Chapter 15

'Howbeit, I over-persuaded him. We managed to get hold of a bit of chain fastened to his collar, bent a line on to it, gave him reasonable scope, belayed the bight, and knocked off one end of his box. Out he bolted! It was a change from that dark den to the glaring tropical sunshine, the blue sea foaming under the trades, the rolling masts, and the hundreds of curious eyes that surrounded him. Sensible to the last, he tried to go aloft, but the line soon brought him up. Down he came, and steered for'ard. The cooks and stewards, their hands on the combing, filled the fore-hatch. He made a dive for them, and they tumbled ignominiously down the hatchway. We laughed consumedly. Then he cruised aft, the dress-circle considerately widening. He came up to me, as if knowing his benefactor by instinct, looking curiously about him, and curling and retracting his flexile snout and lip, after the manner of his kind. Now, I had often dealt with bears, tame and semi-tame, had 'held Sackerson by the chain,' as often as Master Slender, had known them sometimes to strike or hug, (which they always do standing,) but had never known one to bite. So I didn't take the trouble to move, and--the first I knew--the villain had me by the leg!'

'Sarved yer right, for lettin' on him out,' interposed that grim utilist Jonas, our hired man. He had entered, pending the narrative, and stood, _arrectis auribus_, by the door.

'Mercy on us! didn't it hurt?'

'Yes; but not more than might easily be borne. It didn't seem like biting--more like the strong, hard grip of a vice than any thing else--puncture quite lost in constriction. My viznomy, I am told, was a study: supreme disgust, tempered with divine philosophy.'

'And how on earth did you get away from him?'

'By not trying to; kept as still as a mouse, till he had bitten all he wanted to, which took about a minute. Then he let go, and walked quietly off, to see if he couldn't bite somebody else. I afterward improved our acquaintance by giving him sugar-cane and a licking or two; but he was always an ill-conditioned brute, not amenable to reason, and when we came to New York, gave no end of trouble, by getting over the side and running up the North River on the ice--I dare say he scented the Catskills--the whole waterside whooping and hallooing in chase after him. Ah! I could tell you a better story than that, of a wild beast aboard a ship!'

'Do, then.'

'It was told me by an ancient mariner, who knows how many years ago? for I'm getting to be an old fellow myself, children.'

'What nonsense, Dick! talk about _your_ being old.'

'Well, never mind. I'll try to give it to you in his own words. Said he:

"I never see a nigger turn white but once, and that was aboard of the old 'Emperor.' We was bound from Calcutta, to Boston, and had aboard an elephant, a big Bengal tiger, and a lot of other wild creturs, for a menagerie. Well, one forenoon, blowing a good topsail breeze, as it might be to-day, but more sea than wind, we was going large, and I up on the main-yard, turning in a splice. All to once, I heerd a strange noise, and looked down. There was the black cook, shinning of it up, making a great hullibaloo, and shaking the tormentors behind him--that's a big iron fork he has in the galley. His face was as white as a table-cloth. Close behind him was the tiger, who had got out of his cage somehow, and, snuffing the grub, had made tracks for the coppers.

"All the watch, by this time, was tumbling up the rigging, fore and aft. The tiger he tried two or three of the ratlins, but thought it onsafe, so he let himself down, mighty careful, to the deck. The companion-way was open, and he dived into the cabin. The captain lay asleep on the transom, and never waked up. The cretur didn't touch him, but come up agin, and poked his nose into, the door of the mate's room, that was a little on the jar. The mate see him, and gin him a kick in the face, and slammed the door agin him. That made him mad, and he tried to get in at the little window; but his head was so big, he couldn't begin. Did you ever mind what eyes them devils has? They've got a kind of cruel, murderin' look that no other beast has, that I ever see. Well, he give it up, and went aft. Then, a kind of a sick feelin' come over me; for, d'ye see, there was _one_ man that couldn't leave no way!'

"The man at the wheel?'

"Ay, shipmet! He saw the tiger comin', for he turned as pale as death; but he didn't look at him, and never stirred tack or sheet. He stuck right on to the spokes, and steered her as true as a die; and well he did, for if he hadn't, we'd a broached to in five seconds, and that would a been wuss than the tiger. Well, the cussed beast went close up to him, and actually snuffed at him. You may judge what a relief it was to us when he left him, at last, and come for'ard. There was a sheep in the long-boat, and, as he was cruising about decks, he smelt it, and grabbed it, and was suckin' its blood in a jiffy; so we managed to get a slip-knot over him, and hauled taut on it from aloft. Then a young fellow went down with a line, and wound it round and round him, till he couldn't stir, and at last, with a heap of trouble, we got him stowed in his cage again, sheep and all; for he never let go on it.'

"And what was done for the man at the wheel?'

"Well, sir, nothing; he was only doing his duty."

