Part 5

The old negro, with the constable’s assistance, mounted and smiled with delight; for he loved a horse, as do all of his race. A gleam of humor twinkled in his eye as he urged on the sturdy sorrel, a half-blooded Narragansett pacer, until she ambled along at a rate that forced the constable to walk at an uncomfortably rapid and perspiring pace. Nor was Mr. Cranston altogether comfortable mentally. He winced several times in his progress at the laughing inquiries and jeers of the farmers that he saw in the field or passed in the road; and the shouts of the district-school children at the “Corner,” who chanced to be “out at recess” as the “Black Gov’nor” and his white foot-runner coursed along, made him keenly conscious that the dignity of the law was not fully preserved, either in his hurrying, panting figure or in the grotesque appearance of short-legged Cuddy. For the Narragansett pacer, like others of her race, was phenomenally broad-backed; and Cuddy’s short, stiff legs, clad in their unsightly, flapping tow tongs, stuck out at an absurd angle, showing a long expanse of skinny, bare ankles that looked like yellow turkey-legs; and the enormous uncurried leather shoes that he had donned, in which to walk in comfort to jail, looked twice as large as ever in that prominent position. The constable had an uneasy suspicion that Cuddy had retained his tow tongs and long-tailed coat, and had put on his old black satin brass-buckled stock and red woollen comforter and great moth-eaten fur cap--the worst clothes he had in the world--in order to look as ridiculous as possible, and thus guy his captor. But the cheerful yellow countenance of the prisoner bore not a trace of any possibility of ever cherishing a sinister design.

When they reached the great gambrel-roofed house of Colonel Gardiner the negro dismounted and entered. He soon reappeared, saying, cheerfully, “I’se got de money, Mass’ Cranston.”

“Hurry up, then, and give me the three dollars,” said the constable, impatiently. “I want to get off.”

The negro stared in astonishment: “I ain’t agoin’ ter spen’ dat honey-money dat way--payin’ fer an ole dead pig I don’ owe nothin’ fer. I’se goin’ to keep it ter be comferable in jail wid. Didn’ yer hear Rosann say, ‘Keep comferable, Cuddy?’ Dat’s why I brung de foot-stove fer!”

The constable was wild with indignation and disgust. He had gone two miles out of his way--painfully running and perspiring while his prisoner rode at ease--and now he was farther from the end of his vexatious business than ever. He impatiently explained and argued to the stubborn negro that if he would only pay over part of the five dollars he would need no jail comforts. Still the old man was persistent in his determination; he had started to go to jail, and to jail he would go.

“I ain’t agoin’ ag’inst de course ob de law. It ’ud be a pretty scandal fer de Gub’nor not ter go ter jail when he ’rested. Set ebberybody a bad edsample. I’se er law-erbidin’ citterzman, an’ I’se goin’ ter ’bey de law ob de lan’. B’sides, Rosann she say she t’inks I get red ob my rheumatiz’ in jail. Ole Tuggie Bannocks can’t get me out nights ter witch-ride me.”

The discomfited sheriff at last rode slowly on, while Cuddy again hobbled alongside, still cheerful, still philosophizing, still advising. Mr. Cranston was puzzled. He could not abandon his prisoner, nor could he persuade or force him to pay the debt; still less could he hurry him, and the time to perform other and more important duties was close at hand. At last, completely baffled and conquered, he suddenly exclaimed: “Here, Cuddymonk, I’ve had enough of this; take your bundle, I’ll pay your debt to old Hazard and the costs, too.”

“Mass’ Cranston, is dat de way yer does yer duty? I’se agoin’ ter jail ef I hab ter walk dere alone, an’ tell de jedge dat de constable run off an’ leff me. I ain’t no runnagadore. I’se goin’ in de cause ob de right. You’se ’rested me, an’ I’se agoin’ ter stay ’rested. I nebber see a jail, anyway, an’ I wants ter see one. Times neber’ll be good in dis country till bof people an’ rulers knows erbout de instertootions ob de lan’!”

Again did the baffled sheriff explain and expostulate and seek to rouse in Cuddy a sense of pride and dread of shame. “It’s most time for ’Lection Day, Cuddy. You’ll never be elected again if you go to jail. They’ll never want a rogue for Gov’nor.”

“’Cause de Gov’nor am a rogue this year ain’t no sign de next one won’t be,” answered wise Cuddy. And when the constable had straightened out Cuddy’s ambiguous thought, he said to himself that black politics were much like white.

