Part 8

As Featherstone had foretold, we camped the next night not far from the Sandhills, where the rich people of Augusta went every summer to escape the heat and malaria of the city. We might have gone on and reached Augusta during the night, but both men and mules were tired, and of the entire caravan only one wagon went forward. I shall remember the place as long as I live. In a little hollow, surrounded by live-oaks—we call them water-oaks up here—was a very bold spring, and around and about was plenty of grass for the mules. It was somewhat dry, the time being November, but it made excellent forage. On a little hill beyond the spring was a dwelling-house. I came to have a pretty good view of it afterward, but in the twilight it seemed to be a very substantial building. It was painted white and had green blinds, and it sat in the midst of a beautiful grove of magnolias and cedars. I remember, too,—it is all impressed on my mind so vividly—that the avenue leading to the house was lined on each side with Lombardy poplars, and their spindling trunks stood clearly out against the sky.

While I was helping Featherstone unhitch and unharness the mules, he suddenly remarked:—

“That’s the place.”

“What place?” I asked.

“The place the riddle tells about—where the son was sold by his father.”

“Well,” said I, by way of saying something, “what can’t be cured must be endured.”

“You are a very clever chap,” he said, after a while. “In fact you are the best chap I have seen for many a long day, and I like you. I’ve watched you like a hawk, and I know you have a mother at home.”

“Yes,” said I, “and she’s the dearest old mother you ever saw. I wish you knew her.”

He came up to me, laid his hand on my shoulder, and looked into my face with an air I can never forget.

“That is the trouble,” said he; “I don’t know her. If I did I would be a better man. I never had much of a mother.”

With that he turned away, and soon I heard him singing softly to himself as he mended a piece of the harness. All this time Crooked-leg Jake was cooking our supper beneath the live-oak trees. Other teamsters were doing the same, so that there were two dozen camp-fires burning brightly within an area of not more than a quarter of a mile. The weather was pleasant, too, and the whole scene struck me as particularly lively.

Crooked-leg Jake was always free-handed with his cooking. He went at it with a zest born of his own insatiate appetite, and it was not long before we were through with it; and while the other campers were fuming and stewing over their cooking, Jake was sitting by the fire nodding, and Featherstone was playing his fiddle. He never played it better than he did that night, and he played it a long time, while I sat listening. Meanwhile quite a number of the teamsters gathered around, some reclining in the leaves smoking their pipes, and others standing around in various positions. Suddenly I discovered that Featherstone had a new and an unexpected auditor. Just how I discovered this I do not know; it must have been proned in upon me, as the niggers say. I observed that he gripped the neck of his fiddle a little tighter, and suddenly he swung off from “Money-musk” into one of those queer serenades which you have heard now and again on the plantation. Where the niggers ever picked up such tunes the Lord only knows, but they are heart-breaking ones.

Following the glance of Featherstone’s eyes, I looked around, and I saw, standing within the circle of teamsters, a tall mulatto woman. She was a striking figure as she stood there gazing with all her eyes, and listening with all her ears. Her hair was black and straight as that of an Indian, her cheeks were sunken, and there was that in her countenance that gave her a wolfish aspect. As she stood there rubbing her skinny hands together and moistening her thin lips with her tongue, she looked like one distraught. When Featherstone stopped playing, pretending to be tuning his fiddle, the mulatto woman drew a long breath, and made an effort to smile. Her thin lips fell apart and her white teeth gleamed in the firelight like so many fangs. Finally she spoke, and it was an ungracious speech:—

“Ole Giles Featherstone, up yonder—he’s my marster—he sont me down here an’ tole me to tell you-all dat, bein’s he got some vittles lef’ over fum dinner, he’ll be glad ef some un you would come take supper ’long wid ’im. But, gentermens”—here she lowered her voice, giving it a most tragic tone—“you better not go, kaze he ain’t got nothin’ up dar dat’s fittin’ ter eat—some cole scraps an’ de frame uv a turkey. He scrimps hisse’f, an’ he scrimps me, an’ he scrimps eve’ybody on de place, an’ he’ll scrimp you-all ef you go dar. No, gentermens, ef you des got corn-bread an’ bacon you better stay ’way.”