'That was too bad! Now tell us another--tell us some more about shows?'

'Shows, chickabiddy? I've not seen any of late. The last was the What-Is-It.'

'Well, and what _was_ it?'

'That is more than I can tell you. The proprietor is constantly asking the question, and has even gone to the expense of repeatedly advertising. I shouldn't wonder if, by this time, he had gotten a satisfactory response. I went and listened to the customary description. The silence that ensued was broken by a miserable skeptic, whose ill-regulated aspirations betrayed his insular prejudice, 'Vot is it? arf hanimal, eh? t'other day, I stuck a pin into him, and ses he, '_Dam yez!_' Vot is it, eh?'

'Thus did this wretch, by implication, endeavor to unsettle the opinions of the audience, none too definite, perhaps, before.

'It is singular the distrust with which a thankless public has long come to regard the efforts of one whose aim it has ever been to combine instruction with amusement. Do you remember an itinerant expedition sent forth, years ago, by the same grand purveyor? There was a Car of Juggernaut, you may recollect, drawn by twenty little pigs of elephants. That show I also attended, and was well repaid for going. Near the entrance of the tent was a large cage, peopled with the gayest denizens of tropic life, macaws, cockatoos, paroquets--what know I?--a feathered iridescence, that sulked prehensile or perched paradisiacal in their iron house. Two youths entered; one paused admiringly. 'Come along, Jack,' remonstrated the other, hurrying him on by the arm, 'them darned things is only painted.' He wasn't going to see his friend imposed upon and his admiration extorted under false pretenses. Not if _he_ knew it! Mr. B---- couldn't do _him!_

'Painted! Ay, Jonathan--and if Church or Kensett, look you, could only get at those pigments! could find the oil-and-color men that filled that order! ah me! what opaline skies! what amethystine day-breaks! what incarnadine sunsets we should have! The palette for that work was laid by angels, from tubes long hidden in the choicest crypts of the vast elaboratory, and those transcendent tints.

'Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on,'

Painted! to be sure.

'For this wicked specimen of infidelity, I was presently overpaid by a charming bit of belief. At the further end of the great tent was a case, containing divers wax effigies of eminent personages; the Czar, Prince Albert, General Spitzentuyfel--what know I? You may see them any day, (if you happen to have two York shillings,) at the sumptuous home to which they have returned from those travels. There they stood, side by side, an imposing company, forever shiny in the face, like Mrs. Wittitterly's page, and with eyes magnificently superior to any thing so sordid as speculation. All were finely befrogged, and ruched, and epauletted, and, for the most part, they sported moustaches. It happened that I had the latter adornment--a variety then--on my own mug.

While recognizing them--they were old acquaintances--I felt a gentle pull at my skirt, and looking down, was aware of a little _tot_, some three years old, who asked, pointing to the counterfeit presentments in the show-case: 'Did _you_ come out o' there?' The innocent! he little knew what an extinguisher he was clapping on me. 'No, sonny,' said I, looking down on the little nose, itself a bit of wax, between two peaches. The soft impeachment proceeded--'Well, where do yer belong? do yer belong in with the _bear_?' for there was a plantigrade there too. But I reckon that will do for bears, this time.'

'I should think so! They'll be dreaming about 'em all night.'

'Dick, how much of all this is true?'

'The whole, barring a few verbal interpolations.'

'Wal, I've seed shows,' moralized Jonas, 'a good many on 'em; but I couldn't tell the yarns about 'em that Mr. Richard, here, does. He figurs on 'em considerable, I 'xpect.''

* * * * *

FUGITIVES AT THE WEST.

A distinguished French writer once remarked, that the position of the colored race in America includes in itself every element of romance. The fortunes of this great human family; its relations to the white race, with which it is growing up side by side; its developments, its struggles, and its coming destiny, must hold in the future an historic interest of which it would be difficult beforehand to form an intelligent appreciation. The political events of the last few months have fairly opened this new historic page; and though, for the most part, its recording lines still lie behind the cloud, the first few words, charged with deep import to us and to all men, are becoming legible to every eye.

We can no longer view the colored race as a mere mass of ignorance and degradation lying quiescent beneath the white man's foot, and, except as a useful species of domestic animal, of little consequence to us or to the world. We see to-day, its fortunes and those of our own race blended together in a great struggle based on political, moral, and religious questions, and leading to a series of events of which not one of us as yet can foretell the conclusion.

The collective romance of the race is now but just opening to us; but its individual romance dawned upon us years ago. Long as we can remember, we have heard of one and another of that depressed people struggling to escape from an overwhelming bondage. We have known that such attempts were marked by scenes of thrilling interest, by intense earnestness of purpose, by the most powerful emotions of hope and fear, by startling adventures, ending sometimes in hopeless tragedy, sometimes in a dearly-bought success. Before the fugitive lay on one hand death, or worse than death; on the other, liberty beneath the cold North-star.

