Books: The Man in Gray
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Thomas Dixon >> The Man in Gray
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Over all brooded the spirit of a sincere hospitality, gentle, cordial,
simple, generous. They did not merely possess homes, they loved their
homes. The two largest words in the tongue which they spoke were Duty
and Honor. They were not in a hurry. The race for wealth had never
interested them. They took time to play, to rest, to worship God, to
chat with their neighbors, to enjoy a sunset. They came of a race
of world-conquering men and they felt no necessity for hurrying or
apologizing for their birthright.
It was precisely this attitude of mind which made the savage attack of
the Abolitionists so far-reaching in its possible results.
CHAPTER X
The morning of the departure dawned with an overcast sky, the prophecy
of winter in the gray clouds that hung over the surface of the river. A
chill mist, damp and penetrating, crept up the heights from the water's
edge and veiled the city from view.
Something in the raw air bruised afresh the thought of goodbye to the
Southland. The threat of cold in Virginia meant the piling of ice and
snow in the North. Not a sparrow chirped in the hedges. Only a crow,
passing high in the dull sky, called his defiance of wind and weather.
The Colonel made his final round of inspection to see that his people
were provided against the winter. Behind each servant's cottage, a huge
pile of wood was stacked. The roofs were in perfect order. The chimneys
were pouring columns of smoke. It hung low at first but rolled away at
the touch of the breeze from the North.
With Mrs. Lee he visited the aged and the sick. The thing that brought
the smile to each withered mouth was the assurance of their love and
care always.
Among the servants Sam held the center of interest. The wonderful,
doubtful, yet fascinating thing had come to him. He had been set free.
In each heart was the wish and with it fear of the future. The younger
ones laughed and frankly envied him. The older ones wagged their heads
doubtfully.
Old Ben expressed the best feelings of the wiser as he took Sam's hand
for a fatherly word. He had finished the packing in an old cowhide trunk
which Custis had given him.
"We's all gwine ter watch ye, boy, wid good wishes in our hearts and a
whole lot er misgivin's a playin' roun' in our min'."
"Don't yer worry 'bout me, Uncle Ben. I'se all right."
He paused and whispered.
"Ye didn't know dat Marse Robert done gimme five hundred dollars in
gol'--did ye?"
"Five hundred dollars in gol'!" Ben gasped.
Sam drew the shining yellow eagles from the bag in his pocket and
jingled them before the old man's eyes.
"Dar it is."
Ben touched it reverently.
"Praise God fer de good folks He give us."
"I'se er proud nigger, I is. I'se sorry fur dem dat b'longs to po'
folks."
Ben looked at him benignly.
"Don't you be too proud, boy. You'se powerful young and foolish. Yer des
barely got sense enough ter git outen a shower er rain. Dat money ain't
gwine ter las yer always."
"No, but man, des watch my smoke when I git up North. Yer hear frum me,
yer will."
"I hopes I hear de right news."
Sam replaced his coin with a touch of authority in possession.
"Don't yer worry 'bout me no mo'. I'se a free man now an' I gwine ter
come into de Kingdom."
The last important task done by the Colonel before taking the train for
New York was the delivery to his lawyers of instructions for the removal
of the Doyles and the placing in his hands sufficient funds for their
journey.
He spent a day in Washington investigating the chances of the new
settler securing a quarter section of land in Miami County, Kansas,
the survey of which had been completed. He selected this County on the
Missouri border to please Mrs. Doyle. She wished to live as near the
line of old Virginia's climate as possible and in a country with trees.
Doyle promised to lose no time in disposing of his goods. The father,
mother, three sons and two little girls were at Arlington to bid the
Colonel and his family goodbye. They were not a demonstrative people but
their affection for their neighbor and friend could not be mistaken.
The mother's eyes followed him with no attempt to hide her tears. She
wiped them away with her handkerchief. And went right on crying and
wiping them again. The boys were too shy to press forward in the crowd
and grasp the Colonel's hand.
On arrival in New York the party stopped at the new Hotel Astor on
Broadway. Colonel Lee had promised to spend a day at Fort Hamilton,
his old command. But it was inconvenient to make the trip until the
following morning.
Besides, he had important business to do for Sam. He had sent two of the
servants, whom he had emancipated, to Liberia, and he planned the same
journey for Sam. He engaged a reservation for him on a steamer sailing
for Africa, and returned to the hotel at nine o'clock ready to leave for
Fort Hamilton.
