Bricks Without Straw: A Novel

"Wal, I 'clar, now, jes de quarest ting ob 'bout all dis matter o' freedom is de way dat it sloshes roun' de names 'mong us cullud folks. H'yer I lib ober on de Hyco twenty year...

Knapp-of-reeds was the name of a plantation which was one of the numerous possessions of P. Desmit, Colonel and Esquire, of the county of Horsford, in the northernmost of those...

"Yes, Vicey's gal--smart gal, too. Well, as I've about concluded to keep you both--if you behave yourselves, that is, as well as you've been doing--I don't know as there's any r...

DEAR SIR: In ten days I have to furnish twenty hands to work on fortifications for the Confederate Government. I have tried every plan I could devise to avoid doing so, but can...

The first step in the progress from the prison-house of bondage to the citadel of liberty was a strange one. The war was over. The struggle for autonomy and the inviolability of...

But the transformations of the slave were not yet ended. The time came when he was permitted to become a citizen. For two years he had led an inchoate, nondescript sort of exist...

After his soliloquy in regard to his numerous names, as given in our first chapter, Nimbus turned away from the gate near which he had been standing, crossed the yard in front o...

As they went from the place of registration to their dinner at the hotel, the sheriff, walking beside the chairman, said: "I spoke to Le Moyne about that negro fellow, Eliab Hil...

"Eliab Hill," said Le Moyne, when they came at length to the subject in relation to which the interview had been solicited, "was born the slave of Potem Desmit, on his plantatio...

Fortunately for Nimbus, he had received scarcely anything of his pay while in the service, and none of the bounty-money due him, until some months after the surrender, when he w...

Situated on the sandy, undulating chain of low, wooded hills which separated the waters of two tributaries of the Roanoke, at the point where the "big road" from the West crosse...

Colonel Desmit's devotion to the idea that slave property was more profitable than any other, and the system by which he had counted on almost limitless gain thereby, was not on...

Not only did Colonel Desmit lose his cotton and naval stores; but the funds which he had invested, with cautious foresight, in the bonds of the State and the issues of its banks...

Perhaps there was never any more galling and hated badge of defeat imposed upon a conquered people than the "Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees, and Abandoned Lands," a branch of the...

After leaving the office of "the Bureau," the parties repaired to that of the lawyer, and the trade for the land which had been so inopportunely forestalled by Colonel Desmit's...

This was the dispatch which an awkward telegraph messenger handed to the principal teacher of "No. 5," one soft September day of 1866. He waited upon the rough stone step, while...

A week afterward, Mollie Ainslie stood beside the bed of her only brother and watched the sharp, short struggle which he made with their hereditary enemy, consumption. Weakened...

It was more than a year afterward. Quite a little village had grown up around the church and school-house at Red Wing, inhabited by colored men who had been attracted thither by...

As soon as it became known that the plan of having a polling-place at Red Wing had been abandoned, there was an almost universal expression of discontent among the colored peopl...

The day after the election a colored lad rode up to the school-house, delivered a letter for Miss Ainslie to one of the scholars, and rode away. The letter was written in an eve...

Eliab Hill had from the first greatly interested the teachers at Red Wing. The necessities of the school and the desire of the charitable Board having it in charge, to accustom...

The time had come when the influences so long at work, the seed which the past had sown in the minds and hearts of races, must at length bear fruit. The period of actual reconst...

An election was impending for members of the Legislature, and there was great excitement in the county of Horsford. Of white Republicans there were not above a half dozen who we...

The speaker was a slender, loose-jointed young man, somewhat shabbily attired, with a shapeless narrow-brimmed felt hat in his hand, who was bowing and scraping with a mock sole...

The attempt to prevent the attendance of voters at the meeting, showing as it did a preconcerted purpose and design on the part of the employers to use their power as such, to o...

"Nobody but jes we uns, Bre'er Nimbus," replied the unmistakable voice of Berry. "H'yer we is, bag an' baggage, traps an' calamities, jest ez I tole yer. Call off yer dogs, ef y...

Mollie Ainslie's third year of teacher's life was drawing near its close. She had promised her brother to remain at the South during that time in order that she might escape the...

While Mollie Ainslie thought of these things with foreboding, her steed had turned down his favorite road, and was pressing onward with that persistency which characterizes an i...

When she awoke to consciousness she was lying on a bed in an apartment which was a strange compound of sitting- and sleeping-room. The bed stood in a capacious alcove which seem...

When the morning dawned the boy awoke with hot cheeks and bloodshot eyes, moaning and restless, and would only be quiet when pillowed in the arms of his new-found friend. A phys...

It was a time of struggle at Mulberry Hill. Love and death fought for the life of little Hildreth Le Moyne. The father and the "new grandma" watched over him most assiduously; t...

