Part 4

“No, man, dem ent fuh t’row’way dem hebby sin, uh dunkyuh ef lion crack dem bone’. Een slabery time nigguh baig ’e maussuh’ paa’d’n fuh t’ief ’e fowl w’en ’e git ketch, but w’en ’e kill _cow_, ’e nebbuh crack ’e teet’, en’ eb’n so ef ’e maussuh ketch’um duh skin de cow, him fuh tell ’e maussuh ’e fin’um dead een de ’ood, en’ ’e duh skin’um fuh tek de hide to ’e maussuh fuh sabe’um f’um buzzut! No, man; oonuh fuh hol’ oonuh hebby sin sukkuh sheep buhr hol’ mule’ tail, ’tell Gabrull blow ’e hawn en’ de Lawd tek’um off!”

“Bumbye w’en dayclean en’ de lion nebbuh git no nigguh, ’e gone en’ kill fo’ mo’ cow’, en’ w’en ’e done nyam’um ’e gone duh ’ood en’ leddown fuh tek ’e res’, en’ nobody nebbuh yeddy’um ’gen ’tell Sat’d’y night come. All t’ru de week de nigguh’ swonguh en’ sattify een dem min’ ’cause dem t’ink suh dem pray’ mek de lion fuh gone’way en’ le’m’lone, but ’e yent duh no pray’ mek’um fuh gone, duh dem fo’ cow’ wuh ’e nyam, mek’ ’e belly full ’tell ’e yent hab no room fuh nigguh!”

“W’en Sat’d’y night come, de lion holluh ’gen en’ all de nigguh’ run out de sto’ en’ gone een dem house fuh hide. Monday come, en’ de nigguh’ ’f’aid fuh gone een Maussuh’ fiel’ fuh wu’k. Mistuh Jokok dunno wuh fuh do. Him sen’ uh ansuh to Cuhlumbia fuh tell Maussuh ’cep’n’ him come Lewisbu’g, all him nigguh’ fuh eat. Maussuh ride de train. ’E come. ’E git off W’ite Hall deepo, ’e git ’pun ’e hawss, ’e tu’n to ’e ob’shay, ’Jokok,’ ’e say, ‘Weh da’ annimel fuh hide? Lemme shum!’”

“Mistuh Jokok tell’um de las’ time dem yeddy ’e woice, ’e bin een de t’icket en’ reed en’ t’ing by de ribbuh bank. Maussuh nebbuh wait fuh yeddy no’ mo’. ’E snatch ’e rifle out’uh Mistuh Jokok’ han’, ’e jam ’e two spuhr een e’ hawss’ belly, ’e hawss jump’ nine foot off de groun’ een de ellyment, en’ ’e gone! Maussuh run ’e hawss ’tell ’e git ’cross de causeway ’pun de ribbuh bank, den ’e biggin fuh ride slow en’ t’row ’e yeye befor’um fuh see weh da’ t’ing fuh hide. W’en ’e git close de briah en’ t’ing, ’e hawss cock’ ’e yez befor’um, ’e snawt’ en’ ’e ’tan’up ’trait ’pun ’e hine foot. W’en ’e do dat, Maussuh know suh de lion dey een dem bush! De hawss come down ’pun ’e fo’ foot. ’E duh shake sukkuh rice t’rasher shake. Maussuh yeddy sump’nurruh duh groan een de t’icket. Bumbye de lion come out. W’en ’e op’n’ ’e mout’ ’e teet’ long sukkuh cawncob! Maussuh t’row ’e rifle to ’e yeye. ’E only hab one ball een’um en’ ’e know suh ef him ent kill da’ t’ing _dead_, da’ lion fuh nyam him en’ ’e hawss alltwo. Maussuh tek aim at ’e t’roat. ’E cut loose, ‘_bam!_’ W’en de gun crack, ’e look! De lion’ head roll down de bank ’tell ’e fall een de ditch! Maussuh cantuh up to Lewisbu’g. ’E tell Mistuh Jokok fuh sen’ uh waagin en’ fo’ mule’ fuh fetch’um to de yaa’d. Dem medjuhr’um en’ ’e stan’ t’irteen foot long! W’en de nigguh’ yeddy suh ’e dead, dem stop wu’k en’ dem fuh mek fiah en’ shout roun’ da’ lion de Gawd’ night! Bumbye buckruh’ come fuh look ’puntop’um en’ w’en dem yeddy suh ’e seb’nteen foot long, dem ’stonish!”

