Si Klegg, Book 2

"Great country, Pap," said Si suggestively.

"Yes; it'd be a great country," said his father disdainfully, "if you could put a wagonload o' manure on every foot and import some Injianny men to take care of it. The water and the sunshine down here seem all right, but the land and the people and the pigs and stock seem to be cullin's throwed out when they made Injianny."

At length the train halted by a double log house of much more pretentious character than any they had so far seen. There were a couple of well-filled corn-cribs, a large stack of fodder, and other evidences of plenty. The Deacon's practiced eye noticed that there was no stock in the fields, but Si explained this by saying that everything on hoofs had been driven off to supply the rebel army. "They're now trying to git a corn-crib and a fodder-stack with four legs, but hain't succeeded so far."

The Captain ordered the fence thrown down and the wagons driven in to be filled. The surrounding horizon was scanned for signs of rebels, but none appeared anywhere. The landscape was as tranquil, as peace-breathing as a Spring morning on the Wabash, and the Deacon's mind reverted to the condition of things on his farm. It was too wet to plow, but he would like to take a walk over the fields and see how his wheat had come out, and look over the peach-buds and ascertain how they had stood the Winter. He noticed how some service-trees had already unfolded their white petals, like flags of truce breaking the long array of green cedars and rusty-brown oaks.

The company stacked arms in the road, the Captain went to direct the filling of the wagons, and Si and Shorty started on a private reconnoissance for something for their larder.

The Deacon strolled around the yard for awhile inspecting the buildings and farm implements with an eye of professional curiosity, and arrived at very unfavorable opinions. He then walked up on the porch of the house, where a woman of about his own age sat in a split-bottom rocking-chair knitting and viewing the proceedings with frowning eyes.

"Good day, ma'am," said he. "Warm day, ma'am."

"'Tain't as warm as it orter to be for sich fellers as yo'uns," she snapped. "You'd better be in the brimstone pit if you had your just deserts."

The Deacon always tried to be good-humored with an angry woman, and he thought he would try the effect of a little pleasantry. "I'm a Baptist, ma'am, and they say us Baptists are tryin' to put out that fire with cold water."

"You a Babtist?" she answered scornfully. "The hot place is full o' jest sich Babtists as yo'uns air, and they're making room for more. We'uns air Babtists ourselves, but, thank the Lord, not o' your kind. Babtists air honest people. Babtists don't go about the country robbin' and murderin' and stealin' folks' corn. Don't tell me you air a Babtist, for I know you air a-lyin', and that's the next thing to killin' and stealin'."

"But I am a Baptist," persisted the Deacon, "and have bin for 30 year regular, free-will, close-communion, total-immersion Baptist. We have some Campbellites, a few Six Principle Baptists, and some Hard Shells, but the heft of us air jest plain, straight-out Baptists. But, speakin' o' cold water, kin you give me a drink? I'm powerful dry."

"Thar's water down in the crick, thar," she said, with a motion of her knitting in that direction. "It's as fur for me as it is for you. Go down thar and drink all you like. Lucky you can't carry the crick away with yo'uns. Yo'uns 'd steal it if yo'uns could."

"You don't seem to be in a good humor, ma'am," said the Deacon, maintaining his pleasant demeanor and tone.

"Well, if you think that a passel o' nasty Yankees is kalkerlated to put a lady in a good humor you're even a bigger fool than you look. But I hain't no time to waste jawin' you. If you want a drink thar's the crick. Go and drink your fill of it. I only wish it was a's'nic, to pizen you and your whole army."

She suddenly stopped knitting, and bent her eyes eagerly on an opening in the woods on a hill-top whence the road wound down to the house. The Deacon's eyes followed hers, and he saw unmistakable signs of men in butternut clothes. The woman saw that he noticed them, and her manner changed.

"Come inside the house," she said pleasantly, "and I'll git you a gourdful of water fresh from the spring."