Whatever response the teamsters might have made was drowned by Featherstone’s fiddle, which plunged suddenly into the wild and plaintive strains of a plantation melody. The mulatto woman stood like one entranced; she caught her breath, drew back a few steps, stretched forth her ebony arms, and cried out:—

“Who de name er God is dat man?”

With that Featherstone stopped his playing, fixed his eyes on the woman, and exclaimed:—

“_Where’s Duncan?_”

For a moment the woman stood like one paralyzed. She gasped for breath, her arms jerked convulsively, and there was a twitching of the muscles of her face pitiful to behold; then she rushed forward and fell on her knees at the fiddler’s feet, hugging his legs with her arms.

“Honey, who is you?” she cried in a loud voice. “In de name er de Lord, who is you! Does you know me? Say, honey, does you?”

Featherstone looked at the writhing woman serenely.

“Come, now,” he said, “I ask you once more, _Where’s Duncan?_”

His tone was most peculiar: it was thrilling, indeed, and it had a tremendous effect on the woman. She rose to her feet, flung her bony arms above her head, and ran off into the darkness, screaming:—

“He sold ’im!—he sold Duncan! He sold my onliest boy!”

This she kept on repeating as she ran, and her voice died away like an echo in the direction of the house on the hill. There was not much joking among the teamsters over this episode, and somehow there was very little talk of any kind. None of us accepted the invitation. Featherstone put his fiddle in his bag, and walked off toward the wagons, and it was not long before everybody had turned in for the night.

I suppose I had been asleep an hour when I felt some one shaking me by the shoulder. It was Crooked-leg Jake.

“Marse Isaiah,” said he, “dey er cuttin’ up a mighty rippit up dar at dat house on de hill. I ’spec’ somebody better go up dar.”

“What are they doing?” I asked him drowsily.

“Dey er cussin’ an’ gwine on scan’lous. Dat ar nigger ’oman, she’s a-cussin’ out de white man, an’ de white man, he’s a-cussin’ back at her.”

“Where’s Featherstone?” I inquired, still not more than half awake.

“Dat what make me come atter you, suh. Dat white man what bin ’long wid us, he’s up dar, an’ it look like ter me dat he’s a-aggin’ de fuss on. Dey gwine ter be trouble up dar, sho ez you er born.”

“Bosh!” said I, “the woman’s master will call her up, give her a strapping, and that will be the end of it.”

“No, suh! no, suh!” exclaimed Jake; “dat ar nigger ’oman done got dat white man hacked. Hit’s des like I tell you, mon!”

I drove Jake off to bed, turned over on my pallet, and was about to go to sleep again, when I heard quite a stir in the camp. The mules and horses were snorting and tugging at their halters, the chickens on the hill were cackling, and somewhere near, a flock of geese was screaming. Just then Crooked-leg Jake came and shook me by the shoulder again. I spoke to him somewhat sharply, but he didn’t seem to mind it.

“What I tell you, Marse Isaiah?” he cried. “Look up yonder! Ef dat house ain’t afire on top, den Jake’s a liar!”

I turned on my elbow, and, sure enough, the house on the hill was outlined in flame. The hungry, yellow tongues of fire reached up the corners and ran along the roof, lapping the shingles, here and there, as if blindly searching for food. They found it, too, for by the time I reached the spot, and you may be sure I was not long getting there, the whole roof was in a blaze. I had never seen a house on fire before, and the sight of it made me quake; but in a moment I had forgotten all about the fire, for there, right before my eyes, was a spectacle that will haunt me to my dying day. In the dining-room—I suppose it must have been the dining-room, for there was a sideboard with a row of candles on it—I saw the mulatto woman (the same that had acted so queerly when Featherstone had asked her about Duncan) engaged in an encounter with a gray-haired white man. The candles on the sideboard and the flaring flames without lit up the affair until it looked like some of the spectacles I have since seen in theatres, only it was more terrible.