“Yaas, uh ’spec’ nigguh’ en’ buckruh’ alltwo fuh ’stonish ef dem kin yeddy you fuh tell’um, Joe. Da’ lion duh git mo’ longuh! W’ile ago you bin fuh mek’um t’irteen foot long.”

“Fus’ time dem medjuhr’um ’e yent bin hab no head. Enty ’e fuh medjuh mo’ attuh dem tie ’e head back ’pun ’e neck weh Maussuh’ ball cut’um off? Oonuh mus’be fool!”

“Joe,” said another doubting crony, “hukkuh da’ leely ball kin fuh cut off da’ lion’ head? ’E tek soad, eeduhso axe, fuh do da’ t’ing?”

“Who’ Maussuh kill da lion! Duh yo’ Maussuh, enty? Enty uh tell oonuh eegnunt nigguh’ suh de hawss skayre ’tell ’e shake, en’, same time Maussuh pull’ ’e trigguh, de hawss trimble’ ’tell ’e mek da’ ball fuh wabble ‘cross de lion’ neck ’tell _’e cut ’e t’roat f’um yez to yez_!”

“OLD BARNEY”

Old Friday Giles was the English purist of Penny Creek. A former “driver” and slave of Mr. Edward Barnwell, his manners were pompous, though ingratiating. His speech was unusually good save for his ludicrous use of “she” and “her” for all things singular, animate or inanimate.

For many years “Old Barney,” an Ayrshire bull acquired from the Barnwell family, was the terror of all the negroes roundabout. True to his Scottish breeding, Barney was both stubborn and acquisitive and lived up to

“The good old rule * * * the simple plan That they should take who have the power And they should keep who can.”

Barney had the power. Therefore he took. He loved green peavines as the Scot loves his haggis, and whenever he fancied them he had but to lean against the miserable fences enclosing the negroes’ patches, walk through, and help himself. The negroes would shoot him up with firearms and ammunition of all sorts and his hide was constantly full of lead of every size from mustard seed to swan shot, but fear kept the marksmen from getting near enough to hurt him seriously, so Barney philosophically took the lead without, and the peavines within, and after eating his fill would lie down in the field and chew his cud complacently, walking out later through the owner’s front yard, pausing to paw the dirt contemptuously and pull a few mouthfuls from the Seewee bean vines that climbed about the garden palings.

One day Friday’s field was invaded, and, hat in hand, he came to the doorstep to complain. “Missis,” he said, “dat bull Baa’ney, she is ridickilus! Missis, I mek my fench ten rail high. I stake her and I rider her, but ole Baa’ney she put her breas’ agains’ my fench, she lean on her, she break her down. She enter my fiel’, she eat my peas. I shoot her, but she is indifferent to my shot. When she conclude eatin’ my peas, she lie down, and, Missis, she was so full that she could not rise!” But Friday was a gentlemanly old darkey and treated his sturdy, quick-talking wife, Minda, with great gallantry, _practical_ gallantry, too, as she bore him (and raised) 17 sons and daughters, thereby earning the well-done of her kindly though thrifty old master. “Maussuh lub me ’cause uh hab chillun so fas’,” she boasted. “I fetch’um uh fine nigguh eb’ry year Gawd sen’!”--meaning that the old gentleman had a pre-Rooseveltian objection to race suicide on the plantation.

