Books: The Law of the Land
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Emerson Hough >> The Law of the Land
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"I know something of that," said Mrs. Ellison. "That was soon after
the war, they tell me. But they gave that up long ago. They don't
bother with politics now."
"No," resumed Blount. "They're not studying so much as they used to.
Not long ago I had a number of northern philanthropists down here,
who came down to look into the "conditions in this district." I said
I'd show them everything they wanted; so I sent out for some of my
field hands. I said to one of them, "Bill," said I, "these gentlemen
want to ask you some questions. I suppose your name is William Henry
Arnold, isn't it?" "Yassah," said Bill. "You was county supervisor
here some years ago, wasn't you, Bill?' 'Yassah,' said Bill. I said,
'I beg your pardon, Mr. William Henry Arnold, but will you please
step up here to my desk and write your name for these gentlemen?'
'Why, sho'! boss,' said he, 'you know I kain't write mah name.'
'That's all,' said I.
"'Now, gentlemen,' said I, 'exhibit number two is Mr. George
Washington Sims. 'George,' said I, 'you used to be our county
treasurer, didn't you?' He said he did. 'Who paid the taxes, then,
George?' said I. 'Why, boss, you white folks paid most of 'um.' 'All
right, Mr. George Washington Sims,' said I, 'you step up here and
write your name for these gentlemen.' He just laughed. 'That'll do,'
said I.
"'Exhibit number three,' said I to these northern philanthropists,
'is our late distinguished fellow citizen, Abednego Shadrach Jones.
He was our county clerk down here a while back. 'Nego, who paid the
taxes, time you was clerk?' He was right uncomfortable. 'Why, boss,'
said he, 'you paid most of 'um, you an' the white folks in heah. No
niggah man had nothin' to pay taxes on.'
"'You know that we white folks had to pay for the schools and
bridges, and the county buildings--had to pay salaries--had to pay
the county clerk and the janitor--had to pay everything?' I said to
him. 'Yassah,' said Nego.
"'You were elected legally, and we white folks couldn't out-vote you,
nohow?' 'Yassah,' said he. 'I s'pose we wus all 'lected legal 'nough.
I dunno rightly, but dey all done tol' me dat wuz so.'
"'Nego,' said I, 'step up here to your boss' desk and write your
name, just like you do when I give you credit for a bale of cotton.'
Nego he steps up and he makes a mark, and a mighty poor mark at that.
'You can go,' I said to him.
"'Now, gentlemen,' said I to them, 'do you want exhibits number four
and five and six?' And they allowed they didn't.
"There was one fellow in the lot who stepped up to me and took my
hand. He was a Federal colonel in the war, but he said to me,
'Colonel Blount, I beg your pardon. You have made this plainer to me
than I ever saw it before. It would be the ruin of this country if
you gave over the control of your homes and property and let them be
run by people like these. You have solved this problem for
yourselves, and you ought to be left to solve it all the time. As for
us folks from the North, we are a lot of ignorant meddlers; and as
for me, I'm going home.'"
Blount fell silent, musing for a time. "Some folks say, 'Educate the
negro,'" he resumed finally, "they say 'Uplift him.' They say 'Give
him a chance.' So do I. I will give him more than a chance. I will
let the negroes do all they can to help themselves, and I'll do the
balance myself. But they can't rule me, until they are better than I
am; and that's going to be a long while yet. Constitution or no
constitution, government or no government, the black rule can't and
don't go in the Delta! It wouldn't be _right_.
"Now, I'll tell you about those two poor fellows to-day," he
continued. "There was Tom Sands, who works on a plantation about
twelve miles from here. He has been getting drunk and beating his
wife and scaring his children for about three months. Judge Williams
had him up not long ago and bound him over to keep the peace, and
when I last saw the judge he told me to take this negro up, if I was
going by there any time, and bring him up and put him in jail for a
while, until he got to behaving himself again. You know we have to do
these things right along, to keep this country quiet.
"Well, when we were coming in from the hunt, we passed within a few
miles of his cotton patch, and I rode over to see him. He was out in
the field, and I found him and told him he had to come along. He
refused to come. He swore at me--and he was not even a county
surveyor in the old days! Then I ordered him in the name of the law
to come along. He picked up a piece of fence rail and started at me.
I had to get down off my horse to meet him. I own I struck him right
hard. There was another boy, a big black negro, that must have come
in here lately from some other part of the country, a big, stoop-
shouldered fellow--well, he started for me, too. I took up the same
piece of fence rail and knocked him down.