Some years ago, these elements of romance, with the moral principles lying at their root, were laid hold of by Mrs. Stowe. The wonderful enthusiasm with which her work was received, the avidity with which it was read all the world over, showed how wide and deep was the sympathy which the position of the colored race in America was calculated to excite.

I suppose there are few people living on the border-line dividing the North from the South, who can not recall exciting incidents and scenes of painful interest connected with the fugitive slave, occurring within their own knowledge, and often beneath their own eyes. During the few years when I grew from childhood to youth, in the neighborhood of Cincinnati, I can recall many such incidents. I remember being startled, from time to time, by sorrowful events of this nature that so frequently occur in Western cities, owing to their close proximity to the South, and to the continual arrival of steamboats from the slaveholding States. Once I remember, it was a family of half-caste children, brought to the very levee by their white father. He had made the journey during his death-struggle, hoping to leave his children free men upon free ground: but just as he approached the levee, he died; and his heir, in eager pursuit, seized the children around their father's lifeless form, before they had time to land, and hurried them away, his hopeless, helpless slaves. Then it was a woman with a child in her arms, flying through the great thoroughfares of the city, with her pursuers behind her--a mad, wild, brutal chase. Then it was a pretty mulatto child, the pride and delight of its parents, abstracted in the evening by prowling thieves, from a colored family in our immediate vicinity. Lost forever! never more to be heard of by its terrified and sorrowing parents! Then came the terrible tragedy of that poor mother who, being seized as she was escaping with her children, and thrown into jail, 'preferred for her dear ones the guardianship of angels to the oppression of man,' and killed them in the prison with her own hands, one by one, the jailer only entering in time to arrest the knife as she was about to strike it into her own despairing heart.

But though from time to time circumstances such as these were noised abroad and made known to all, I knew that there were innumerable thrilling stories, often less tragic in their conclusion, known only to the more successful fugitive and his own immediate friends. I heard rumors of an underground railway, as it was termed, a mysterious agency keeping watch for fugitives, and assisting them on their journey, passing them on secretly and speedily from point to point on their way to Canada. I knew that such a combination existed on my right hand and on my left, and under my very eyes; but who might be concerned in it, or how it might be managed, I could not in the least divine. One day a gleam of light came to me upon the subject. Our minister, a good old man, who preached with great eloquence on the subject of human depravity, and pointedly enough upon many of the sins of the age, but who had never taken any clear and open ground on the subject of slavery, had a daughter who was warmly and avowedly anti-slavery in principle. We became friends; and as my intimacy with her increased, we sometimes spoke of the fugitives.

One day she owned to me that she had some connection with this underground railway, principally in the way of providing with old clothing the destitute creatures who were arriving--generally at unexpected moments--barefoot, and with scarce a rag upon their backs to protect them from the bitter cold of the Canadian winter, which even under the best circumstances is so sadly trying to the negro constitution.

She told me that as the agents in the neighborhood were few and poor, and as these sudden calls admitted of no delay, they were sometimes unable to provide the required clothing; and she asked me, in case of such an emergency, if she might sometimes apply to me for some of the articles of which they might be in especial need. From that time Canada became the ultimate destination of all my old clothes. I could imagine superannuated cloaks and shawls wrapped around dusky and shivering shoulders, and familiar bonnets walking about Canada in their old age on the woolly heads of poor fugitive negro women.

It was but a short time after our conversation that the first call came. One bitter winter's night, word was sent me that a family had arrived--father, mother, and several young children, all utterly destitute. The articles which their friends were least able to provide, and which would therefore be particularly acceptable, were shoes for the boys, and warm clothing of every kind for the woman. The latter requirement was soon provided for. An old purple bonnet that had already seen good service in the world, a quilted skirt, and sundry other articles were soon looked up and repaired to meet the poor creature's necessities--but shoes for the boys! The message had been very urgent upon that point. Shoes! shoes! any sort of shoes! Now our boys had, for the most part, grown up and departed, and in vain I rummaged through the garret--that receptacle of ancient treasures--for relics of the past, in the way of masculine shoes and boots. I was giving it up in despair, when suddenly an idea occurred to me. It had happened, in days long past, that a French lady of our acquaintance had broken up housekeeping, and we had stored a part of her furniture in our spacious garrets. Ere long it had all been reclaimed except two articles, which had somehow or other remained behind. The first was a handsomely mounted crayon drawing, representing a remarkably ugly young man with heavy features and a most unprepossessing expression of countenance. Below this drawing, maternal pride and affection had caused to be inscribed in clear, bold letters, these two words: 'My Son.' The second piece of property remaining behind with 'my son's portrait, were 'my son's elegant French boots--a wonderful pair, shiny as satin, and of some peculiar and exquisite style, long and narrow, with sharp-pointed and slightly turned-up toes. They were of beautiful workmanship, but being made of a firm and unaccommodating material, and in form utterly unadapted to any possible human foot, they had probably pinched 'my son's feet so unendurably that no amount of masculine vanity or fortitude could long support the torture, and with a sigh of regret he had no doubt been forced to relinquish them ere their first early bloom had departed, or the beautiful texture of the sole-leather had lost its delicate, creamy tint. These two articles had long lain in a corner of the garret, to the infinite amusement of the children of the family, who were never weary of allusions to 'my son,' and 'my son's boots. In process of time the portrait also was reclaimed, but the deserted boots still occupied their corner of the garret, year after year, until there were no children left to crack their jokes at their comical and dandified appearance. Upon these elegant French boots I pounced, in this sore dilemma, and as my messenger was waiting, without time for a moment's reflection, I bundled them in with the rest of the articles, and dispatched them at once to their destination.

