An Unofficial Patriot

"Don't fret. Take yer time. I'm a goin' t' the ferry. Few words comprehends th' whole," he remarked to Griffith, and examined the look of his gun, with critical deliberation. When the wagons were ready to start Jerry whispered to his master that two of the other young negroes had run off during the night, and yet Mr. Davenport pushed on. It was not until late the next afternoon when the dome of the Capitol at Washington burst upon their sight that Griffith and Katherine breathed free. The splendid vision in the distance put new life and interest in the negroes. Their restlessness settled into a childlike and emotional merrymaking, and snatches of song, and banter, and laughter told that danger of revolt or of stampede was over. Judy, alone, sulked in the wagons, and Mammy vented her discontent on the younger ones by word and blow, if they ventured too near her or her white charge. At last the Long Bridge alone stood between them and a liberty that could not be gainsaid – and another liberty for the master which had been so dearly and hazardously bought.

The Long Bridge was spanned and the strange party drove down Pennsylvania Avenue to the office of the attorney who had arranged for their reception. The Long Bridge was past and safety was theirs! Griffith glanced back and then turned to look. "Katherine," he said, smiling sadly, "we have crossed the dead line. We are all safe!" He sighed with the smile still on his lips.

"It is terrible not to feel safe! Terrible! Terrible!" she said in an undertone, "not to feel safe from pursuit, from behind, and from unknown and unaccustomed dangers near at hand – terrible!"

So accustomed had Griffith been to caring for and housing these negroes, who, now that they were in the midst of wonders of which they never had dreamed, clung to him with an abiding faith that whatever should betide he would be there to meet it for them – so accustomed had he been to caring for them that it had never occurred to Griffith not do so, even now when they were no longer his.

"Are the cabins ready?" he asked the attorney's clerk, and sent all but Mammy to the huts which had been provided on the outskirts.

"Go along with this gentleman, children," he said. "Mammy will stay with us, and after Jerry takes us to the hotel he will come and tell you what else to do. Good-bye! Goodbye! Keep together until Jerry comes."

All was uncertainty; but it was understood by all that several of the negroes were to go with the family and the rest to remain here. Griffith had decided to take to his new home Jerry and his wife, Ellen, and the twins; Mammy and Judy, and, if possible, Sally and John. It was here, and now, that he learned the inhospitality of the free states to the freed negroes.

"I intend to take several of them with, me and – "

"Can't do it," broke in the attorney, "Indiana's a free state."

"Well, I can take'em along and hire 'em, I reckon."

"Reckon you can't – not in Indiana."

"What!"

"I said you couldn't take'em along and hire em.

"I'd like to know the reason for that. I – "

"Law. Law's against it."

Griffith drew his hand across his face as if he had lost his power to think.

"You can't take any of'em to Indiana, I tell you," said the attorney insistently, and Griffith seemed dazed. Then he began again: "Can't take them!" he exclaimed, in utter dismay.

"That's what I said twice – can't take them – none of them."

"But I shall pay them wages! Surely I can take my own choice of servants into my own household if they are free and I pay them wages I Surely – "

"Surely you cannot, I tell you," said the attorney, and added dryly, "not unless you are particularly anxious to run up against the law pretty hard." He reached up and took down a leather-bound volume. He turned the leaves slowly, and Griffith and Katherine looked at each other in dismay. "There it is in black and white. Not a mere law, either – sometimes you can evade a law, if you are willing to risk it; but from the way you both feel about leaving those two free niggers in Virginia, I guess you won't be very good subjects for that sort of thing – thirteenth article of the constitution of the State itself." He drew a pencil mark along one side of the paragraph as Griffith read. "Oh! you'll find these free states have got mighty little use for niggers. Came here from one of'em myself. Free or not free, they don't want 'em. You see," he said, slowly drawing a line down the other side of the page, "they prohibit you from giving employment to one! Don't propose to have free nigger competition with their white labor. Can't blame 'em." He shrugged his shoulders.

Griffith began to protest. "But I have read – I thought – "

"Of course you thought – and you've read a lot of spread-eagle stuff, I don't doubt. Talk is one of the cheapest commodities in this world; but when it comes to acts – " he chuckled cynically, "s'pose you had an idea that the border States were just holding out their arms to catch and shield and nurture and feed with a gold spoon every nigger you Southern men were fools enough to set free; but the cold fact is they won't even let you bring them over and pay 'em to work for you! That is one of the charming little differences between theory and practice. They've got the theory and you've had the practice of looking after the niggers! Your end is a damned sight more difficult than theirs, as you'll discover, if you haven't already. Excuse me, I forgot you were a preacher. You don't look much like one." Griffith smiled and bowed. Katherine had gone to the front window, where Mammy and the baby were enjoying the unaccustomed sights of the street. Griffith and the lawyer moved toward them.