"I ought not to have told you this, ma'am," said Blount, rising. "But
then, maybe it's just as well that I did. You never can tell what
will come out of these things. We live over a black volcano in this
country all the time. Now, I didn't bring in either one of my
prisoners. I hoped that maybe they would take this fence rail
argument as a sort of temporary equivalent to a term in jail. But to-
morrow I'm going down in there and bring that Sands boy in. We never
dare give an inch in a matter of this kind."
"Do you think they will make any trouble?" said Mrs. Ellison.
"Never you mind about the _trouble_ part of it," said Blount, quietly.
"I reckon he'll come in. I'm going to take a _wagon_ this time. So
that's the kind of luck we had on this b'ah hunt."
He arose to go, and left Mrs. Ellison sitting still in the shaded
room, her fan now at rest, her eyes bent down thoughtfully, but her
foot tapping at the floor. The incidents just related passed quickly
from her mind. She remembered only that, as they talked, this man's
eye had wandered from her own. He was occupied with problems of
politics, of business, of sport, and was letting go that great game
for a strong man, the game of love! She could scarce tell at the
moment whether she most felt for him contempt or hatred--or something
far different from either.
At length she arose and paced the room, swiftly as the press of
strange events which were hurrying her along. Indeed, she might,
without any great shrewdness, have found warning in certain things
happening of late in and around the Big House; but Alice Ellison ever
most loved her own fancy as counsel. The blacks might rise if they
liked; Miss Lady might do as she listed, after all. Delphine and
young Decherd might go their several ways; but as for her, and as for
this man Calvin Blount--ah, well!
She yawned and stretched out her arms, feline, easy, graceful, and so
at length sank into her easy chair, half purring as she shifted now
and again to a more comfortable position.
CHAPTER VI
THE DRUM
John Eddring, the heat of his late encounter past, sat moodily
staring out from the platform of the little station to which he had
returned. He was angry with all the world, and angry with himself
most of all. It had been his duty to deal amicably with a man of the
position of Colonel Calvin Blount, yet how had he comported himself?
Like a school-boy! But for that he might have been the accepted guest
now, there at the Big House, instead of being the only man ever known
to turn back upon its door. But for his sudden choler, he reflected,
he might perhaps at this very moment be within seeing and speaking
distance of this tall girl of the scarlet ribbons, the very same
whose presence he had vaguely felt about the place all that morning,
in the occasional sound of a distant song, or the rush of feet upon
the gallery, or the whisk of skirts frequently heard. The memory of
that picture clung fast and would not vanish. She was so very
beautiful, he reflected. It had been pleasanter to sit at table in
such company than thus here alone, hungry, like an outcast.
He felt his gaze, like that of a love-sick boy, turning again and
again toward the spot where he had seen her last. The realization of
this angered him. He rebuked himself sternly, as having been unworthy
of himself, as having been light, as having been unmanly, in thus
allowing himself to be influenced by a mere irrational fancy. He
summoned his strength to banish this chimera, and then with sudden
horror which sent his brow half-moist, he realized that his faculties
did not obey, that he was thinking of the same picture, that his eyes
were still coveting it, his heart--ah, could there be truth in these
stories of sudden and uncontrollable impulses of the heart? The very
whisper of it gave him terror. His brow grew moister. For him, John
Eddring--what could the world hold for him but this one thing of
duty?
Duty! He laughed at the thought. These two iron bands before his eyes
irked his soul, binding him, as they did, hard and fast to another
world full of unwelcome things. There came again and again to his
mind this picture of the maid with the bright ribbons. He gazed at
the distant spot beneath the evergreens where he had seen her. He
could picture so distinctly her high-headed carriage, the straight
gaze of her eyes, the glow on her cheeks; could restore so clearly
the very sweep of the dark hair tumbled about her brow. Smitten of
this sight, he would fain have had view again. Alas! it was as when,
upon a crowded street, one gazes at the passing figure of him whose
presence smites with the swift call of friendship--and turns, only to
see this unknown friend swallowed up in the crowd for ever. Thus had
passed the view of this young girl of the Big House; and there
remained no sort of footing upon which he could base a hope of a
better fortune. Henceforth he must count himself apart from all Big
House affairs. He was an outcast, a pariah. Disgusted, he rose from
his rude seat at the window ledge and walked up the platform. He
found it too sunny, and returned to take a seat again upon a broken
truck near by.
