Part 1 (2/2)
Free Joe fumbled with his hat. He was badly frightened.
”Lucindy say she speck you wouldn't min' my comin', long ez I behave, marster.”
Calderwood tore the pa.s.s in pieces and flung it away.
”Don't want no free n.i.g.g.e.rs 'round here,” he exclaimed. ”There's the big road. It'll carry you to town. Don't let me catch you here no more. Now, mind what I tell you.”
Free Joe presented a shabby spectacle as he moved off with his little dog Dan slinking at his heels. It should be said in behalf of Dan, however, that his bristles were up, and that he looked back and growled.
It may be that the dog had the advantage of insignificance, but it is difficult to conceive how a dog bold enough to raise his bristles under Calderwood's very eyes could be as insignificant as Free Joe. But both the negro and his little dog seemed to give a new and more dismal aspect to forlornness as they turned into the road and went toward Hillsborough.
After this incident Free Joe appeared to have clearer ideas concerning his peculiar condition. He realized the fact that though he was free he was more helpless than any slave. Having no owner, every man was his master. He knew that he was the object of suspicion, and therefore all his slender resources (ah! how pitifully slender they were!) were devoted to winning, not kindness and appreciation, but toleration; all his efforts were in the direction of mitigating the circ.u.mstances that tended to make his condition so much worse than that of the negroes around him--negroes who had friends because they had masters.
So far as his own race was concerned, Free Joe was an exile. If the slaves secretly envied him his freedom (which is to be doubted, considering his miserable condition), they openly despised him, and lost no opportunity to treat him with contumely. Perhaps this was in some measure the result of the att.i.tude which Free Joe chose to maintain toward them. No doubt his instinct taught him that to hold himself aloof from the slaves would be to invite from the whites the toleration which he coveted, and without which even his miserable condition would be rendered more miserable still.
His greatest trouble was the fact that he was not allowed to visit his wife; but he soon found a way out of his difficulty. After he had been ordered away from the Calderwood place, he was in the habit of wandering as far in that direction as prudence would permit. Near the Calderwood place, but not on Calderwood's land, lived an old man named Micajah Staley and his sister Becky Staley. These people were old and very poor. Old Micajah had a palsied arm and hand; but, in spite of this, he managed to earn a precarious living with his turning-lathe.
When he was a slave Free Joe would have scorned these representatives of a cla.s.s known as poor white trash, but now he found them sympathetic and helpful in various ways. From the back door of their cabin he could hear the Calderwood negroes singing at night, and he sometimes fancied he could distinguish Lucinda's shrill treble rising above the other voices.
A large poplar grew in the woods some distance from the Staley cabin, and at the foot of this tree Free Joe would sit for hours with his face turned toward Calderwood's. His little dog Dan would curl up in the leaves near by, and the two seemed to be as comfortable as possible.
One Sat.u.r.day afternoon Free Joe, sitting at the foot of this friendly poplar, fell asleep. How long he slept, he could not tell; but when he awoke little Dan was licking his face, the moon was s.h.i.+ning brightly, and Lucinda his wife stood before him laughing. The dog, seeing that Free Joe was asleep, had grown somewhat impatient, and he concluded to make an excursion to the Calderwood place on his own account. Lucinda was inclined to give the incident a twist in the direction of superst.i.tion.
”I 'uz settn' down front er de fireplace,” she said, ”cookin' me some meat, w'en all of a sudden I year sumpin at de do'--scratch, scratch. I tuck'n tu'n de meat over, en make out I ain't year it. Bimeby it come dar 'gin--scratch, scratch. I up en open de do', I did, en, bless de Lord! dar wuz little Dan, en it look like ter me dat his ribs done grow terge'er. I gin 'im some bread, en den, w'en he start out, I tuck'n foller 'im, kaze, I say ter myse'f, maybe my n.i.g.g.e.r man mought be some'rs 'roun'. Dat ar little dog got sense, mon.”
Free Joe laughed and dropped his hand lightly on Dan's head. For a long time after that he had no difficulty in seeing his wife. He had only to sit by the poplar tree until little Dan could run and fetch her. But after a while the other negroes discovered that Lucinda was meeting Free Joe in the woods, and information of the fact soon reached Calderwood's ears. Calderwood was what is called a man of action. He said nothing; but one day he put Lucinda in his buggy, and carried her to Macon, sixty miles away. He carried her to Macon, and came back without her; and n.o.body in or around Hillsborough, or in that section, ever saw her again.
For many a night after that Free Joe sat in the woods and waited. Little Dan would run merrily off and be gone a long time, but he always came back without Lucinda. This happened over and over again. The ”willis-whistlers” would call and call, like fantom huntsmen wandering on a far-off sh.o.r.e; the screech-owl would shake and s.h.i.+ver in the depths of the woods; the night-hawks, sweeping by on noiseless wings, would snap their beaks as though they enjoyed the huge joke of which Free Joe and little Dan were the victims; and the whip-poor-wills would cry to each other through the gloom. Each night seemed to be lonelier than the preceding, but Free Joe's patience was proof against loneliness. There came a time, however, when little Dan refused to go after Lucinda. When Free Joe motioned him in the direction of the Calderwood place, he would simply move about uneasily and whine; then he would curl up in the leaves and make himself comfortable.
One night, instead of going to the poplar tree to wait for Lucinda, Free Joe went to the Staley cabin, and, in order to make his welcome good, as he expressed it, he carried with him an armful of fat-pine splinters.
Miss Becky Staley had a great reputation in those parts as a fortune-teller, and the schoolgirls, as well as older people, often tested her powers in this direction, some in jest and some in earnest.
Free Joe placed his humble offering of light-wood in the chimney corner, and then seated himself on the steps, dropping his hat on the ground outside.
”Miss Becky,” he said presently, ”whar in de name er gracious you reckon Lucindy is?”
”Well, the Lord he'p the n.i.g.g.e.r!” exclaimed Miss Becky, in a tone that seemed to reproduce, by some curious agreement of sight with sound, her general aspect of peakedness. ”Well, the Lord he'p the n.i.g.g.e.r! hain't you been a-seein' her all this blessed time? She's over at old Spite Calderwood's, if she's anywheres, I reckon.”
”No'm, dat I ain't, Miss Becky. I ain't seen Lucindy in now gwine on mighty nigh a mont'.”
”Well, it hain't a-gwine to hurt you,” said Miss Becky, somewhat sharply. ”In my day an' time it wuz allers took to be a bad sign when n.i.g.g.e.rs got to honeyin' 'roun' an' gwine on.”
”Yessum,” said Free Joe, cheerfully a.s.senting to the proposition--”yessum, dat's so, but me an' my ole 'oman, we 'uz raise terge'er, en dey ain't bin many days w'en we 'uz' 'way fum one 'n'er like we is now.”
”Maybe she's up an' took up wi' some un else,” said Micajah Staley from the corner. ”You know what the sayin' is: 'New master, new n.i.g.g.e.r.'”
”Dat's so, dat's de sayin', but tain't wid my ole 'oman like 'tis wid yuther n.i.g.g.e.rs. Me en her wuz des natally raise up terge'er. Dey's lots likelier n.i.g.g.e.rs dan w'at I is,” said Free Joe, viewing his shabbiness with a critical eye, ”but I knows Lucindy mos' good ez I does little Dan dar--dat I does.”
There was no reply to this, and Free Joe continued:
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