"No, sir, your niggers have all got to stay right here in Washington and starve or steal. You can't take'em to Indiana, that's mighty certain. Why, when that Constitution was passed only a year or two ago, there wern't but 21,000 voters in the whole blessed State that didn't vote to punish a white man for even giving employment to a free nigger. Public sentiment as well as law is all against you. You can't take those niggers to Indiana – that's certain!"

"Dar now! Dar now! wat I done tole you?" exclaimed Mammy. "What I done tole Mos' Grif 'bout all dis foolishness? Mis' Kate, you ain't gwine ter 'low dat is you? Me an' Judy free niggers! Town free niggers wid no fambly!" The tone indicated that no lower depth of degradation and misfortune than this could be thrust upon any human being.

"I's gwine ter keep dis heah baby, den. Who gwine ter take cahr ob her widout me?" The child was patting the black face and pulling the black ear in a gleeful effort to call forth the usual snort and threat to "swaller her whole."

"Bless yoah hawt, honey, yoh ain't gwine t' hab no odder nus, is yo'? Nus! Nus! White trash t' nus my baby! Yoh des gwine ter hab yoh ole mammy, dat's wat!"

The attorney took Mr. Davenport and Katherine to an inner office. It was two hours later when they came out. Both were pale and half dazed, but arrangements had been made, papers had been drawn, by which the nine oldest negroes were, in future, to appear at this office once every three months and draw the sum of twenty-four dollars each, so long as they might live. The younger ones must hereafter shift, as best they could, for themselves. The die was cast. The bridges were burned behind them. There was no return, and the negroes were indeed, "free, town niggers," henceforth.

"God forgive me if I have done wrong," said Griffith, as he left the office. "If I have done wrong in deserting these poor black children, for children they will always be, though pensioned as too old to work! Poor Mammy, Poor Judy! And Mart, and old Peyton!"

He shook his head and compressed his lips as he walked toward the door, with a stoop in his shoulders that was not there when he had entered. All the facts of this manumission were so wholly at variance with the established theories.

Every thing had been so different from even what Griffith had expected to meet. As they reached the door the attorney took the proffered hand and laughed a little, satirically.

"Now I want you to tell me what good you expect all this to do? What was the use? What is gained? It's clear to a man without a spy-glass what's lost all around; but it's going to puzzle a prophet to show where the gain comes in, in a case like this. If you'll excuse the remark, sir, it looks like a piece of romantic tom-foolery, to a man up a tree. A kind of tom-foolery, that does harm all around – to black and to white, to bond and to free. Of course if all of 'em were free it would, no doubt, be better. I'm inclined to think that way, myself. But just tell me how many slave-owners – even if they wanted to do it —could do as you have? Simply impossible! Then, besides, where'd they go – the niggers? Pension the whole infernal lot? Gad! but it's the dream of a man who never will wake up to this world, as it is built. And what good have you done? Just stop long enough to tell me that;" he insisted, still holding Griffith's hand. He was smiling down at his client who stood on a lower step. There was in his face a tinge of contempt and of pity for the lack of worldly wisdom.

"I'm not pretending to judge for you nor for other men, Mr. Wapley, but for myself it was wrong to own them. That is all. That is simple, is it not?" The lawyer thought it was, indeed, very, very simple; but to a nature like Griffith's it was all the argument needed. His face was clouded, for the lawyer did not seem satisfied. Griffith could not guess why.

"My conscience troubled me. I am not advising other men to do as I have done. Sometimes I feel almost inclined to advise them not to follow my example if they can feel satisfied not to – the cost is very great – bitterly heavy has the cost been in a thousand ways that no one can ever know but the man who tries it – and this little woman, here." He took her hand and turned to help her into the carriage.

"Ah, Katherine, you have been very brave! The worst has fallen on you, after all – for no sense of imperative duty urged you on. For my sake you have yielded! Her bravery, sir, has been double, and it is almost more than I can bear to ask it – to accept it – of her! For my own sake! It has been selfish, in a sense, selfish in me."

Katherine smiled through dim eyes and pressed her lips hard together. She did not trust herself to speak. She bowed to the attorney and turned toward Mammy and the baby as they stood by the carriage door.

