Part 7 (1/2)
But the General's celerity was resented. He boarded at the St. Charles, and, famous, sociable, and fond of politics, came at once into personal contact with the highest Federal authorities in New Orleans. The happy dead earnest with which he ”accepted the situation” and ”harmonized”
with these men sorely offended his old friends and drew the fire of the newspapers. Even Judge March demurred.
”President Garnet,” John heard the beloved voice in front of him say, ”gentlemen may cry Peace, Peace, but there can be too much peace, sir!”
The General came out in an open letter, probably not so sententiously as we condense it here, but in substance to this effect: ”The king never dies; citizens.h.i.+p never ceases; a bereaved citizens.h.i.+p has no right to put on expensive mourning, and linger through a dressy widowhood before it marries again.... There are men who, when their tree has been cut down even with the ground, will try to sit in the shade of the stump....
Such men are those who, now that slavery is gone, still cling to a civil order based on the old plantation system.... They are like a wood-sawyer robbed of his saw-horse and trying to saw wood in his lap.”
All these darts struck and stung, but a little soft mud, such as any editor could supply, would soon have drawn out the sting--but for an additional line or two, which gave poisonous and mortal offense.
Blackland and Clearwater replied in a storm of indignation. The Suez Courier bade him keep out of Dixie on peril of his life. He came, nevertheless, canva.s.sing for business, and was not molested, but got very few s.h.i.+pments. What he mainly secured were the flippant pledges of such as required the largest possible advances indefinitely ahead of the least possible cotton. Also a few Yankees s.h.i.+pped to him.
”Gen'l Halliday, howdy, sah?” It was dusk of the last day of this tour.
The voice came from a dark place on the sidewalk in Suez. ”Don't you know me, Gen'l? You often used to see me an' Majo' Gyarnet togetheh; yes, sah. My name's Cornelius Leggett, sah.”
”Why, Cornelius, to be sure! I thought I smelt whiskey. What can I do for you?”
”Gen'l, I has the honor to espress to you, sah, my thanks faw the way you espress yo'self in yo' letteh on the concerns an' prospec's o' we'
colo'ed people, sah. An likewise, they's thousands would like to espress the same espressions, sah.”
”Oh, that's all right.”
”Gen'l, I represents a quant.i.ty of ow people what's move' down into Blackland fum Rosemont and other hill places. They espress they'se'ves to me as they agent that they like to confawm some prearrangement with you, sah.”
”Are you all on one plantation?”
”Oh, no, sah, they ain't ezac'ly on no plantation. Me? Ob, I been a-goin' to the Freedman' Bureau school in Pulaski City as they agent.
”Sah? Ya.s.s, sah, at they espenses--p-he!
”They? They mos'ly strowed round in the woods in pole cabins an' bresh arbors.--Sah?
”Yaas, sah, livin' on game an' fish.--Sah?
”Yaas, sah.
”But they espress they doubts that the Gove'ment ain't goin' to give 'em no fahms, an' they like to comprise with you, Gen'l, ef you please, sah, to git holt o' some fahms o' they own, you know; sawt o' payin' faw'm bes' way they kin; ya.s.s, sah. As you say in yo' letteh, betteh give 'm lan's than keep 'em vagabones; ya.s.s, sir. Betteh no terms than none at all; ya.s.s, sah.” And so on.
From this colloquy resulted the Negro farm-village of Leggettstown. In 1866-68 it grew up on the old Halliday place, which had reverted to the General by mortgage. Neatest among its whitewashed cabins, greenest with gourd-vines, and always the nearest paid for, was that of the Reverend Leviticus Wisdom, his wife, Virginia, and her step-daughter, Johanna.
In the fall of 1869 General Halliday came back to Suez to live. His wife, a son, and daughter had died, two daughters had married and gone to the Northwest, others were here and there. A daughter of sixteen was with him--they two alone. The ebb-tide of the war values had left him among the shoals; his black curls were full of frost, his bank box was stuffed with plantation mortgages, his notes were protested. He had come to operate, from Suez as a base, several estates surrendered to him by debtors and entrusted to his management by his creditors. This he wished to do on what seemed to him an original plan, of which Leggettstown was only a clumsy sketch, a plan based on his belief in the profound economic value of--”villages of small freeholding farmers, my dear sir!”
”It's the natural crystal of free conditions!” John heard him say in the post-office corner of Weed & Usher's drug-store.
Empty words to John. He noted only the n.o.ble air of the speaker and his hearers. Every man of the group had been a soldier. The General showed much more polish than the others, but they all had the strong graces of hors.e.m.e.n and masters, and many a subtle sign of civilization and cult heated and hammered through centuries of search for good government and honorable fortune. John stopped and gazed.
”Come on, son,” said Judge March almost sharply. John began to back away. ”There!” exclaimed the father as his son sat down suddenly in a box of sawdust and cigar stumps. He led him away to clean him off, adding, ”You hadn't ought to stare at people as you walk away fum them, my son.”