It was plain that the old man was no match for the woman, but he fought manfully for his life. Whatever noise they made must have been drowned by the crackling and roaring of the flames outside; but they seemed to be making none except a snarling sound when they caught their breath, like two bull-dogs fighting. The woman had a carving-knife in her right hand, and she was endeavoring to push the white man against the wall. He, on his side, was trying to catch and hold the hand in which the woman held the knife, and was also making a frantic effort to keep away from the wall. But the woman had the advantage; she was younger and stronger, and desperate as he was, she was more desperate still.

Of course, it is a very easy matter to ask why some of my companions or myself didn’t rush to the rescue. I think such an attempt was made; but the roof of the house was ablaze and crackling from one end to the other, and the heat and smoke were stifling. The smoke and flames, instead of springing upward, ranged downward, so that before anything could be done, the building appeared to be a solid sheet of fire; but through it all could be seen the writhing and wrestling of the nigger woman and the white man. Once, and only once, did I catch the sound of a voice; it was the voice of the nigger woman; she had her carving-knife raised in the air in one hand, and with the other she had the white man by the throat.

“_Where’s Duncan?_” she shrieked.

If the man had been disposed to reply, he had no opportunity, for the woman had no sooner asked the question than she plunged the carving-knife into his body, not only once, but twice. It was a sickening sight, indeed, and I closed my eyes to avoid seeing any more of it; but there was no need of that, for the writhing and struggling bodies of the two fell to the floor and so disappeared from sight.

Immediately afterward there was a tremendous crash. The roof had fallen in, and this was followed by an eruption of sparks and smoke and flame, accompanied by a violent roaring noise that sounded like the culmination of a storm. It was so loud that it aroused the pigeons on the place, and a great flock of them began circling around the burning building. Occasionally one more frightened than the rest would dart headlong into the flames, and it was curious to see the way it disappeared. There would be a fizz and a sputter, and the poor bird would be burnt harder than a crackling. I observed this and other commonplace things with unusual interest—an interest sharpened, perhaps, by the fact that there could be no hope for the two human beings on whom the roof had fallen.

Naturally, you will want to ask me a great many questions. I have asked them myself a thousand times, and I’ve tried to dream the answers to them while I sat dozing here in the sun, but when I dream about the affair at all, the fumes of burning flesh seem to fill my nostrils. Crooked-leg Jake insisted to the day of his death that the man who had driven our team sat in a chair in the corner of the dining-room, while the woman and the man were fighting, and seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. It may be so. At any rate none of us ever saw him again. As for the rest, you know just as much about it as I do.

MOM BI:

HER FRIENDS AND HER ENEMIES.

The little town of Fairleigh, in South Carolina, was a noted place before the war, whatever it may be now. It had its atmosphere, as Judge Waynecroft used to say, and that atmosphere was one of distinction. It was a very quiet town, but there was something aristocratic, something exclusive, even in its repose. It was a rough wind that could disturb the stateliness of the live oaks with which the streets were lined, and it was indeed an inhospitable winter that could suppress the tendency of the roses to bloom.

Fairleigh made no public boast that it was not a commercial town, but there can be no doubt that it prided itself on the fact. Even the piney-woods crackers found a slow market there for the little “truck” they had to sell, for it was the custom of the people to get their supplies of all kinds from “the city.” It was to “the city,” indeed, that Fairleigh owed its prominence, and its inhabitants were duly mindful of that fact.

As late as 1854 there was no more insignificant village in South Carolina than Fairleigh; but in the summer of that year the fever plague flapped its yellow wings above Charleston, and the wealthier families sought safety in flight. Some went North and some went West; some went one way and some another; but the choice few, following the example of Judge Waynecroft, went no further than Fairleigh, which was far enough in the interior to be out of reach of the contagion.

They found the situation of the little village so convenient, and its climate so perfect, that they proceeded—still following the example of Judge Waynecroft—to build summer homes there; and in time Fairleigh became noted as a resort for the wealthiest and most refined people of Charleston.

Of this movement, as has been intimated, Judge Waynecroft was the pioneer; and for this and other reasons he was highly esteemed by the natives of Fairleigh. To their minds the Judge was an able and a public-spirited citizen, whom it was their pleasure to admire. In addition to this, he had a most charming household, in which simplicity lent grace to dignity.