Although old Bo’sun Smashum, the herdsman, who had raised Barney from a calf, would twist his tail in the barnyard and chevy him about with impunity, the bull was truculent toward outsiders and on more than one occasion disputed the highway with planters of the neighborhood, who were forced to turn back and drive a mile or so out of the way in the interest of safety; while negroes riding or driving oxen, on sighting Barney in the road half a mile away, would take to the woods or the fields and make a wide and respectful detour. The danger would be enhanced should the animal between the shafts of the primitive cart be one of the “bull yellin’s” so much affected by the freedmen for combination purposes. The silly song, “Everybody works but father,” had not then been evolved from the near-brain of the writer of music hall lyrics, and the labors of a beast of burden were held not incompatible with the paternity of a bovine family. So these little creatures multiplied and continued to lead their double lives. Barney held in utter contempt even the authenticated bulls of the community, but he so terrorized the little harnessed scrubs that their owners could hardly avert a stampede when the great bull bellowed in the vicinity.

One hot Sunday afternoon three or four hundred negroes were holding services at the old log church near the Parker’s Ferry cross-roads. Too numerous for the building, they were using outdoor bush shelters covered with green boughs and with hewn saplings for seats. At the tail of a “distracted meetin’” that had been running for several days, while grass grew in their crops, they were in a state of exaltation, and the high, sweet voices of the women blended in harmony with the deep, rich basses of the men in the perfect rhythm characteristic of African music. Old time hymns and “sperrituals” alternated. At first, only two or three voices followed the leader, then one by one the singers joined in major and minor keys, until at the last the entire congregation swelled the diapason that floated away on the summer wind. The little oxen and bulls, whose harness permitted the indulgence, lay down at their hitching posts, the less fortunate stood between the shafts and chewed their cuds, drowsing with half-closed eyes in the soft, warm air of the pineland, fragrant with the blossoming partridge peas.

The singers walked up and down the aisles of the open-air church, working up enthusiasm in camp meeting fashion.

“Sistuh Chizzum, won’t you meet me yonduh?” Sister Chisolm would, so she responded to the masculine invitation, “Oh yaas, Lawd!”

“Bredduh Hacklus, won’t you meet me yonduh?” And Brother Hercules, a wizened little member of Sister Chisolm’s “class,” shouted in acquiescent gallantry, “Oh yaas, Lawd!”

The meeting drew to a close, the last inspiring “sperritual,” of African suggestiveness, remained to be sung. Who should raise the tune? Simon Jenkins the “squerril” hunter, a devout old rascal, called to his brother-in-law, John Chisolm, “hice’um, Chizzum! You hice de chune.”

John’s resonant voice rolled out--

“Jedus, hol’ de lion jaw, Jedus, hol’ de lion jaw, Jedus, hol’ de lion jaw, ’Tell I git on de grazin’ groun’, Oh, ’tell I git on de grazin’ groun’,”

“_Hol’um, Jedus!_” “_Don’ tun’um loose, Lawd!_” “_Maussuh Jedus, hol’ ’e jaw!_”

came the responses in bass and treble, then, as the refrain again swelled and died away, “Oh-h ’tell I git on de grazin’ groun’,” an ominous “mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, mmh! mmh! mnmh!” rolled through the woods. “_Duh Baa’ney! Great Gawd, duh Baa’ney!_” shrieked the panic-stricken women who scattered in every direction, while the men ran to release their hitched animals as old Barney leisurely approached, routing sonorously. “Mek’ace, gal, mek’ace! Him duh walk sedate but ’e bex,” shouted a man to a leggy, dry-boned black girl who, although guiltless of shoes and stockings, had worn to the meeting an antiquated hoopskirt which now impeded her progress. “Hice’um, gal! Hice yo’ ’coat en’ _run_!” She “hiced” her petticoat and ran, but the crinoline billowed about her knees as she passed Dick Smashum on her way to the Savage plantation. Dick was duck-legged and as slow of speech as of foot, but discretion had urged him to get an early start and he was well out of the danger zone. Later, when Atalanta’s mother overtook him and asked, “You see my gal? Weh ’e gone?” he replied. “Uh yiz see one sump’nurruh duh run like de debble, gwine Sabbidge. ’E pass me duh paat’, en’ ’e binnuh trabble so swif’ uh yent ruckuhnize um ’zackly, but ’e stan’ sukkuh two blacksnake duh ’tretch out een one bu’dcage.”

“BILLYBEDAM”

Billybedam was bibulous.