“I can’t see why all you blacks are so dishonest and tricky!”

“Why, Mass’ Cranston” (with an injured but unresentful air), “dey has ter be--dey so kep’ down. It all de fault ob dat unrageous ole George Washin’ton. When he a-dyin he rolls his eyes an’ say: ‘Forebber keep de nigger down’--an’ it take a hundred year to work out a dyin’ spell.”

This astounding piece of post-mortem news about the Father of his Country was new to the constable, though it was commonly believed by negroes then as now. He answered Cuddy severely and sharply:

“Who told you that nonsense? It’s no reason, anyway. There is no need for any nigger to be dishonest unless he wants to.”

“Now, Mass’ Cranston, dis’ jess de way I looks at it. Times nebber’ll be good in dis country till things is fixed an’ proputty’s divided so no one can’t be poor; den no one can’t be dishonest, cause ef dey has plenty dey won’t want ter be.”

The constable felt that it was useless to argue further with such a philosopher, and rode on for some time in silence; then he desperately exclaimed: “Cuddy, what’ll you take to go home again? I can’t bother any longer with you. I’ve got to go to Wickford to-night, and you can’t walk there.”

The old negro shook his head profoundly and thoughtfully, and sighed deeply, as though abandoning with keen regret a dearly loved and cherished plan; then he said, solemnly:

“No bribe’ll ebber soil dis hand while it fills de office ob de Gub’nor’s seat! But dey do say de best charm eber seed ter bring good luck forebber is ter look at a constable a-dancin’ ober runnin’ water. Now here’s de bridge an’ a good dancin’-floor. I’ll hole der hoss an’ sing ‘Old Charmany Fair,’ an’ you dance, ter bring good luck ter me in de ’lection next week. Den I s’pose I’ll hab ter gib up going ter jail dis time just ter please yer.”

The constable was stunned by this audacious and fairly insulting proposition; but being thoroughly convinced that Cuddy was half demented, he thought it better to yield at once to the stubborn negro’s condition, and thus save his precious and much-wasted time. He jumped from his horse and angrily yanked off Cuddy’s blanketful of jail equipage, and threw it on the ground. He glanced apprehensively up and down the road to see that there was no approaching traveller to spread the tale of his ridiculous discomfiture and abject submission, and then walked to the middle of the bridge and began to sullenly dance to Cuddy’s lively and rollicking dance-tune. The jolly song and dismal jig were nearly ended, when a most surprising and inexplicable event took place. The constable’s sedate and quiet horse gave a sudden snort, reared, broke away from Cuddy’s restraining hand, and plunged violently down the hill.

“Stop her! Stop her, Cuddy!” roared Mr. Cranston, as he suddenly ceased his forced dance and began to run.

“I ain’t agoin’ ter run none after dat ole hoss,” said Cuddy; “I’se got de rheumatiz’ too bad. You jess see ef you can’t run faster as you can dance. You can’t catch her, dough,” he called after the retreating sheriff. “I know she’s conjured by de way she run. It always do conjure a hoss to see a constable a-dancin’ ober runnin’ water.”

As the constable shouted “Whoa!” at the top of his lungs and chased wildly down the hill out of sight, Cuddy walked to the side of the bridge and threw into the water the long, sharp locust-thorn that had done such sly and good execution as a spur, as a “conjure” to the sheriff’s steed. Then he sat down by the side of his blanket bundle in the hot noonday sunlight, and he took out his fiddle and scraped and sawed to the bees and birds and butterflies like a jolly yellow Pan. And he chuckled and laughed and whistled and sang, and once he jumped up and danced through “Old Chalmouni Fair” with a brisk vigor that put to shame the unwilling and clumsy efforts of the constable, and made the tow tongs and the blue coat-tails snap and flap around his shrivelled old yellow legs. It was certainly most astonishing to see such agility and activity in a man so aged, and in one so rheumatic and so witch-ridden an hour previously. At last a passing farm-wagon picked him up and carried him and his great bundle to his own door.

As Cuddymonk replanted his early potatoes the following morning, he once more soliloquized to his wife:

“I tell you, Rosann, dat ole fool ob a Cranston won’t nebber ’rest me fer debt no more. I ain’t goin’ to raise no more pigs anyway, even ef I does get ’em somewhat cheap. ’Tatoes is better’n pigs. Times nebber’ll be good in dis country till ebberybody stops raisin’ pigs an’ plant ’tatoes; dat’s de true secret ob de pollitercul crisis ob dis land.”

