Part 4 (1/2)
exclaimed Major Jimmy Ba.s.s.
”No, no, sweet uncle; but I've got a nicer dose than tar and feathers.”
The result was that the stranger's face and hands were given a coat of lampblack, his arms were tied to his body, and a large placard was fastened to his back. The placard bore this inscription:
ABOLITIONIST!
Pa.s.s HIM ON, BOYS
Mr. Davies was a pitiful-looking object after the young men had plastered his face and hands with lampblack and oil, and yet his appearance bore a certain queer relation to the humorous exhibitions one sees on the negro minstrel stage. Particularly was this the case when he smiled at Compton.
”By George, boys!” exclaimed Mr. Buck Ransome, ”this chap could play Old Bob Ridley at the circus.”
When everything was arranged to suit them, the young men formed a procession, and marched the blackened stranger from Little Compton's door into the public street. Little Compton seemed to be very much interested in the proceeding. It was remarked afterward that he seemed to be very much agitated, and that he took a position very near the placarded abolitionist. The procession, as it moved up the street, attracted considerable attention. Rumors that an abolitionist was to be dealt with had apparently been circulated, and a majority of the male inhabitants of the town were out to view the spectacle. The procession pa.s.sed entirely around the public square, of which the court-house was the centre, and then across the square to the park-like enclosure that surrounded the temple of justice.
As the young men and their prisoner crossed this open s.p.a.ce, Major Jimmy Ba.s.s, fat as he was, grew so hilarious that he straddled his cane as children do broomsticks, and pretended that he had as much as he could do to hold his fiery wooden steed. He waddled and pranced out in front of the abolitionist, and turned and faced him, whereat his steed showed the most violent symptoms of running away. The young men roared with laughter, and the spectators roared with them, and even the abolitionist laughed. All laughed but Little Compton. The procession was marched to the court-house enclosure, and there the prisoner was made to stand on the sale-block so that all might have a fair view of him. He was kept there until the stage was ready to go; and then he was given a seat on that swaying vehicle, and forwarded to Rockville, where, presumably, the ”boys” placed him on the train and ”pa.s.sed him on” to the ”boys” in other towns.
For months thereafter there was peace in Hillsborough, so far as the abolitionists were concerned; and then came the secession movement. A majority of the citizens of the little town were strong Union men; but the secession movement seemed to take even the oldest off their feet, and by the time the Republican President was inaugurated, the Union sentiment that had marked Hillsborough had practically disappeared. In South Carolina companies of minutemen had been formed, and the entire white male population was wearing blue c.o.c.kades. With some modifications, these symptoms were reproduced in Hillsborough. The modifications were that a few of the old men still stood up for the Union, and that some of the young men, though they wore the blue c.o.c.kade, did not aline themselves with the minutemen.
Little Compton took no part in these proceedings. He was discreetly quiet. He tended his store, and smoked his pipe, and watched events. One morning he was aroused from his slumbers by a tremendous crash--a crash that rattled the windows of his store and shook its very walls. He lay quiet a while, thinking that a small earthquake had been turned loose on the town. Then the crash was repeated; and he knew that Hillsborough was firing a salute from its little six-pounder, a relic of the Revolution, that had often served the purpose of celebrating the nation's birthday in a noisily becoming manner.
Little Compton arose, and dressed himself, and prepared to put his store in order. Issuing forth into the street, he saw that the town was in considerable commotion. A citizen who had been in attendance on the convention at Milledgeville had arrived during the night, bringing the information that the ordinance of secession had been adopted, and that Georgia was now a sovereign and independent government. The original secessionists were in high feather, and their hilarious enthusiasm had its effect on all save a few of the Union men.
Early as it was, Little Compton saw two flags floating from an improvised flagstaff on top of the court-house. One was the flag of the State, with its pillars, its sentinel, and its legend of ”Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation.” The design of the other was entirely new to Little Compton. It was a pine tree on a field of white, with a rattlesnake coiled at its roots, and the inscription, ”DON'T TREAD ON ME!” A few hours later Uncle Abner Lazenberry made his appearance in front of Compton's store. He had just hitched his horse to the rack near the court-house.
”Merciful heavens” he exclaimed, wiping his red face with a red handkerchief, ”is the Ole Boy done gone an' turned hisself loose? I hearn the racket, an' I sez to the ole woman, sez I: 'I'll fling the saddle on the gray mar' an' canter to town an' see what in the dingnation the matter is. An' ef the worl's about to fetch a lurch, I'll git me another dram an' die happy,' sez I. Whar's Jack Walthall? He can tell his Uncle Abner all about it.”
”Well, sir,” said Little Compton, ”the State has seceded, and the boys are celebrating.”
”I know'd it,” cried the old man angrily. ”My min' tole me so.” Then he turned and looked at the flags flying from the top of the court-house.
”Is them rags the things they er gwine to fly out'n the Union with?” he exclaimed scornfully. ”Why, bless your soul an body, hit'll take bigger wings than them! Well, sir, I'm sick; I am that away. I wuz born in the Union, an' I'd like mighty well to die thar. Ain't it mine? ain't it our'n? Jess as sh.o.r.e as you're born, thar's trouble ahead--big trouble.
You're from the North, ain't you?” Uncle Abner asked, looking curiously at Little Compton.
”Yes, sir, I am,” Compton replied; ”that is, I am from New Jersey, but they say New Jersey is out of the Union.”
Uncle Abner did not respond to Compton's smile. He continued to gaze at him significantly.
”Well,” the old man remarked somewhat bluntly, ”you better go back where you come from. You ain't got nothin' in the roun' worl' to do with all this h.e.l.labaloo. When the pinch comes, as come it must, I'm jes gwine to swap a n.i.g.g.e.r for a sack er flour an' settle down; but you had better go back where you come from.”
Little Compton knew the old man was friendly; but his words, so solemnly and significantly uttered, made a deep impression. The words recalled to Compton's mind the spectacle of the man from Vermont who had been paraded through the streets of Hillsborough, with his face blackened and a placard on his back. The little Jerseyman also recalled other incidents, some of them trifling enough, but all of them together going to show the hot temper of the people around him; and for a day or two he brooded rather seriously over the situation. He knew that the times were critical.
For several weeks the excitement in Hillsborough, as elsewhere in the South, continued to run high. The blood of the people was at fever heat.
The air was full of the portents and premonitions of war. Drums were beating, flags were flying, and military companies were parading. Jack Walthall had raised a company, and it had gone into camp in an old field near the town. The tents shone snowy white in the sun, uniforms of the men were bright and gay, and the boys thought this was war. But, instead of that, they were merely enjoying a holiday. The ladies of the town sent them wagon-loads of provisions every day, and the occasion was a veritable picnic--a picnic that some of the young men remembered a year or two later when they were trudging ragged, barefooted, and hungry, through the snow and slush of a Virginia winter.
But, with all their drilling and parading in the peaceful camp at Hillsborough, the young men had many idle hours, and they devoted these to various forms of amus.e.m.e.nts. On one occasion, after they had exhausted their ingenuity in search of entertainment, one of them, Lieutenant Buck Ransome, suggested that it might be interesting to get up a joke on Little Compton.
”But how?” asked Lieutenant Cozart.
”Why, the easiest in the world,” said Lieutenant Ransome. ”Write him a note, and tell him that the time has come for an English-speaking people to take sides, and fling in a kind of side-wiper about New Jersey.”