There was a little country store close to the platform, so built that
it almost adjoined the ware-room of the railway station; this being
the place where the colored folk of the neighborhood purchased their
supplies. At the present moment, this building seemed to lack much of
its usual occupancy, yet there arose, now and again, sounds of low
conversation partly audible through the open window. The voices were
those of negroes, and they spoke guardedly, but eagerly, with some
peculiar quality in their speech which caught the sixth sense of the
Southerner, accustomed always to living upon the verge of a certain
danger. The fact that they were speaking thus in so public a place,
and at the mid-hour of the working day, was of itself enough to
attract the attention of any white dweller of that region.
"I tell yuh," said one, "it's gone fah 'nough. Who runs de fahms, who
makes de cotton, who does de wu'k for all dis heah lan'? Who used to
run de gov'ment, and who orter now, if it ain't us black folks? Dey
throw us out, an' dey won't let us vote, an' we-all know we gotter
right to vote. Dey say a nigger ain't fitten ter do nothin' but wu'k,
wu'k, wu'k. Nigger got good a right to live de way he want ter as de
white man is. Now it's time fer change. De Queen, you-all knows, she
done say de time come fer a change."
A low growl, as from the throats of feeding beasts, greeted this
comment. Footfalls, shuffling, approached the speaker.
"Tom Sands is daid, dat's whut he is," resumed the first speaker,
"leastways as good as daid, 'cause he's just a-layin' thah an' kain't
move er speak. An' look at me, look at my haid. De ol' man hit him
pow'ful hahd, an' ef he didn't hit me jest de same, it wasn't no
fault o' his'n, I tell you. He jes' soon killed bof of us niggers
thah as not. Whaffor? He want we-all to come inter town an' git
fined, git into jail ag'in." More growls than one greeted this, and
then there came silence for a while.
"My ol' daddy done tol' me twenty-five yeah ago," said the first
speaker, "dat de time was a-goin' ter come. Dey wus onct a white man
f'om up Norf come all over dis country, fifty yeah ago, an' he
preached it ter de niggers befo' de wah dat some day de time gwine
come. We wus ter raise up all over the Souf an' kill all de white
folks, an' den all de white women--
"We wus ter kill all de white men," at length resumed the same voice.
"De white men f'om de Norf wus ter ride intoe de towns den an' rob
all de banks an' divide de money wid we-all, an' dey wus to open de
sto's and give ebery nigger all de goods he want wifout paying
nuthin' fer 'em; and den nigger ain't gwine to wu'k no mo'.
"Dat white man and his folks, my ol' daddy said, fifty yeah ago, dey
wu'k secret all over the Souf, from Tenn'ssee ter Louisian'. Dat was
fifty yeah ago, but my ol' daddy say when he was a piccaninny, dis
heah thing got out somehow an' de white folks down Souf dey cotch dis
white man f'om de Norf, an' done hang him, an' dey done hang and burn
a heap o' niggers all over de Souf.
"Dat wus long time befo' de wah. Dey tol' us-all dat de time wuz sho'
comin' den; but den de preachers and de doctors dey tol' us-all it
mightn't be come den, but it would come some day. Den 'long come de
wah, an' de preachers an' de doctors an' de white folks up Norf dey
done tol' us, nigger gwine ter be free, not to have ter wu'k no mo'.
Huh! Now look at us! We wu'k jest as hard as we ever did, an' we git
no mo' fer it dan whut we eat an' weah. We kain't vote. Dey done
robbed us outen dat. We kain't be nobody. We kain't git 'long. We
hatter wu'k jest same, wu'k, wu'k, wu'k, all de time. Nigger jest as
well be daid as hatter wu'k all de time--got no vote, ner nuthin'.
Dat's whut de Queen she done tol' me right plain las' meetin' we had.
She say white folks up Norf gwine to help nigger now, right erlong.
Things gwine be different now, right soon."
Murmurs, singularly stirring, peculiarly ominous, answered this
extended speech. Encouraged, the orator went on. "We ain't good as
slaves, we-all ain't. We wu'k jest ez hahd. Dey gin us a taste o' de
white bread, an' den dey done snatch it 'way f'om us. We want ter be
like white folks. Up Norf dey tell us we gwine ter be, but down heah
dey won't let us."
Now suddenly the voice broke into a wail and rose again in a half-
chant. Evidently the storekeeper was absent, perhaps across the way
for his dinner. The building was left to the blacks. Without
premeditation, those present had dropped into one of those "meetings"
which white men of that region never encourage.
"Dey brung us heah in chains, O Lord!" shouted the orator. "Yea, in
chains dey done weigh us down! O Lord, make us delivery. O Lord,
smite down ouah oppressohs."
"Lord! Lord! yea, O Lord, smite down!" responded the ready chorus.