There was one feature of Judge Waynecroft’s household, however, which the natives of Fairleigh did not admire, and that was “Mom Bi.” Perhaps they were justified in this. Mom Bi was a negro woman, who appeared to be somewhat past middle age, just how far past no one could guess. She was tall and gaunt, and her skin was black as jet. She walked rapidly, but with a sidewise motion, as if she had been overtaken with rheumatism or partial paralysis. Her left arm was bent and withered, and she carried it in front of her and across her body, as one would hold an infant. Her head-handkerchief was queerly tied. The folds of it stood straight up in the air, giving her the appearance of a black Amazon. This impression was heightened by the peculiar brightness of her eyes. They were not large eyes, but they shone like those of a wild animal that is not afraid of the hunter. Her nose was not flat, nor were her lips thick like those of the typical negro. Her whole appearance was aggressive. Moreover, her manner was abrupt, and her tongue sharp, especially when it was leveled at any of the natives of Fairleigh.

To do Mom Bi justice, her manner was abrupt and her tongue sharp even in her master’s family, but there these matters were understood. Practically, she ruled the household, and though she quarreled from morning till night, and sometimes far into the night, everything she said was taken in a Pickwickian sense. She was an old family servant who not only had large privileges, but was defiantly anxious to take advantage of all of them.

Whatever effect slavery may have had on other negroes, or on negroes in general, it is certain that Mom Bi’s spirit remained unbroken. Whoever crossed her in the least, white or black, old or young, got “a piece of her mind,” and it was usually a very large piece. Naturally enough, under the circumstances, Mom Bi soon became as well known in Fairleigh and in all the region round about as any of the “quality people.” To some, her characteristics were intensely irritating; while to others they were simply amusing; but to all she was a unique figure, superior in her methods and ideas to the common run of negroes.

Once, after having a quarrel with her mistress—a quarrel which was a one-sided affair, however—Mom Bi heard one of the house girls making an effort to follow her example. The girl was making some impertinent remarks to her mistress, when Mom Bi seized a dog-whip that was hanging in the hall, and used it with such effect that the pert young wench remembered it for many a long day.

This was Mom Bi’s way. She was ready enough to quarrel with each and every member of her master’s family, but she was ready to defend the entire household against any and all comers. Altogether she was a queer combination of tyrant and servant, of virago and “mammy.” Yet her master and mistress appreciated and respected her, and the children loved her. Her strong individuality was not misunderstood by those who knew her best.

No one knew just how old she was, and no one knew her real name. Probably no one cared: but there was a tradition in the Waynecroft family that her name was Viola, and that it had been corrupted by the children into Bi—Mom Bi. As to her age, it is sufficient to say that she was the self-constituted repository of the oral history of three generations of the family. She was a young woman when her master’s grandfather died in 1799. Good, bad or indifferent, Mom Bi knew all about the family; and there were passages in the careers of some of its members that she was fond of retailing to her master and mistress, especially when in a bad humor.

Insignificant as she was, Mom Bi made her influence felt in Fairleigh. She was respected in her master’s family for her honesty and faithfulness, but outsiders shrank from her frank and fearless criticism. The “sandhillers”—the tackies—that marketed their poor little crops in and around the village, were the special objects of her aversion, and she lost no opportunity of harassing them. Whether these queer people regarded Mom Bi as a humorist of the grimmer sort, or whether they were indifferent to her opinions, it would be difficult to say, but it is certain that her remarks, no matter how personal or bitter, made little impression on them. The men would rub their thin beards, nudge each other and laugh silently, while the women would push their sunbonnets back and stare at her as if she were some rare curiosity on exhibition. At such times Mom Bi would laugh loudly and maliciously, and cry out in a shrill and an irritating tone:—

“De Lord know, I glad I nigger. Ef I ain’t bin born black, dee ain’t no tellin, what I mought bin born. I mought bin born lak some deze white folks what eat dirt un set in de chimerly-corner tell dee look lak dee bin smoke-dried. De Lord know what make Jesse Waynecroft fetch he famerly ’mongst folk lak deze.”