Scarcely had the messenger departed than I sat down to laugh. I thought of the brother, who had especially distinguished himself in his boyish days, by witticisms upon those famous boots, and I recalled to mind, also, a slightly exaggerated description of the negro foot, with which he had been wont to indulge his young companions. This foot he would describe as very broad and flat, with the leg planted directly in the centre, leaving an equal length for the toes in front and for the heel behind.

Now, although I had never given credence to these exact proportions, I still remained under the impression that there was a peculiarity in the negro foot, that the heel was somewhat more protuberant than in the European foot, and rather broad, it might also well be supposed to be, in its natural and unpinched condition. The whole scene came vividly before my imagination; the unfortunate family handing round in dismay those exquisite French boots, vainly striving, one after another, to insert their toes into them, but finding among their number no Cinderella whom the wonderful shoe would fit. I figured them at last descending to a little fellow six years old, or thereabouts, whose poor little feet might possibly be planted in the centre of the boots, and thus, in default of any other protection, be saved for a time from frost and snow. My mind was divided between amusement at the final destination of these celebrated relics, and regret that I had nothing more suitable to send. I could only hope that this part of the poor fugitives' outfit might be more successfully provided for from some other quarter.

Winter passed by; spring came, succeeded by long, hot mid-summer days of the western summer. Our neighbors, for the most part, were scattered to the North and East--gone to the lakes, to New-York, to Boston, or to some summer resort upon the Atlantic coast--all who could, breaking the long-continued and oppressive heat by a pleasant excursion to some cooler clime. My friend, the minister's daughter, and most of our own family, had gone like the rest, and I was left in a somewhat solitary state to while away the long hours of those burning summer days, in the monotony of a large and empty country-house.

One day at noon, I strolled to the door, seeking a breath of air. I stood within the doorway, and looked out. Before me extended a level tract of green grass, thinly planted with young shade-trees. At some distance beyond, melting away in haze beneath the glowing sun, a little wood extended toward the north-east, meeting at its extremity another and denser wood of much greater extent. This first little wood had been in our young days our favorite resort. We had explored every turn in it again and again; we knew well every tree upon its outskirts, beneath whose shade some little patch of green grass might serve for a resting-place, or a pic-nic ground; we were familiar with every old trunk with wide-extending roots, in whose protecting cavities that little, speckled, pepper-and-salt-looking flower, the spring harbinger, nestled, peeping forth toward the end of March, ere the ice and snow had well melted, or any other green thing dared show itself. Deeper in the shade lay the soft beds of decaying leaves, where somewhat later the spring beauties would start forth, clothing the brown and purple tints of the ground with touches of delicate pink. With them would come that fair little wind-flower, the white anemone, and the blue and yellow violets, soon to be followed by that loveliest of all Ohio wild flowers, called by the country people, 'Dutchman's breeches,' but in more refined parlance, denominated 'pantalettes,' looking for all the world as if the fairies had just done a day's washing and hung out their sweet little nether garments to dry, suspended in rows from the tiny rods that so gracefully bend beneath the pretty burden. Pure white are they, or of such a delicate flesh-tint, the fairy washerwoman might well be proud of her work. Other spots were sacred to the yellow lily, with its singular, fierce-looking leaf, spotted like a panther's hide, growing in solitary couples, protecting between them the slender stalk with its drooping yellow bell. Later in the season come the larger and more brilliantly tinted flowers, the wild purple larkspur, the great yellow buttercup, and the lilac flox. There were dusky depths in the wood, too, into which, book in hand, we sometimes retreated from the mid-summer heat into an atmosphere of moist and murky coolness. There we found the Indian pipe, or ghost-flower--leaf, stem, and flower, all white as wax, turning to coal-black if long brought into light, or if pressed between the leaves of a book.