And there were sobs and strange savage gutterals which no white ear
may ever fully understand. The white listener on the station platform
understood enough, and his eager face grew tense and grave. A meeting
of the blacks, thus bold at such a time, meant nothing but danger,
perhaps danger immediate and most serious.
The wild chant rose and fell in a sudden gust, and then the voice
went on. "De time is heah; I seen it in a dream, I seen it in a
vision f'om de Lord. De Lord done tell it to de Queen, and done say
ter me, 'Rise, rise and slay mightily. Take de land o' de oppressoh,
take his women away f'om him an' lay de oppressoh in de dus'! Cease
dy labors, Gideon, cease an' take dy rest! Enter into de lan', O
Gideon, an' take it foh dyself! O, Lord, give us de arm of de
Avengeh. I seen it, I seen it on de sky! I done seen it foh yeahs,
an' now I seen it plain! De moon have it writ on her face las' night,
de birds sing it in de trees, de chicken act it in his talk dis vehy
mawnin'. De dog he howl it out las' night. De sun he show it plain
dis vehy day. De trees say it, now weeks an' weeks. All de worl' say
to nigger now, jes' like he heah it fifty yeah ago, jes' like he heah
it in de wah we made--'De Time, de Time!' I heah it in my ears. I
kain't heah nuthin' else but dat--'De Time, de Time am heah!' Nuthin'
but jes' dis heah, 'De Time, de Time am heah!'"
And now there ensued a yet stranger thing. There was no further voice
of the orator; but thee arose a wild, plaintive sound of chanting, a
song which none but those who sang it might have understood. Its
savage unison rose and fell for just one bar or so, and then sank to
sudden silence. There came a quick shuffling of feet in separation.
The group fell apart. The store was empty! Out in the open air, under
the warm summons of the sun, there passed a merry, laughing group of
negroes, happy, care-free, each humming the burden of some simple
song, each slouching across the road, as though ease and the warm sun
filled all his soul! Dissimulation and secretiveness, seeded in
savagery, nourished in oppression, ingrained in the soul for
generations, are part of a nature as opaque to the average Caucasian
eye as is the sable skin of Africa itself.
They scattered, but a keen eye followed them. Eddring saw that they
began to come together again at different points, group joining
group, and all bending their steps toward the edge of the surrounding
forest. Had the owner of the Big House, or any planter thereabout,
seen this gathering at the midday hour, when the people should have
been at their work, he would assuredly have stopped them and made
sharp questioning. But at the moment the storekeeper was at home
asleep in his noonday nap; the owner of the Big House had problems of
his own, and, as it chanced, none of the neighboring planters was at
the railroad station. John Eddring, now fully alert, looked sharply
about him, then slipped down from the railway platform. He crossed a
little field by a faint path, and hurried off to the shadow of the
woods, his course paralleling the forest road as nearly as might be.
At half-past three that afternoon, at a point five miles from the
railway station, there was enacted a scene which might more properly
have claimed as its home a country far distant from this. Yet there
was something fitting in this environment. All around swept the
heavy, solemn forest, its giant oaks draped here and there with the
funereal Spanish moss. A ghostly sycamore, a mammoth gum-tree now and
then thrust up a giant head above the lesser growth. Smaller trees,
the ash, the rough hickory, the hack-berry, the mulberry, and in the
open glades the slender persimmon and the stringy southern birches
crowded close together. Over all swept the masses of thick cane
growth, interlaced with tough vines of grape and creeping, thorned
briers. It was the jungle. This might have been Africa itself!
And it might have been Africa itself which produced the sound that
now broke upon the ear--a deep, single, booming note which caused the
brooding air of the ancient wood to shiver as though in apprehension.
There had been faint forest sounds before that note broke out: the
small birds running up and down the tree-trunks had chirped and
chattered faintly; the squirrels on the nut trees had dropped some
bits of bark which rustled faintly as they fell from leaf to leaf; a
rabbit ambling across the way had left a vine a-tremble as it
disappeared, and a far-off crow had uttered its hoarse note as it
alighted on a naked limb. But as this deep, reverberant, single note
boomed out across the jungle, there came a sudden hush of all nature.
It was as though each living thing caught terror at the sound. Only
far above, as though they heard a summons, the black-winged buzzards
idly circled over.
The note came again, single, deep, vibrant, smiting a world gone
silent. There had been the interval of a full minute between the two
echoes of the giant drum. A minute followed before it spoke again.
And thus there boomed out across the jungle, deep, solemn, ominous,
miles-wide in its far-reaching quality, this note of the savage drum;
the drum never made by white hands, never seen by the eyes of white
men; the drum whose note has never yet been heard in the North, but
which some day, perhaps, may be; whose note is not yet understood by
those of the North, over-wise, arrogant in the arrogance of an utter
ignorance, who may yet one day hear its strange and frenzied summons!