"I'm a-goin' wid yoh alls to de hotel, ain't I, Mis' Kath'rine? Dar now, honey, des put yoah foot dar an' in yoh goes! Jerry, can't yoh hol' dem hosses still! Whoa, dar! Whoa! Mos' Beverly, he radder set in front wid Jerry, an' I gwine ter set inside wid de baby, an' yo' alls."

The old woman bustled about and gave orders until they were, at last, at the door of the Metropolitan, where, until other matters were arranged, the family would remain.

Strange as it may seem, to save themselves from the final trial of a heartbreaking farewell, from protests, from the sight of weeping children and excited negroes, three days later Mr. Davenport and his family left by an early train for the west before the negroes, aside from Jerry, knew that they were gone. And in the place of the spectacle of a runaway negro escaping from white owners, the early loungers beheld a runaway white family escaping from the galling bondage of ownership!

CHAPTER IX

"One touch of nature."– Shakespeare.

As time wore on the family had, in some sort, at least, adjusted itself to the new order of things. The dialect of the strapping Irish-woman who presided over the kitchen of the small but comfortable new home, and the no less unaccustomed speech of the natives, themselves, were a never failing source of amusement to the children and, indeed, to Griffith himself. His old spirits seemed to return as he would repeat, with his hearty laugh, the village gossip, couched in the village forms of speech.

Each day as he opened his Cincinnati Gazette he would laugh out some bit of town news which he had overheard at the post-office or on his way home. The varying forms of penuriousness exhibited in the dealings between the fanners and the villagers impressed him as most amusing of all. The haggling over a few cents, or the payment of money between neighbors for fruit or milk or services of a nature which he had always looked upon as ordinary neighborly courtesy, filled him with mirth. One day, shortly after their arrival, Beverly had brought his mother a dozen peaches from a neighbor's yard. The boy had supposed when asked if his mother would not like them that they were intended as a present. He thanked the owner heartily and said that he was sure his mother would very greatly enjoy.

"After he gave them to me," the boy said, indignantly, "'Six cents wuth, an' cheap at that!' says he, and held out his hand! Well, I could have fainted! Selling twelve peaches to a neighbor! Why, a mountaineer wouldn't do that! And then he had asked me to take them! I had ten cents in my pocket and I handed it to him and walked off. He yelled something to me about change, but I never looked back."

His father enjoyed the joke, as he called it, immensely. He chuckled over it again and again as he sat in the twilight.

One day late in that summer – the summer of '57 – the children were attracted by a great uproar and noise in the street. A group of school children, some street loafers, and a few mature but curious, grown citizens were gathered about an object in the middle of the street. Hoots and shouts of derision went up. A half-witted girl circled slowly about the outskirts of the crowd making aimless motions and passes with her hands toward the object of interest. Voices clashed with voices in an effort to gain coherent sound and sense. Was it a bear or a hand organ? The children ran to see. Beverly followed more slowly. Beverly seemed a young man now, so sedate and dignified was this oldest son.

"What is it?"

"Look out there! Look out there! It's going that way!"

"What? What you say? Who?"

"Who is Mosgrif? No man by that name don't live here."

"Nigger, nigger, pull a trigger, never grow an inch a bigger!"

"Get her some soap! Let's take her and give her a wash!"

"What? Who? Shut up your noise there, will you, Dave Benton. She's askin' fer somebody – some feller she knows. Who?"

There was a pause in the progress of the procession as it reached Mr. Davenport's side gate. Beverly was craning his neck to see over the heads of the crowd. His two brothers took a surer method. They dodged under arms and between legs and were making straight for the center of the crowd where they had heard an accustomed voice.

"What I axes yo' alls is, whah's my Mos' Grif! Dey done tole me down yander dat he lib down dis a-way. Whah's my Mos' Grif's house? I got ter fine my Mos' Grif!"

"Aunt Judy! Aunt Judy!" shrieked the two younger boys, in mad delight. "It's Aunt Judy! Oh, Beverly, come quick! She's hurt! She's been struck with a rock! Come quick – quick!"

LeRoy had reached the old woman, who began to tremble and cry as soon as she felt that friends were indeed near. She threw her arms about his neck and half-sobbed with joy. Then she tried to pick up the younger boy in her arms, as of old, but her strength gave way, and she fell on her knees beside her bundle and stick. A laughing shout went up. Dave Benton shied a small stone at her.