He was compelled to wait for Sam's return from the boarding house for
colored people on Water Street where he had been sent by the proprietor
of the Astor. Not even negro servants were quartered in a first-class
hotel in New York or any other Northern city.
Sam arrived at half-past nine, and the Colonel strolled down Broadway
with him to the little park at Bowling Green. He found a seat and bade
Sam sit down beside him.
The boy watched the expression on his old master's face with dread. He
had a pretty clear idea what this interview was to be about and he had
made up his mind on the answer. His uncle, who had been freed five years
before, had written him a glowing letter about Liberia.
He dreaded the subject.
"You know, of course, Sam," the Colonel began, "that your life is now in
your own hands and that I can only advise you as a friend."
"An' I sho's glad ter have ye he'p me, Marse Robert."
"I'm going to give you the best advice I can. I'm going to advise you to
do exactly what I would do if I were in your place."
"Yassah."
"If I were you, Sam, I wouldn't stay in this country. I'd go back to
the land of my black fathers, to its tropic suns and rich soil. You can
never be a full-grown man here. The North won't have you as such. The
hotel wouldn't let you sleep under its roof, in spite of my protest that
you were my body-servant. In the South the old shadow of your birth will
be with you. If you wish to lift up your head and be a man it can't be
here. No matter what comes in the future. If every black man, woman and
child were set free to-morrow, there are not enough negroes to live
alone. The white man will never make you his equal in the world he is
building. I've secured your passage to Liberia and I will pay for it
without touching the money which I gave you. What do you think of it?"
Sam scratched his head and looked away embarrassed. He spoke timidly at
first, but with growing assurance.
"I'se powerful 'fraid dat Liberia's a long way frum home, Marse Robert."
"It is. But if you wish to be a full-grown man, it's your chance to-day.
It will be the one chance of your people in the future as well. Can you
make up your mind to face the loneliness and build your home under
your own vine and fig tree? There you can look every man in the face,
conscious that you're as good as he is and that the world is yours."
"I'se feared I ain't got de spunk, Marse Robert."
"The gold in your pocket will build you a house on public lands. You
know how to farm. Africa has a great future. You've seen our life. We've
taught you to work, to laugh, to play, to worship God, to love your home
and your people. You're only twenty years old. I envy you the wealth of
youth. I've reached the hilltop of life. Your way is still upward for
a quarter of a century. It's the morning of life, boy, and a new world
calls you. Will you hear it and go?"
"I'se skeered, Marse Robert," Sam persisted, shaking his head gravely.
Lee saw the hopelessness of his task and changed his point of appeal.
"What do you think of doing?"
"Who, me?"
"Who else? I can't think for you any longer."
"Oh, I'll be all right, sah. I foun' er lot er good colored friends in
de bordin' house las' night. Wid dat five hundred dollars, I be livin'
in clover here, sah, sho. I done talk wid a feller 'bout goin' in
business."
"What line of business?"
"He gwine ter sho me ter-day, sah."
"You don't think you might change your mind about Liberia?"
"Na sah. I don't like my uncle dat's ober dar, nohow."
"Then I can't help you any more, Sam?"
"Na sah, Marse Robert. Y'u been de bes' master any nigger eber had in
dis worl' an' I ain't nebber gwine ter fergit dat. When I feels dem five
hundred dollars in my pocket I des swells up lak I gwine ter bust. I'se
dat proud o' myse'f an' my ole marster dat gimme a start. Lordee, sah,
hit's des gwine ter be fun fer me ter git long an' I mak' my fortune
right here. Ye see ef I don't--"
Lee smiled indulgently.
"Watch out you don't lose the little one I gave you."
"Yassah, I got hit all sewed up in my close."
The old master saw that further argument would be useless. He rose
wondering if his act of emancipation were not an act of cowardice--the
shirking of responsibility for the boy's life. His mouth closed firmly.
That was just the point about the institution of Slavery. No such
responsibility should be placed on any man's shoulders.
Sam insisted on ministering to the wants of the family until he saw them
safely on the boat for West Point. He waved each member a long goodbye.
And then hurried to his new chum at the boarding house on Water Street.
This dusky friend had won Sam's confidence by his genial ways on the
first night of their acquaintance. He had learned that Sam had just been
freed. That this was his first trip to New York though he spoke with
careless ease of his knowledge of Washington.