The drum spoke on--the drum of the savage people, of the ancient
savage tribes. The rolling vibration of its speech swung and
extended, causing the leaves to shiver in its strange power. The
sound could have been heard for miles--was heard for miles. Slipping
down the little leafy paths in the cane, pushing along the edges of
the highway for a time, ready to step out of sight upon the instant
did occasion arise for concealment; coming down the paths made by
deer and bear and panther; moving slowly but speedily and with
confidence through this cover of vine and jungle, to which the black
man takes by instinct, but which is never really understood by the
white man; knowing the secrets of this savage wilderness, yielding to
its summons and to this summons of the compelling drum, whose note
shivered and throbbed through all the heavy air of the afternoon--
these people, these inhabitants of the jungle, slipped and slunk and
hesitated and came on, until at last this little, secret, unknown
building which served as their hidden temple was fairly packed with
them; and a circle, open-eared, alert for any sudden danger, made a
human framing half-hidden in the shrouding of the mighty canes.
One blast of the horn of white hunter or of chance traveler, and the
spot had been deserted on the instant, its peopling vanished beyond
discovery. But there was no horn of hunter, no sound even of tinkling
cow-bell, no voice of youth in song or conversation. Only the sound
of the great drum, the drum made years ago and hidden in a spot known
to few, spoke out its sullen summons, slowly, in savage deliberation.
Its sound had a carrying quality of its own, unknown in white men's
instruments. It was heard at the Big House, five miles away, though
it was not recognized as an actual and distinct sound, white ears not
being attuned to it. Even here at the hidden temple it seemed not
more than the whisper of a sound, scarce louder than it appeared
miles away. It was bell and drum in one, and trump of doom as well.
The drum spoke on, the drum of the jungle. It whispered of revenge to
those who crept up to the dusky drummer and stood waiting to drink in
at each long interval this deep intoxicating stimulus, the note of
the priestly drum. And each deep throb of the drum carried a greater
frenzy, a frenzy still suppressed, yet mysteriously growing. The riot
of the ominous clanging sank into the blood of these people, though
still it only caused them to shiver and now and then to sob--to sob!
these giants, these tremendous human beings, these black or bronze
Titans of the field, transplanted--in time, perhaps, to have their
vengeance of the ages! They stood, their eyes rolling, their mouths
slavering slightly, the muscles of their shoulders now and again
rolling or relaxing, their hands coming tight together, palm smitten
to palm, jaw clenched hard upon its fellow.
The drum spoke on. Inside the low log building certain preparations
progressed, mummeries peculiar to the tribesmen, not to be described,
strange, grotesque, sickening, horrible. A few donned fantastic
uniforms cut out from colored oil-cloths. They placed upon their
heads plumed hats of shapes such as white men do not create. They
buckled about their bodies belts spangled with bits of shining things
such as white men do not wear. They drew slowly together and passed
apart. They seated themselves now, in long rows, upon logs hewn out
as benches, on either side of the long room; but restless of this,
they rose again and again to pace, walking, walking, uneasy, anxious.
Now and then an arm was flung up. Outside, where ranks of eyes gazed
unwinking, hypnotized, upon the door of the temple, there rose no
sound save now and then this strange sobbing.
And still the drum throbbed on, the drum of the jungle, whose sound
not all white men have heard as yet. The forest shivered across its
miles of matted growth, as it heard the growling voice which called,
"The Time! The Time!" Relentless, measured, so spoke the savage drum.
CHAPTER VII
THE BELL
Meanwhile at the Big House there was no suspicion of what was going
forward in the forest beyond; indeed the occupants had certain
problems of their own to absorb them. A strange unrest seemed in
possession of the place. Decherd had disappeared for a time. Mrs.
Ellison, in her own room, rang and called in vain for Delphine. The
master himself, moody and aloof, took saddle and rode across the
fields; but if there were fewer hands at labor than there should have
been, he did not notice the fact as he rode on, his hat pulled down
over his face, and his mind busy with many things, not all of which
were pleasing to him.
As for Miss Lady, she occupied herself during the afternoon much
after the fashion of any young girl of seventeen left thus, without
companions of her own sex and age. She strolled about the yard,
finding fellowship with the hounds, with the horses in the
neighboring pasture. She looked up in pensive question at the clouds,
feeling the soft wind, the hot kiss of the sun on her cheek. Upon her
soul sat the melancholy of youth. In her heart arose unanswered
queries of young womanhood.
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