None knew how he achieved his devilmaycare nickname--the only name he had, but everybody around Pocotaligo knew that he came by his thirst through patient industry, and that he loved his work. No round-paunched monk of the Middle Ages, no Falstaff of the English taverns, ever absorbed dusky Tuscan wine or Sherris Sack with more appreciative avidity than Billybedam soaked up the “Fus’ X” corn sold on the sly by Yemassee blind tigers and bootleggers, for Billybedam had acquired his “liquorish mouth” during the days, the glorious, honorable days, of the State Dispensary, when, under the operation of that “Great Moral Institution,” certain sons of “Grand old South Carolina” had shown the world that the Caucasian was not “played out,” but could, upon occasion, graft like any freedman of the good old days of Reconstruction!

So the bibulousness of Billybedam became a byword all about “de Yamassee,” where “de Po’ Trial” Railway--significant name--crosses the Atlantic Coast Line, and, not infrequently, the tempers of passengers bound for Beaufort and Port Royal.

Perhaps it was the frequent pouring of libations--his gods were all in his gullet--that enabled Billybedam to crook his elbow so expertly, but this facility, and a marvelous twist of the wrist, contributed to his success as a fisherman, and the greater part of what he ate and drank and wore, came from the brown waters of the Salkehatchie, whose deep and narrow current flowed between wooded banks a mile or so away. With rod and line he fished the stream by day, and many a string of bream and redbreast perch was sold at the station to buy the precious whiskey, while the narrow-mouthed “blue cats,” caught on his set lines over night, were traded among the negroes in exchange for his scanty food and shelter, for Billybedam was a bachelor and a vagabond, unattached and unaffiliated, and called no roof his own.

Sometimes in the spring when the sturgeon were running, the fisherman would get the big-game fever, and, armed with a “grain” which he threw as the whaler throws a harpoon, stationed himself on some log that jutted out over the water, or in the fork of a low, overhanging tree, and took toll from the passing thousands. During the sturgeon run, when, too, mulberries and blackberries were plentiful, the negroes grew fat and “swonguh” and became more than usually irresponsible.

The heavy, sensuous Southern spring was in the air. The bayous or “backwaters,” which irrigated the inland swamp ricefields, were dotted with the sweet white pond lilies, or aflame with the yellow lotus, while over the broad leaves of lily and lotus, purple gallinules tripped daintily. Every log that floated and every stump that rose above the water carried a string or a cluster of terrapins, their glistening backs reflecting the sunshine. The sloping trunks of the willows that fringed the banks were festooned with water snakes, basking in the grateful warmth. Here and there on tussock or muddy flat, rough-backed alligators lay dozing. Blue flags flaunted along the marges. Tall white cranes stalked slowly about the shallows, pausing now and then with spear-like bill poised, watching, waiting.

Billybedam was full of the magic of the spring-time, but it was not altogether a satisfying fullness, and as he pushed the shallow flat-bottomed skiff off from shore, he laid down the paddle long enough to eat a hunk of coarse corn bread and swallow a nip from his “Fus’ X” flask. And then, thoroughly satisfied with the world, he dipped his blade and, with alternate strokes to right and left, pushed the clumsy snub-nosed bateau across the backwater to a famous “drop,” a deep pool just below a gap in the dam where the dark waters flowed slowly through from an upper reservoir. This was Billybedam’s favorite preserve whenever high water in the Salkehatchie forced the river fishermen to seek their living elsewhere.

Today, however, he made an unpropitious start. After his earthworm bait had been repeatedly stripped from his hook by the troublesome silver fish, whose small mouths enabled them to nibble it away piecemeal without getting hooked, his cork bobbed furiously, and he jerked quickly, only to bring swinging over the boat one of the malodorous little black turtles commonly called “limus cootuh” by the low-country negroes. This unwelcome catch he disengaged from the hook and threw as far away from him as possible. “You good fuh nutt’n’ _nigguh_! Yunnuh t’ink me come spang f’um Macfuss’nbil fuh ketch limus cootuh, enty? Who eenwite you fuh eat ’long fish? You ebbuh see nigguh eat ’long buckruh? De debble!” Running his cork a foot or two higher up the line, he fished at a deeper level and soon began to haul in fine perch, which he strung on the willow withes he had provided. At the end of two hours he had several strings of marketable fish, and, as the sun had set, he paddled to shore, threw away his now empty flask, tied his boat to a snag, and started for Yemassee to convert his catch into cash.