But the most important fact revealed was that he had lately come into
money through the generosity of his former master. The sable New Yorker
evinced no curiosity about the amount.
After four days of joy he waked from a sickening stupor. He found
himself lying in a filthy alley at dawn, bareheaded, his coat torn up
the back, every dollar gone and his friend nowhere to be found.
Colonel Lee had given him the address of three clergymen and told him to
call on them for help if he had any trouble. He looked everywhere for
these cards. They couldn't be found. He had been so cocksure of himself
he had lost them. He couldn't make up his mind to stoop to blacking
boots and cleaning spittoons. He had always lived with aristocrats. He
felt himself one to his finger tips.
There was but one thing he could do that seemed to be needed up here.
He could handle tobacco. He could stem the leaf. He had learned that
at Arlington in helping Ben superintend the curing of the weed for the
servants' use.
He made the rounds of the factories only to find that the larger part
of this work was done in tenement homes. He spent a day finding one of
these workshops.
They offered to take him in as a boarder and give him sixty cents a day.
He could have a pallet beside the six children in the other room and a
place to put his trunk. Sixty cents a day would pay his room rent and
give him barely enough food to keep body and soul together.
He hurried back to his boarding house, threw the little trunk on his
back and trudged to the tobacco tenement. When he arrived no one stopped
work. The mother waved her hand to the rear. He placed his trunk in a
dark corner, came out and settled to the task of stemming tobacco.
He did his work with a skill and ease that fascinated the children. He
took time to show them how to grip the leaf to best advantage and rip
the stem with a quick movement that left scarcely a trace of the weed
clinging to it. He worked with a swinging movement of his body and began
to sing in soft, low tones.
The wizened eyes brightened, and when he stopped one of them whispered:
"More, black man. Sing some more!"
He sang one more song and choked. His eye caught the look of mortal
weariness in the tired face of the little girl of six and his voice
wouldn't work.
"Goddermighty!" he muttered, "dese here babies ought not ter be wukkin
lak dis!"
When lunch time came the six children begged Sam to live in the place
and take his meals with them.
Their mother joined in the plea and offered to board him for thirty
cents a day. This would leave him a few cents to spend outside. He
couldn't yet figure on clothes. It didn't seem right to have to pay for
such things. Anyhow he had enough to last him awhile.
He decided to accept the offer and live as a boarder with the family.
The lunch was discouraging. A piece of cold bread and a glass of water
from the hydrant. Sam volunteered to bring the water.
The hydrant was the only water supply for the six hundred people whose
houses touched the alley. It stood in the center. The only drainage
was a sink in front of it. All the water used had to be carried up the
stairs and the slops carried down. The tired people did little carrying
downstairs. Pans and pails full of dishwater were emptied out the
windows with no care for the passer below. Scarcely a day passed without
a fight from this cause. A fight in the quarter was always a pleasure to
the settlement.
Sam munched his bread and sipped his water. He watched the children eat
their pieces ravenously. He couldn't finish his. He handed it to the
smallest one of the children who was staring at him with eyes that
chilled his heart. He knew the child was still hungry. Such a lunch as a
piece of bread and a tin cup of water must be an accident, of course.
He had heard of jailers putting prisoners on bread and water to punish
them. He had never known human beings living at home to have such food.
They would have a good dinner steaming hot. He was sure of that.
A sudden commotion broke out in the alley below. Yells, catcalls, oaths
and the sound of crashing bricks, coal, pieces of furniture, and the
splash of much water came from the court.
The mother rushed to the window and hurled a stone. There was a pile of
them in the corner of the room.
Sam tried to look out.
"What's de matter, ma'm? Is dey er fight?"
"No--nothin' but a rent collector." The woman smiled.
It was the first pleasant thought that had entered her mind since Sam
had come.
The dinner was as rude a surprise as the lunch. He watched the woman
fumble over lighting the fire in the stove until he could stand it no
longer.
"Lemme start de fire fer ye, ma'm," he offered at last.
"I wish you would," she sighed. "I married when I wuz seventeen and I
never had made a fire before. I don't believe I'll ever learn."
The negro was not long in observing that she knew no more about cooking
than she did about lighting a fire. The only cooking utensils in the
place were a pot and a frying pan. The frying pan was in constant use.