THE WITCH SHEEP

In the darkness of Christmas morning, in the year 1811, old Benny Nichols could not sleep. He was not thinking of Santa Claus nor of Christmas gifts; he was watching for the first gray dawn which marked his regular rising hour, and he tossed and turned, wondering why he was so wakeful, until at last he rose in despair and lighted a candle to discover how long he had to wait ere daybreak. To his amazement he found the hands of the old clock pointing to the hour of nine, and as he stood shivering, candle in hand, staring at the apparently deceitful, bland face the clock raised its voice and struck nine, loudly and brassily, as if to prove that its hands and face told the truth. Benny then walked quickly to the window, and saw that the apparent darkness and length of the night came from a great wall of snow which covered the entire window and which had nearly all fallen since the previous sunset.

Keenly awake at once when he recognized the lateness of the hour, the old man wakened his wife Debby, and bade her “hurry up and git somethin’ to eat. It’s nine o’clock, and we’ve had the wust snowstorm ye ever see, and me a-laying’ here in bed, and them new sheep a-walkin’ into the sea and gittin’ drownded!”

Benny was a weazened-faced, dried-up old man, who was the shepherd of a large Narragansett farm which lay between Pender Zeke’s Corner and the bay. He knew well the danger that came to sheep in a heavy snowstorm. He had seen a great flock of a hundred timid, shrinking creatures retreat and cower one behind the other to shelter themselves from the fierce beating of the wind and sleet, until, in spite of his efforts, all were edged into the sea and lost, save a half-dozen whose throats were cut by him with a jack-knife to save the mutton. Without waiting for any warm food, he cautiously opened the door to dig himself out.

“Ye can’t go out, Benny Nichols, in them shoes,” said Debby, firmly. “I told ye long ago they was half wore out--here, put on yer Sunday long-boots.”

This suggestion was a bitter one to prudent Benny, who expected to have those boots for Sunday wear for the next ten years, just as he had for the past ten; and he knew well what a hard day’s work he had before him, and how destructive it would prove to shoe-leather. But Debby was firm, and, seizing the great boots from the nail on which they hung, she poured out the flax-seed with which they were always kept filled when they were not on Benny’s feet. The old man pulled them on his shrivelled legs with a groan at Debby’s extravagance, and then proceeded to dig out a path in the snow. Benny had not seen such a snow-storm since the great “Hessian snow-storm” in the winter of 1778, when so many Hessian soldiers perished of cold and exposure. When he reached the surface and could look around him, he saw with satisfaction that the snow and wind had blown during the previous night _away_ from the water, hence his sheep would hardly be drowned. He quickly discovered a strange-shaped bank of snow by the side of one of the great hay-ricks, so common throughout Narragansett, and he shrewdly suspected that some of his sheep were underneath the great drift. When carefully searched with a rake-stale this proved to be the case, and when he shovelled them out all in the mound were alive and well. In a snow-drift, by the side of a high stone wall, he found the remainder of his flock, save one, a fine little ewe of the creeper breed, the rarest and most valued of all his stock. As sheep-sheds at that time were unknown in Narragansett, the loss of sheep was great in the Christmas storm, and many cattle were frozen in the drifts; and one shepherd noted two weeks later that the hungry cattle he foddered never touched a full lock of hay that he had thrown on the top of a little hillock of snow near his rick. So he thrust at it with his hay-tines, and in so doing he lifted off a great shell of snow-crust, and there peered out of the whiteness the bronze, wrinkled face of the old squaw Betty Aaron, who was sitting bolt upright, frozen stiff and dead, her chin resting on both hands, her elbows on her knees. Hence Benny was justly proud of his rescued flock, though he mourned the one sheep that was lost, and blamed himself for sleeping so late, saying, he “wouldn’t have minded spilin’ his roast-meat boots if he could have found the creeper.”

On the fourteenth day of January Benny Nichols chanced to see in the snow, by the side of a hay-rick which stood a mile away from his home, a small hole about half an inch in diameter, which his practised eye recognized at once as a “breathing-hole,” and which indicated that some living thing had been snowed in and was lying underneath. He broke away the covering of icy crust, and to his amazement saw a poor creature of extraordinary appearance, which he at first hardly could believe was his own lost creeper sheep. She was alive, but alas! in such a sorry plight.