An hour later, with silver jingling in his pocket, he encountered in the dusk, Miss Maria Wineglass, a much sought-after ornament of colored society. Miss Wineglass was, in a manner of speaking, a peripatetic paradox. Altho’ dour-looking and glum, she was noted for her spirits (80 proof); bootless and bare-legged, she was McPhersonville’s most daring and accomplished bootlegger, and so circumspect and resourceful that she seldom met the law face to face.

When her course crossed that of Billybedam, she was traveling an unfrequented path on the outskirts of the settlement, and, with little need for caution, she walked rapidly, giving out as she moved a faint, hollow sound like the subdued tones of a xylophone. She hailed the bibulous one as a regular and valued customer.

“Weh you gwine, bubbuh?”

“Wuh you got? I gwine ’tell I fin’um.”

“I got ’nuf.”

“Gimme uh pint;” and he held out half a dollar.

“Gimme seb’nty fi’ cent. Dishyuh t’ing hol’ mo’n uh pint.”

“Wuh kinduh t’ing dat? Lemme shum.”

“Yuh him,” and Miss Wineglass fumbled under her skirt and, from a marvelously durable and comprehensive pair of bloomers made of two cottonseed meal sacks sewed together at the top, produced a gourd holding about three half-pints, and passed it over. The gourd was bottle-shaped and cob-stoppered and ingeniously laced about with hickory bark, as flasks of Chianti are wrapped with flags. The knocking together of half a dozen of these gourds, tied around her waist and suspended within her bloomers, had produced the xylophone music. The money paid, they parted.

Billybedam went his ways. Whatever the nature of the nepenthe the “Fus’ X” extracted from the calabash, it so ’whelmed his wits that oblivion lurked in the bottom of the gourd and overcame him. He fell among thieves, who stripped him of a new shirt he wore and left him, in his trousers only, by the roadside, where a local constable found him next morning and haled him before the magistrate for being inadequately clothed on the public highway.

“What have you to say for yourself?”

“Cap’n, uh yent hab nutt’n’ fuh say. Uh gone fish duh backwatuh, en’ een de fus’ gwinin’ off, uh did’n’ hab no luck, ’cause silbuhfish tek me bait en’ uh nubbuh ketch’um, en’ one limus cootuh grab de hook en’ uh ketch _him_ en’ t’row’um’way, en’ den uh ketch ’nuf fish, en’ uh gone Yamassee en’ sell’um, en’ uh binnuh walk duh paat’, en’ uh meet one gal duh walk duh paat’, name ’Riah Wineglass, en’ uh yeddy’um befo’ uh shum, ’cause ’e mek one soun’ w’en ’e walk sukkuh cow foot crack w’en him duh run, en’ w’en uh _yiz_ shum close, ’e frock duh bunch out all roun’um sukkuh cootuh ’tring out ’puntop’uh log, en’ uh ax’um, ’gal, wuh you got fuh fifty cent?’ en’ ’e say ’e yent got nutt’n’ fuh fifty cent but ’e hab ’nuf fuh seb’nty fi’ cent, en’ I tell’um ’lemme shum,’ en’ ’e hice ’e frock, en’ him hab one t’ing onduhneet’ him frock, dem call’um bloomuh, uh nubbuh see shishuh debble’ub’uh t’ing befo’ sence uh bawn! ’E hol’ ’bout t’ree-fo’ bushel, en’ ’e mek outuh grano sack, en’ britchiz duh ’e farruh en’ frock duh ’e murruh, en’ ’e stan’ sukkuh alltwo. Den de gal graff een da’ t’ing wunnuh call’um so, en’ ’e full’uh de pyo’ killybash ’long Fus’ X, en’ ’e ketch’out one en’ gimme, en’ uh gone off en’ drink’um, en’ fus’ t’ing uh know uh yent know _nutt’n’_, ’tell de counstubble fin’ me dis mawnin’, en’ las’ night w’en uh bin een one strance, some dem Macfussn’nbil nigguh’ t’ief one new shu’t off me back, en’,” said Billybedam, “uh tengk Gawd uh did’n’ bin hab on uh new _britchiz_!”