For dinner she fried a piece of tough beef without seasoning. She didn't
know how to make bread. She bought the soggy stuff at the grocer's.
There was no bread for dinner at all. They had boiled potatoes, boiled
in plain water without even a grain of salt or pepper. The coffee was so
black and heavy and bitter he couldn't drink it.
The father had a cup of beer with his coffee. A cup of beer was provided
for Sam. The girl of twelve had rushed the growler to the corner saloon.
The negro had never tasted beer before and he couldn't drink it. The
stuff was horrible. It reminded him of a dose of quinine his mistress
had once made him take when he had a chill.
He worked harder than usual next day to forget the fear that haunted
him. At night he was ill. He had caught cold and had a fever. He dropped
on his pallet without dinner and didn't get up for three weeks.
He owed his landlady so much money now, he felt in honor bound to board
with her and give her all his earnings. He felt himself sinking into an
abyss and he didn't have the strength to fight his way out.
The thing that hurt him more than bad food and air when he got to his
work again was the look of death in the faces of the children. Their
eyes haunted him in the dark as they slept on the same floor. He would
get out of there when he was strong again. But these children would
never go except to be hauled in the dead wagon to the Potter's Field.
And he heard the rattle of this black wagon daily.
In a mood of desperation he walked down Water Street past the boarding
house. In front of the place he met a boarder who had spoken to him
the last day of his stay. He seized Sam by the coat, led him aside and
whispered:
"Has ye heard 'bout de old man, name John Brown, dat come ter lead de
niggers ter de promise' lan'?"
"No, but I'se waitin' fur somebody ter lead me."
"Come right on wid me, man. I'se a-goin' to a meetin' to-night an' jine
de ban'. Will ye jine us?"
"I jine anything dat'll lead me to de promise' lan'."
"Come on. Hit's over in Brooklyn but a nigger's gwine ter meet me at de
ferry and take me dar."
Sam felt in his pocket for the money for the ferry. Luckily he had
twenty cents. It was worth while to gamble that much on a trip to the
promised land.
An emissary of the prophet met them on the Brooklyn side and led them to
a vacant store with closed wooden shutters. No light could be seen from
the street. The guide rapped a signal and the door opened. Inside were
about thirty negroes gathered before a platform. Chairs filled the long
space. A white man was talking to the closely packed group of blacks.
Sam pressed forward and watched him.
He was old until he began to talk. And then there was something strange
and electric in his tones that made him young. His voice was vaulting
and metallic and throbbed with an indomitable will. There was contagion
in the fierceness of his tones. It caught his hearers and called them in
a spell.
His shoulders were stooped. His manner grim and impressive. There was
a quick, wiry movement to his body that gave the idea that he was
crouching to spring. It was uncanny. It persisted as his speech
lengthened.
He was talking in cold tones of the injustice being done the black man
in the South. Of the crimes against God and humanity which the Southern
whites were daily committing.
The one feature of the strange speaker that fascinated Sam was the
glitter of his shifting eyes. He never held them still. He did not try
to bore a man through with them. They were restless, as if moved by
hidden forces within. The flash of light from their depths seemed a
signal from an unknown world.
Sam watched him with open mouth.
He was finishing his talk now in a desultory way more gripping in its
deadly calm than the most passionate appeal.
"We are enrolling volunteers," he quietly announced. "Volunteers in the
United States League of Gileadites. If you sign your names to the roll
to-night understand clearly what you are doing. I have written for each
member _Words of Advice_ which he must memorize as the guide to his
action."
He drew a sheet of paper from his pocket and read:
"No jury can be found in the Northern States, that would convict a man
for defending his rights to the last extremity. This is well understood
by Southern Congressmen, who insist that the right of trial by jury
should not be granted to the fugitive slave. Colored people have more
fast friends among the whites than they suppose. Just think of the money
expended by individuals in your behalf in the past twenty years! Think
of the number who have been mobbed and imprisoned on your account. Have
any of you seen the branded hand? Do you remember the names of Lovejoy
and Torrey? Should any of your number be arrested, you must collect
together as quickly as possible so as to outnumber your adversaries who
are taking an active part against you. Let no able-bodied man appear on
the ground unequipped or with his weapons exposed to view; let that be
understood beforehand. Your plans must be known only to yourself, and
with the understanding that all traitors must die, wherever caught and
proven to be guilty.