This was mildness itself compared with some of Mom Bi’s harangues later on, when the “sandhillers,” urged by some of the energetic citizens of the village, were forming a military company to be offered to the Governor of Virginia for the defense of that State. This was in the summer of 1861. There was a great stir in the South. The martial spirit of the people had been aroused by the fiery eloquence of the political leaders, and the volunteers were mustering in every town and village. The “sandhillers” were not particularly enthusiastic—they had but vague ideas of the issues at stake—but the military business was something new to them, and therefore alluring. They volunteered readily if not cheerfully, and it was not long before there was a company of them mustering under the name of the Rifle Rangers—an attractive title to the ear if not to the understanding.

Mom Bi was very much interested in the maneuvers of the Rifle Rangers. She watched them with a scornful and a critical eye. Even in their uniforms, which were of the holiday pattern, their appearance was the reverse of soldierly. They were hollow-chested and round-shouldered, and exceedingly awkward in all their movements. Their maneuvers on the outskirts of the village, accompanied by the music of fife and drum, always drew a crowd of idlers, and among these interested spectators Mom Bi was usually to be found.

“Dee gwine fight,” she would say to the Waynecroft children, in her loud and rasping voice. “Dee gwine kill folks right un left. Look at um! I done git skeer’d myse’f, dee look so ’vigrous. Ki! dee gwine eat dem Yankee up fer true. I sorry fer dem Yankee, un I skeer’d fer myse’f! When dee smell dem vittle what dem Yankee got, ’tis good-by, Yankee! Look at um, honey! dee gwine fight fer rich folks’ nigger.”

The drilling and mustering went on, however, and Mom Bi was permitted to say what she pleased. Some laughed at her, others regarded her with something like superstitious awe, while a great many thought she was merely a harmless simpleton. Above all, she was Judge Waynecroft’s family servant, and this fact was an ample apology in Fairleigh and its environs for anything that she might say.

The mustering of the “sandhillers” irritated Mom Bi; but when the family returned to Charleston in the winter, the preparations for war that she saw going on made a definite and profound impression on her. At night she would go into her mistress’s room, sit on the hearth in a corner of the fire-place, and watch the fire in the grate. Nursing her withered arm, she would sit silent for an hour at a time, and when she did speak it seemed as if her tongue had lost something of its characteristic asperity.

“I think,” said Mrs. Waynecroft, on one occasion, “that Mom Bi is getting religion.”

“Well, she’ll never get it any younger,” the Judge replied.

Mom Bi, sitting in her corner, pretended not to hear, but after a while she said: “Ef de Lord call me in de chu’ch, I gwine; ef he no call I no gwine—enty? I no yerry him call dis long time.”

“Well,” remarked the Judge, “something has cooled you off and toned you down, and I was in hopes you were in the mourners’ seat.”

“Huh!” exclaimed Mom Bi. “How come I gwine go in mourner seat? What I gwine do in dey?” Then pointing to a portrait of Gabriel Waynecroft hanging over the mantel, she cried out: “Wey he bin gone at?”

Gabriel was the eldest son, the hope and pride of the family. The Judge and his wife looked at each other.

“I think you know where he has gone,” said Mrs. Waynecroft, gently. “He has gone to fight for his country.”

“Huh!” the old woman grunted. Then, after a pause, “Wey dem san’hillers bin gone at? Wey de country what dee fight fer?”

“Why, what are you talking about?” said Judge Waynecroft, who had been listening behind his newspaper. “This is their country too, and they have gone to fight for it.”

“’Longside dat boy?” Mom Bi asked. Her voice rose as she pointed at Gabriel’s picture.

“Why, certainly,” said the Judge.

“_Pishou!_” exclaimed Mom Bi, with a hiss that was the very essence of scorn, contempt and unbelief. “Oona nee’n’ tell me dat ting. I nuttin’ but nigger fer true, but I know better dun dat. I bin nuss dat boy, un I know um troo un troo. Dat boy, ’e cut ’e t’roat fus’ fo’ ’e fight ’longside dem trash. When ’e be en tell-a you ’e gwine fight ’longside dem whut de Lord done fersooken dis long time?”

The Judge smiled, but Mrs. Waynecroft looked serious; Mom Bi rocked backward and forward, as if nursing her withered arm.