It was two weeks after Miss Ainslie's involuntary flight from Red Wing that Nimbus, when he arose one morning, found a large pine board hung across his gateway. It was perhaps s...

"Wal, dey manage to fotch Berry inter it widout sending him a letter all to hissef, alter all," said that worthy, when Eliab, with pale lips, but a firm voice, had finished read...

A few days after the events narrated in the last two chapters, the sheriff presented himself at Red Wing. There was a keen, shrewd look in the cold, gray eyes under the overhang...

"Who's dar?" he cried, starting up and gazing through an opening in the honeysuckle which clambered up to the eaves and shut in the porch with a wall of fragrant green. Seeing o...

Mollie Ainslie had been absent from Red Wing more than a month. It was nearly midnight. The gibbous moon hung over the western tree-tops. There was not a sound to be heard in th...

"Bring alight!" shouted the leader. One of the men rushed into the house of Nimbus, and snatched a flaming brand from the hearth. As he ran with it out of the front door, he did...

The convalescence of Mollie Ainslie was very rapid, and a few days after the crisis of her disease her attendants were able to return to their homes at Red Wing. Great was the r...

The darkness was already giving way to the gray light of a misty morning following the attack on Red Wing. The mocking birds, one after another, were responding to each other's...

Hesden Le Moyne stood with Nimbus under the great low-branching oak, in the chill morning, and listened to the labored breathing of the man for the sake of whose humanity his fa...

As Mollie Ainslie grew stronger day by day, her kind host had done all in his power to aid her convalescence by offering pleasing attentions and cheerful surroundings. As soon a...

It was with a heavy heart that Mollie Ainslie passed out of the gate and rode along the lane toward the highway. The autumn sun shone bright, and the trees were just beginning t...

"MY DEAR MADAM: You have no doubt heard of the terrible events which have occurred at Red Wing. I had an intimation of trouble just as I set out on my ride, but had no idea of t...

After Mollie had read the letter of Mrs. Le Moyne, it struck her as a curious thing that she should write to her of the hunt which was to be made after Nimbus, and the great exc...

There was a caller who begged to see Mr. Le Moyne for a few minutes. Descending to the sitting-room, Hesden found there Mr. Jordan Jackson, who was the white candidate for the L...

He realized as fully as did Nimbus the necessity of absolute concealment, for he was well aware that the blaze of excitement which would sweep over Horsford, when the events tha...

To make up for the sudden loss of society occasioned by the simultaneous departure of Mollie and the unusual engrossment of Hesden in business matters of pressing moment, as he...

When Hesden came to his mother's room that night, his countenance wore an unusually sad and thoughtful expression. His mother had not yet recovered from the shock of the morning...

Mollie Ainslie had made all her preparations to leave Red Wing. She had investigated the grounds of the suit brought by Winburn against Nimbus and others. Indeed, she found hers...

She caught her breath as she heard his ringing, tone and noted his expectant air. Oh, if he had only come before! If he had not left her to face alone--he knew not what peril! B...

Two days afterward, Mollie Ainslie took the train for the North, accompanied by Lugena and her children. At the same time went Captain Pardee, under instructions from Hesden Le...

Three months passed peacefully away in Horsford. In the "redeemed" county its "natural rulers" bore sway once more. The crops which Nimbus had cultivated were harvested by a Rec...

Then the storm burst. Every possible story was set afloat. The more absurd it seemed the more generally was it credited. Men talked and women chattered of nothing but Hesden Le...

A year had passed, and there had been no important change in the relations of the personages of our story. The teacher and her "obstreperous" pupils had disappeared from Horsfor...

The next day Mr. Pardee received a note from Mrs. Le Moyne, requesting him to come to Mulberry Hill at his earliest convenience. Being at the time disengaged, he returned with t...

"I avail myself of your kind permission to address you a letter through Captain Pardee, to whom I will forward this to-morrow. I would have written to you before, because I knew...

The charms of the soft, luxurious climate were peculiarly grateful to Mollie after the harshness of the Kansas winter and the sultry summer winds that swept over the heated plai...

In an evil hour Hesden Le Moyne yielded to the solicitations of those whom he had befriended, and whose rights he honestly believed had been unlawfully subverted, and became a c...

"Marse Hesden, Marse Hesden!" There was a timorous rap upon the window of Hesden Le Moyne's sleeping-room in the middle of the night, and, waking, he heard his name called in a...

Hesden and Mollie were on their way homeward from Eupolia, where they had inspected their property and had seen Nimbus united with his family and settled for a new and more hope...

Two men sat upon one of the benches in the shade of a spreading elm in the shadow of the National Capitol, as the sun declined toward his setting. They had been walking and talk...

"I think I understand your views, Mr. Le Moyne, and must admit that both the facts and the deductions which you make from them are very interesting, full of food for earnest ref...