"'Whosoever is fearful or afraid, let him return and depart early from
Mount Gilead' (Judges VII Chapter, 3rd verse; Deuteronomy XX Chapter,
8th verse). Give all cowards an opportunity to show it on condition of
holding their peace. Do not delay one moment after you're ready: you
will lose all your resolution if you do. Let the first blow be the
signal for all to engage; and when engaged do not do your work by
halves; but make clean work with your enemies--"
It was the slow way in which he spoke the last words that gave them
meaning. Sam could hear in his tones the crash of steel into human flesh
and the grating of the blade on the bone. It made him shiver.
Every negro present joined the League.
When the last man had signed, John Brown led in a long prayer to
Almighty God to bless the holy work on which these noble men had
entered. At the close of his prayer he announced that on the following
night at the People's Hall on the Bowery in New York, the Honorable
Gerrit Smith, the noblest friend of the colored men in the North, would
preside over a mass meeting in behalf of the downtrodden. He asked them
all to come and bring their friends.
The ceremony of signing over, Sam turned to the guide with a genial
smile.
"I done jine de League."
"That's right. I knew you would."
"I'se a full member now, ain't I?"
"Of course."
"When do we eat?" Sam asked eagerly.
"Eat?"
"Sho."
"We ain't organizin' de Gileadites to eat, man."
"Ain't we?"
"No, sah. We'se organizin'--ter kill white men dat come atter runaway
slaves."
"But ain't dey got nuttin ter eat fer dem dat's here?"
"You come ter de big meetin' ter-morrow night an' hear sumfin dat's good
fer yo' soul."
"I'll be dar," Sam promised. But he hoped to find something at the
meeting that was good for his stomach as well as his soul.
CHAPTER XI
The negroes in New York and Brooklyn were not the only people in the
North falling under the influence of the strange man who answered to the
name of John Brown. There was something magnetic about him that drew all
sorts and conditions of men.
The statesmen who still used reason as the guiding principle of life had
no use for him. Henry Wilson, the new Senator from Massachusetts, met
him and was repelled by the something that drew others. Governor Andrew
was puzzled by his strange personality.
The secret of his power lay in a mystic appeal to the Puritan
conscience. He had been from childhood afflicted with this conscience in
its most malignant form. He knew instinctively its process of action.
The Puritan had settled New England and fixed the principles both of
economic and political life. The civilization he set up was compact and
commercial. He organized it in towns and townships. The Meeting House
was the center, the source of all power and authority. No dwelling could
be built further than two miles from a church and attendance on worship
was made compulsory by law.
The South, against whose life Brown was organizing his militant crusade,
was agricultural, scattered, individual. Individualism was a passion
with the Southerner, liberty his battle cry. He scorned the "authority"
of the church and worshipped God according to the dictates of his own
conscience. The Court House, not the Meeting House, was his forum,
and he rode there through miles of virgin forests to dispute with his
neighbor.
The mental processes of the Puritan, therefore, were distinctly
different from that of the Southerner. The Puritan mind was given to
hours of grim repression which he called "Conviction of Sin." Resistance
became the prime law of life. The world was a thing of evil. A morass of
Sin to be attacked, to be reformed, to be "abolished." The Southerner
perceived the evils of Slavery long before the Puritan, but he made a
poor Abolitionist. The Puritan was born an Abolitionist. He should not
only resist and attack the world; he should _hate_ it. He early learned
to love the pleasure of hating. He hated himself if no more promising
victim loomed on the horizon. He early became the foremost Persecutor
and Vice-Crusader of the new world. He made witch-hunting one of the
sports of New England.
When not busy with some form of the witch hunt, the Puritan found an
outlet for his repressed instincts in the ferocity with which he fought
the Indians or worked to achieve the conquest of Nature and lay up
worldly goods for himself and his children. Prosperity, therefore,
became the second principle of his religion, next to vice crusading.
When he succeeded in business, he praised God for his tender mercies.
His goods and chattels became the visible evidence of His love. The only
holiday he established or permitted was the day on which he publicly
thanked God for the goods which He had delivered. Through him the New
England Puritan Thanksgiving Day became a national festival and through
him a religious reverence for worldly success has become a national
ideal.
The inner life of the Puritan was soul-fear. Driven by fear and
repression he attacked his rock-ribbed country, its thin soil, its
savage enemies and his own fellow competitors with fury.
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