"How dare you! How dare you! you common loafers!" shrieked LeRoy, white with rage. He struck out with both fists at those who were nearest. "How dare you throw at Aunt Judy! How dare you, you low-down – !"

Words failed him, and he was choking with rage, but both fists were finding a mark on the visage of the prostrate Dave. His fists and the astonishment felt at the sight of white children caressing and calling the old black creature "aunty" had served to clear a space about them. Every one had fallen back. The halfwitted girl alone remained with the center group, making aimless passes, with ill-regulated hands, at Aunt Judy. So absorbing was this strange creature to the bewildered senses that not even the struggling boys on the ground at her feet served to divert her gaze from the old black face.

"His aunt's a nigger!"

"Kissed her, by gum!"

"They're the Virginia preacher's kids!"

"Never knew before that some of their kin was niggers!"

Dave Benton was now on top, and Howard was pulling at his leg in an effort to help his brother. Suddenly Roy swirled on top and grasped the helpless Dave by the throat.

"You let her alone, you dirty little – devil!" he ground out between his teeth, "or I'll kill you!"

His rage was so intense, his face was so set and livid, that it looked as if he might execute the threat before the astonished and half-amused bystanders realized the danger. Beverly sprang to the rescue. He had hustled Judy through the side gate and into the house with Howard.

"LeRoy! LeRoy! stop – stop! Get up! let go! Get up this instant!" he commanded, loosening the boy's grasp. "Look at that blood! Father will be so ashamed of you!"

He pushed the boy ahead of him and the door closed behind them, leaving a hooting mob outside and Dave Benton with a bleeding nose and a very sore head.

"Got a nigger fer a ant, by gosh!" exclaimed one, as they turned slowly away, leaving the weak-minded girl alone circling about the gate, making inarticulate noises and movements of indirection at the house and its curious and uncanny new occupant.

But LeRoy's blows and his taunts bore fruit in due season. A week later, Dave Benton's father, who had nursed his wrath, caused service to be made upon Mr. Davenport to show cause why he was not infringing the law and the State constitution by keeping in his service a free negro. Mr. Davenport explained to the court that he had not brought her into the State and was in no way responsible for her having come. Indeed, Judy would not or could not tell exactly how she had managed it herself. That she had been helped forward by some one seemed evident. But Griffith's plea would not suffice. She was here. He was avowedly the cause of her coming. She was a free negro. He was giving her employment. That was against the State constitution. Clearly, she must be sent away. Griffith consulted with a lawyer. The lawyer gravely stated, in open court, that the old negro was a guest, and not an employé, of the Davenport family. The judge smiled. There was no law, no constitutional provision, no statute to prevent a family from having negro guests in Indiana; provided they would give bond for the good behavior during life, and burial in case of death, of such guest!

"By gum! I reckon she is kin to'em, shore'nuff!" remarked Dave's father, sotto voce. "Wonder which one's sister she is – her'n or his'n?"

"Do' know, but it's one er t'other; fer all three o' the boys call her ant, 'n' the little gal, too. She rides on her back. Seen her out in the yard t'other day."

"'Fore I'd let one o' mine kiss a nigger 'n ride on her back!"

"Well, I should smile!"

"Sh! What's that the jedge said?"

"Goin't' take it under 'dvisement, perviden' Davenport agrees t' bind hisself – give bon'." And so it came about, as I told you in the beginning, that this man, who was already a lawbreaker in his native State, unblushingly became a law-evader in the State of his adoption; for the papers were duly drawn up and finally signed and executed. Aunt Judy was officially and legally declared not to be employed by, but to be a visitor in, the family; "and, furthermore, it is declared and agreed, that, in case of her becoming indigent, or in case of her death while within the borders of the State, the aforenamed Rev. Griffith Davenport binds himself, his heirs and assigns, to support while living, or bury in case of the death of the aforenamed Judy Davenport (colored); and, furthermore, agrees that she shall in no manner whatsoever become a charge upon the State of Indiana. The expenses of this procedure to be paid, also, by the said Rev. Griffith Davenport."

"I reckon my conscience is getting a little tough, Katherine," said her husband, smiling, that night as he recited the matter to the family. "I signed that paper with precious little compunction – and yet it was evading the law, pure and simple – so far as the intent goes! Fancy Aunt Judy looking upon herself as a guest of the family! Ha! ha! ha! ha!" The idea so amused him that he laughed uproariously. Five minutes later there floated out on to the porch, where Judy sat with the children telling them wonderful tales of Washington, the notes of "Joy to the world! The Lord has come!" "De good Lawd, bless my soul!" exclaimed the old woman, listening, "I ain't heerd nothin' so good as dat soun' ter me, sense yo' alls runned away! Dat sholy do soun' like ole times! Hit sholy do!"