A SHORT CUT TO JUSTICE

Ever since the days of Solomon, the courts and tribunals of the law in all lands have sought short cuts to justice, but one of the straightest and strangest in the history of jurisprudence was achieved by one Daniel W. Robinson, colored, sometime Magistrate or Trial Justice of the sovereign State of South Carolina, for the Bailiwick of Jacksonboro, in lower Colleton County.

Under the trying days of Reconstruction in South Carolina, the white men and boys living in the so-called “black belt,” comprising the coastal counties of the State, were constantly seeking to lure the black voters into the fold of Democracy, with but indifferent success, for the wary freedman, under the secret instructions given him by the leaders of his own race and the white-skinned spoilers, native and alien, who controlled his political activities for their own profit, was hard to wean away from the idols set up for him within “the awful circle” of the Republican fold.

These poor, deluded negroes, absolutely dependent upon their former masters, the landholders, for food, for clothing, for shelter, for remunerative work--often for free medicines and medical treatment in communities where there were no doctors and no drug stores--though making profuse lip service for benefits received, forgot them all on election day when, under the influence of the knaves who manipulated them, they turned away from their best friends and, hurdled at the polls like sheep, voted blindly the ballots put into their hands by the corruptionists.

At one of these elections the Republican ballot was headed with the national flag in colors, swathed around the ample loins and spreading hips of the figure of Liberty, with the legend “Union Republican ticket.” One of these flamboyant affairs was secured from the printer a day or two before the election and the Democratic tickets were also printed in red ink with a rooster at the top, in the hope that some of the negroes might accept and vote them for Republican ballots. One of these rooster ballots was offered an old darkey at the polls by a Democratic negro worker, but the wary old fellow had been rehearsed in his lesson too well, and he rejected it indignantly, saying: “No, man! uh yent want da’ t’ing! Gimme da’ ticket fuh wote wuh hab de gal wid de Balmuhral sku’t wrop roun’um!” And he got it.

Then came ’76 and the “Straight-Out” campaign. Every white man and boy who could raise two or three dollars to buy a few yards of flannel, sported a red shirt, usually put together by the loving hands of some member of his family, but, occasionally, fearfully and wonderfully made by a sweetheart or feminine acquaintance--some perhaps “a little more than kin,” but all “less than kind.” The boys, however, upon whom had been wished the needlework activities of their lady friends, wore them jauntily nevertheless, absolutely indifferent to the want of co-ordination of “seam and gusset and band.”

As the campaign progressed and enthusiasm increased, an occasional courageous black, taking his life in his hands and braving the hatred and ostracism of his fellows, even of his church and his family, would boldly put on a red shirt and ride with the whites to political meetings or rallies. One of these, old Clitus Wilson, a life-long Democrat, who, as his master’s body servant, fought with him in the battle of Gettysburg, flaunted his red shirt bravely and defiantly. Another was Paul Jenkins, a thrifty, property-owning negro, whose courageous work in the first Hampton campaign was remembered by the whites, who elected him county commissioner soon after the Democrats came into power. Paul, a wiry, coal-black negro, was once beset by several members of the Grant family, “Free-Issue” mulatto Republicans, and cruelly beaten. In the courts of radicalism there was no redress for a negro Democrat, but Paul bided his time and, meeting one of the Grants alone, retaliated so vigorously that the mulatto was laid up for a week. The victim went before Trial Justice Robinson, over the river at Jacksonboro, and swore out a warrant, charging Paul with aggravated assault and battery.

Paul, summoned to appear on the following Saturday, came in great trouble to a stripling planter of the neighborhood who willingly accompanied him to see that the Democrat got justice, and to go on his bond in case he should be sent up to a higher court.