The hungry sheep, in her three weeks’ struggle against starvation, had eaten off every fibre of her own long wool that she could reach, and she lay bare and trembling in the cold air, too weak to move, too feeble to bleat either in distress or welcome. Old Benny wrapped the half-dead creature in the corner of his cloak and carried her home to Debby, who fairly shed tears at the sight of the poor naked skeleton of a sheep. Tenderly did the kind woman wrap the frozen ewe in an old flannel petticoat and feed her with warm milk, a few drops only at first, and then with much caution until the sheep was able to digest her ordinary food. In a week the creeper seemed as strong as ever, quickly gained the lost flesh, and could bleat both loud and long. And with returning health she grew active and mischievous, and was constantly thrusting her long black nose into the most unexpected and most unsuitable places, to the great distress of careful Debby, who longed to put her out of doors.

But the sheep’s lost wool could not grow as quickly as did the fat on her ribs, and she could not be thrust out thus, naked and bare, in the winter air, so Debby decided to make for the little creature a false fleece. For this purpose she took an old blue coat which had once been worn by her son, and cut off the sleeves until they were the right length to cover the ewe’s forelegs. She then sewed at the waist of the coat two sleeves from an old red flannel shirt; these were to cover Nanny’s hind legs. And when Debby drew on the gay jacket and buttoned it up over the sheep’s long backbone with the large brass coat-buttons, there never was seen such a comical, stunted, hind-side-foremost caricature of what is itself a caricature--an organ-grinder’s monkey.

When Benny carried the gayly dressed Nanny out to the enclosed yard, it was hard to tell which exhibition of feeling was the keenest--poor, unconscious, and absurd Nanny’s delight in her freedom and her eager desire to take her place with her old companions, or the consternation and terror of the entire flock at the strange wild beast which was thus turned loose among them.

They ran from side to side, and crowded each other against the paling so unceasingly and so wildly, that Benny carried the unwilling ewe back to the kitchen.

At nightfall, however, Benny again placed Nanny in the open field with the sheep, thinking that they would gradually, throughout the darkness, become used to the presence of her little harlequin jacket, and allow her to graze by their side in peace.

That night two cronies of Benny’s came from a neighboring farm to talk over that ever-interesting topic, the great snowstorm, and to buy some of his lambs. The three old men sat by the great fireplace in the old raftered kitchen in the pleasant glow from the blazing logs, each sipping with unction a mug of Benny’s famous flip, while Debby rubbed with tallow the sadly stiffened long-boots that had been worn in the Christmas snow. Suddenly a loud wail of distress rang in their ears, the door was thrust violently open, and in stumbled the breathless form of the tall, gaunt old negress Tuggie Bannocks. She was a relic of old slavery times, who lived on a small farm near the old Gilbert Stuart Mill, on Petaquamscut River. They all knew her well. She had bought many a pound of wool from Benny to wash and card and spin into yarn, and she always helped Debby in that yearly trial of patience and skill--her soap-making. The old negro woman had double qualifications to make her of use in this latter work: her long, strong arms could stir the soap untiringly for hours, and then she knew also how to work powerful charms--traditional relics of Voodooism--to make the soap always turn out a success.

Tuggie Bannocks sank upon the table by the fire, murmuring: “Tanks be to Praise! Tanks be to Praise!” and closed her eyes in speechless exhaustion. Debby took a half-crushed basket of eggs from the old woman’s arm, drew off her red woollen mittens, and rubbed briskly her long cold claws of hands. Benny had a vague remembrance of the old-time “emergency” saying, “feathers for fainters,” and seized a turkey’s wing that was in daily use as a hearth-brush, thrust it into the flames, and then held the scorching feathers under the old negress’s nose until all in the room were coughing and choking with the stifling smoke.

Spluttering and choking at the dense feather-smoke, Tuggie gasped out: “I ain’t dead yit--I specks I shall be soon, dough--kase I seen de ole witch a-ridin’--I’se most skeered to death” (then in a fainter voice)--“gib me a mug of dat flip.” Startled, Benny quickly drew a great mug of home-brewed beer and gave it a liberal dash of Jamaica rum and sugar, then seized from the fire the red-hot “loggerhead” and thrust it seething into the liquid until the flip boiled and bubbled and acquired that burnt, bitter flavor that he knew Tuggie dearly loved. The old woman moaned and groaned as she lay on the table-top, but watched the brewing of the flip with eager eye, and sat up with alacrity to drink it.