Rosanna, the Irish cook, sniffed. She was hanging out of the kitchen window listening to aunt Judy's tales of adventure. "She do talk the quarest, schure, an' it's barely the rear av her remarks thet a Christian can understhand;" mumbled Rosanna to herself.

"Well, but how about the twins, Aunt Judy? You said you'd tell us all about the twins just as soon as supper was over. Now, hurry, or I'll have to go to bed,".urged Howard.

The old woman shifted around in her chair to make sure the ears of Rosanna were not too near and lowered her voice to a stage whisper.

"Honey, dem dar twins is des so spilt dat dey is gettin' tainty!"

"Bad, you mean?" asked Roy.

"Dat's wat I said, an' dat's wat I sticks to. Dey's so spilte dey's tainty. Bad! Why bad ain't no name fo' hit. Dey is mouldy. De onliest reason why dey ain't in the lock-up is kase dey ain't got ketched up wid yit. Dey gwine ter git dar, sho' as yoh bawn. Dey is dat!"

"I don't believe it. I don't believe the twins are so bad. You are just mad at 'em. They – " Roy was always a partisan.

"Look a heah, honey, yoh don't know what yoh's talkin' 'bout. Dem twins is plum spilte, I tell yoh. Jerry, he's a teamin' an' he can't watch'em, an' dey maw she's a wuckin' fo' one er dem Congressers, an' dem twins is des plum run wile."

"Perhaps you expect too much of the morals of Washington," suggested Beverly, winking at Roy to give the old woman full sway.

"Mo'ls! mo'ls! Why, lawsy, honey, yoh don' know what yoh talkin' 'bout no mo' dan Mos' Roy do. Dey ain't no mo'ls in Washin-ton – white ner black. Mebby dem dar folks had some 'f o dey cum dar; but dey sholy did leave de whole lot back in de place whah dey cum fum! Dey sholy did dat. Mo'ls! In Washin'ton? Dey ain't none dar!" She shook her finger at Beverly.

Roy saw his opportunity as she started for the door to shut off further questions. "Oh! go away, Aunt Judy, you don't know what morals are," he said, "that's all. In Washington they are government property and they keep'em in tin cans. Of course you didn't see any."

"Dey dun los' de opener t' dat can, too," she remarked, hobbling up the steps. Many and blood-curdling had been her stories of life at the capital. In her opinion, the seat of government had no redeeming qualities. "Stay dar? Why, dis chile wouldn't stay dar fo' no 'mount o' money, ner fer nobody. She's got too much self-'spect fer dat, de good Lawd he do know. Stay dar? No, sah!"

"Well, the others are getting along all right, I'll bet you," piped up Howard, as her foot struck the top step. She turned.

"I ain't gwine ter tell yoh no mo' to-night. I'se gwine ter bed; but wat I knows is des dis: De way dey gets 'long, dey goes t' dat dar Mr. Lawyer an' gits dat money Mos' Grif done lef. De fus' mont' dey sholy dus lib high; de nex' mont' dey sorter scrabbles erlong, an' de las' mont' dey sholy is hawd times. Dey ain't no use talking, dey sholy is dat! Now I'm des' gwine in 'n take a good big jorum of pepsissiway for my stummick, 'n git erlong ter my bed, fore do rasters'gin ter crow fer mawnin'." And she disappeared in the darkness, shaking her head and reiterating the refrain, as to the badness of those twins.

The story of Aunt Judy's travels, in so far as she vouchsafed to tell them and not to resort to fiction or silence – her adventures by land and water, by wagon and rail, in search of "Mos' Grif," spread far and wide. The old woman could not set her foot outside of the door without a following of boys and girls, and, as a faithful historian, it would little avail me to omit, also, of men and of women, who hooted, stared at and otherwise indicated that she was less than human and more than curious. She was the pariah of the village, albeit LeRoy's fists had done their perfect work in that she was no more stoned. But she was content – so, at least, she asserted – and not even the longing for Jeny and Ellen and those badly-spoiled twins (of whom she never tired talking) served to convince her that there could be, on all this green earth, any home for her except, alone, the one that sheltered "Mos' Grif an' Mis' Kath'rine an' dat blessed baby," now grown too large to be a baby longer except alone to this loving old soul, to whom, forever, she was "my baby."