Part 1 (1/2)
Unfettered.
by Sutton E. Griggs.
_DEDICATION._
_While a last beloved sister MARY, Was, with patience and fort.i.tude, awaiting the slow but certain tread of the Grim Reaper, she spared strength enough to read, from beginning to end, ”Overshadowed,”
that came to greet her ere she sped to the home of the departed.
Were she mindful of happenings on the earth to-day the author of this volume would be sure of at least one sympathetic reader.
To her memory ”Unfettered” is affectionately dedicated._
_THE AUTHOR._
”The chains that bound the body * * were as tender chords of mercy compared with the shackles that gyved his mind * *.”--_Kelley Miller._
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
On a sad occasion in days gone by, the people of the United States were called upon to deal with the Negro's woes, and in the haze of battle there arose to thrill the hearts of men a Fort Sumter, a Bull Run, a Gettysburg, and, at last, an Appomattox.
Since those pregnant days, in spite of a seeming retrogression in some quarters, there has been a steady, unbroken march of the Negro in an upward direction. One day our great nation that once dealt with the Negro's woes will be summoned to deal with his strength, to kindly accept or finally reject _all_ that he can do.
As the day of final adjustment is inevitable, it is wise for all of us who love our country to make a study of the internal workings of a race now shaking itself loose from the death sleep of the ages.
It is the aim of ”UNFETTERED” to lead the reader into the inner life of the Negro race and lay bare the aspirations that are fructifying there.
Those who come to these pages in quest of pen pictures of either angels or demons, are not likely to find what they seek, for our story has to do with human beings, simply. That is, we should say, with the exception of--but you will make your own exceptions when the tale is fully told.
THE AUTHOR.
CHAPTER I.
AN ANGLO-SAXON'S DEATH.
Gently the midsummer breezes rustled the green leaves of the giant oaks and towering poplars that stood guard over the Dalton house, which, as though spurning their protection, rose majestically above them and commanded a splendid view of the Tennessee fields and woodlands, stretching far out on either side of the leisurely flowing c.u.mberland.
The subdued whisperings of the winds, their elf-like tread as they cautiously crept from tree top to tree top, tended to create the suspicion that they were aware of the tragedy which their mother, Nature, was so soon to enact within the walls of the house around which we now see them hovering.
In a sumptuously furnished room of this magnificent structure, Maurice Dalton, the present owner thereof, lies dying; battling heroically yet losingly in that last, inevitable conflict which he had been summoned to wage with the forces of decay. The head of this dying Anglo-Saxon rests, in these its last moments, on the bosom of Aunt Catherine, an aged Negro woman, who was his first and loving nurse in infancy, and has been his one unswerving friend and wors.h.i.+pper in all of his after life.
On former occasions, when disease had drawn him to the edge of the grave, so skillfully did Aunt Catherine second the recuperative work of nature that he was led back to life and health. Now that her healing art has failed her, she sits heartbroken, and, like Rachel weeping for her children, refuses to be comforted. No mother ever loved an offspring with greater intensity than Aunt Catherine loved ”Maury,” as she called him.