With many a shuddering sigh and many a glance behind her at the kitchen door, and crossing her fingers to ward off evil spirits she began: “Ye know, Miss Nickkels, I telled ye I was witch-rid by ole Mum Amey, an’ dis how I know I was. Ye see I was a-goin’ to wuk a charm on her first off--not to hurt her none, jess to bodder her a leetle--an’ I jess put my project on de fire one night, an’ it jess a-goin’ to boil, an’ in come her ugly, ole grinnin’ black face at de door, an’ say she a-goin’ to set wid me a spell.” Mum Amey was a wrinkled half-breed Indian of fabulous age and crabbed temper, a “squaw-nurse,” who was, of course, not half as black as negro Tuggie. “She walk ober to de chimbly to light her pipe an’ ask me what I a-cookin’, an’ I say Ise a-makin’ glue, cause Ise afeard she see de rabbit’s foot in de pot, an’ I say it all done, an’ yank de pot offen de crane so she can’t see into it. An’ ob course when I take de project offen de fire afore it’s wukked, it break de charm; an’ wuss still, I can’t nebber try no project on her no more. Ole Mum Amey larf, an’ say, a-leerin’ at me, dat pot ob glue won’t nebber stick nothin’ no more. An’ ebber sence dat night I ben witch-rid. Mornin’s when I wakes up I sees marks ob de bit in de corners ob my mouf, where Mum Amey ben a-ridin’ me all ober Boston Neck an’ up de Ridge Hill till I so tired and stiff I can’t hardly move. Ise ben pinched in de night an’ hab my ha’r pulled. An’ my butter won’t come till I drops a red-hot horseshoe in de cream to dribe her out. One day I jess try her to see ef she a witch (dough I know she one, ’cause I see her talkin’ to a black cat); I drop a silber sixpence in her path, an’ jess afore she get to it she turn an’ go back, jess I know she would. No witch can’t step ober silber. An’ now, Benny Nickkels, I know for shore she’s a witch, I see her jess now in de moonlight a-chasin’ an’ ridin’ your sheep; an’, shore’s yer bawn, yer’ll find some on ’em stone dead in de mornin’--all on ’em, mebbe!”

Benny looked wretched enough at this statement. Dearly as he loved his sheep and ready as he was to face physical discomfort and danger in their behalf, he was too superstitious to dare to go out in the night to rescue them and brave the witch.

“How did she look, Tuggie? And what did she do?” whispered awe-struck Debby.

“Oh, she was mons’ous fearsome to see! Witches don’t nebber go in deir own form when dey goes to deir Sabbaths. She was long an’ low like a snake. She run along de groun’ jess like a derminted yeller painter, a-boundin’, an’ leapin’, an’ springin’, a-chasin’ dem pore sheeps--oh, how dey run! Wid her old red an’ blue blanket tied tight aroun’ her--dat’s how I knowed her. An’ she had big sparklin’ gold dollars on her back--wages ob de debbil, I ’specks. Sometimes she jump in de air an’ spread her wings an’ fly awhile. Smoke an’ sparks come outen her mouf an’ nostrums! Big black horns stick outen her head! Lash her long black tail jess like de debbil hisself!”

At this dramatic and breathless point in Tuggie’s flip-nourished and quickly growing tale, credulous Debby, whose slow-working brain had failed to grasp all the vivid details in the black woman’s fervid and imaginative description, interjected this gasping comment: “It must ha’ been the devil or the creeper.”

Benny jumped from his chair and stamped his foot, and at once burst into a loud laugh of intense relief, and with cheerful bravado began to explain animatedly to his open-mouthed cronies that of course anyone could see that Tuggie’s sheep-chasing witch was only the creeper sheep in her new fleece, and he offered swaggeringly to go out alone to the field to bring the ewe in to prove it.

The old negress sprang to her feet, insulted and enraged at the jeering laughter and rallying jokes, and advanced threateningly toward him. Then, as if with a second thought, she stopped with a most malicious look, and in spite of Debby’s conciliatory explanations and her soothing expressions “that it might have been Mum Amey after all,” she thrust aside Benny’s proffered mollification of a fresh mug of flip, seized her crushed basket, stalked to the door, and left the house muttering, vindictively: “High time to stop such unrageous goin’s-on--dressin’ up sheeps like debbils--scarin’ an ole woman to death an’ breakin’ all her aigs! Ole Tuggie Bannocks ain’t forgot how to burn a project! Guess dey won’t larf at witches den!”