ down the Southerners.

“The Southern people,” sez he, “are a mass of overbearin’, tyrannical slave-drivers, selfish, without principles or consciences, crackin’ their whips over the blacks, drivin’ ’em to work, refusin’ ’em any justice.”

“Why,” sez I, “the slaves are liberated, Deacon Henzy.”

“Wall, why be they?” sez he. “It wuzn’t from any good will on the part of the bloated aristocracy of the South. They liberated ’em because they had to. Why didn’t they free ’em because it wuz right to free ’em? because it wuz right and just to the slaves? because it wuz a wicked sin that cried up to the heavens to make ’em labor, and not pay ’em for it?”

Why, he went on in fearful axents of wrath and skorn about it, and finally bein’ so wrought up, he said, “that them that upholded ’em wuz as bad as they wuz.”

Why, we had never dreamed of upholdin’ ’em, nor thought on’t; but he felt so.

He threw stuns fearful at the South, and at Josiah and me because we didn’t jine in with him and rip and tear as he did.

And them stuns kinder hurt me after a while; and so, when he asked me for the seventh time:

DEACON HENZY.

“Why didn’t they free their slaves before they wuz obleeged to?”

Then I sez, “It wuz probable for the same reason that you didn’t liberate Zekiel—mostly selfishness!”

“What! what did you say?” He could not believe his ear; he craned his neck, he turned the other ear. He wuz browbeat and stunted; and agin he sez: “What did you say?”

And I sez agin, calm as cream, but sharp and keen as a simiter, “I said it wuz selfishness, Deacon, and the power of old custom—jest the reasons why you didn’t free Zekiel.”

His linement fell more’n a inch. Like the Queen of Sheba before Solomon (only different sex) he had no spirit left in him.

He never had mistrusted; it made him feel so awful good to run the South further down than anything or anybody wuz ever run—he never mistrusted that he had ever done anything onjust, or mean, or selfish.

He loved to deplore Southern sins, but never looked to see if Northerners wuzn’t committin’ jest as ojeus ones.

I mean good, well-meanin’ Christian men, not to say anything about our white slaves in the cities who make shirts for five cents apiece, and sign their contracts with their blood.

Nor the old young children who are shut away from God’s sunshine and air in Northern manufactories and mines, and who are never free to be out under the beautiful sky till the sun has gone down or the grass is growin’ between it and their hollow, pitiful faces.

Nor the droves of street ruffians and beggars whose souls and bodies suffer and hunger jest as much under the Northern Star as under the Southern Cross.

No, I didn’t mean any of these, but jest respectable church-goers like Deacon Henzy.

And he, like so many others, wuz jest as blind to the idee as if he had been born with leather spectacles on and had wore ’em ever sence.

It is a good thing for folks North or South to have their blinders tilted up a little now and then, and get a glimpse of daylight into their orbs. I had tilted up hisen, and wuzn’t sorry a mite, not a mite. He had been a throwin’ stuns powerful, and he had got hit from one.

And pretty soon, after settin’ demute for quite a spell, he got up and left for home, feelin’ and actin’ quite meek and humble-sperited for him.

And I have hearn sence, and it comes straight to me—Zekiel’s mother told Miss Biddlecom’s Liza, and Liza’s sister-in-law told it to the Editor of the Augur’ses wife’s mother-in-law, and she told it to she that wuz Celestine Gowdey, and she that wuz Celestine told old Miss Minkley, and she told me—it come straight—that Deacon Henzy give Zekiel that very night a dollar bill, and from what I hear he has mellered up and used him first rate ever sence.

Yes, that man wuz blind as a bat and blinder. He had been for years a hackin’ at the beams that riz up on the Southern brethren’s eyes, and there he wuz a growin’ a hull crop of motes, and payin’ no attention to ’em.

But selfishness and injustice grows up jest as rank under Northern skies as Southern ones, and motes and beams flourish equally rank in both sections.

And Christians North and Christians South have to tussle with that same old man the Bible speaks of, and anon or oftener they get throwed by him.