"Thankee, ma'am; I don't feel a bit dry," answered the Deacon, with his eyes fastened on the hill top. "Si, Shorty, Capt. McGillicuddy," he yelled.

"Shet your head, and come into the house this minit, you nasty Yankee, or I'll slash your fool head off," ordered the woman, picking up a corn-cutter the advantage of his position and ran up to him.

The Deacon was inside the railing around the porch, and he had not jumped a fence for 20 years. But he cleared the railing as neatly as Si could have done it, and ran bareheaded down the road, yelling at the top of his voice.

He was not a minute too soon not soon enough. A full company of rebel cavalry came dashing out of the woods, yelling like demons.

Without waiting to form, the men of Co. Q ran to their guns and began firing from fence-corners and behind trees. Capt. McGillicuddy took the first squad that he came to, and, running forward a little way, made a hasty line and opened fire. Others saw the advantage of his position and ran up to him.

The Deacon snatched up a gun and joined the Captain.

"I never wuz subject to the 'buck fever,'" he muttered to himself, "and I won't allow myself to be now. I remember jest how Gineral Jackson told his men to shoot down to New Orleans. I'm going to salt one o' them fellers as sure as my name's Josiah Klegg."

He took a long breath, to steady himself, as he joined the Captain, picked out a man on a bay horse that seemed to be the rebels' Captain, and caught his breast fully through the hindsight before he pulled the trigger. Through the smoke he saw his man tumble from his horse.

"Got him, anyway," he muttered; "now, how in the world kin I load this plaguey gun agin?"

At that instant a rebel bullet bit out a piece of his ear, but he paid no attention to it.

"Gi' me that cartridge," he said to the man next to him, who had just bitten off the end of one; "I can't do it."

The man handed him the cartridge, which the Deacon rammed home, but before he could find a cap the fight was over, and the rebels were seek ing the shelter of the woods.

The Deacon managed to get a cap on his gun in time to take a long-distance, ineffective shot at the rebels as they disappeared in the woods.

They hastily buried one rebel who had been killed, and picked up those who had been wounded and carried them into the house, where they were made as comfortable as possible. Among them was the man whom the Deacon had aimed at. He was found to have a wound through the fleshy part of his hip, and proved to be the son of the woman of the house.

As soon as the fight was over, Si, full of solicitude, sought his father. He found him wiping the blood from his ear with his bandanna.

"It's nothin', son; absolutely nothin'," said the old gentleman with as much pride as any recruit. "Don't hurt as much as a scratch from a briar. Some feller what couldn't write put his mark on me so's he'd know me agin. But I fetched that feller on the bay hoss. I'm glad I didn't kill him, but he'll keep out o' devilment for sometime.

CHAPTER XX. THE DEACON BUTTS IN

ENFORCES THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

"PAP," said Si, as they were riding back, comfortably seated on a load of corn-fodder, "now that it's all over, I'm awfully scared about you. I can't forgive myself for runnin' you up agin such a scrape. I hadn't no idee that there wuz a rebel in the whole County. If anything had happened you it'd just killed mother and the girls, and then I'd never rested till I got shot myself, for I wouldn't wanted to live a minute."

"Pshaw, my son," responded his father rather testily; "you ain't my guardeen, and I hope it'll be a good many years yit before you are. I'm mighty glad that I went. There was something Providential in it. I'm a good deal of a Quaker. I believe in the movin's of the spirit. The spirit moved me very strongly to go with you, and I now see the purpose in it. If I hadn't, them fellers might've got the bulge on you. I seen them before any o' you did, and I fetched down their head devil, and I feel that I helped you a good deal."

"Indeed you did," said Shorty earnestly. "You ought to have a brevet for your 'conspicuous gallantry in action.' I think the Colonel will give you one. You put an ounce o' lead to particularly good use in that feller's karkiss. I only wish it'd bin a little higher up, where it'd a measured him for a wooden overcoat."

"I'm awful glad I hit him jest where I did," responded the Deacon. "I did have his heart covered with my sights, and then I pulled down a little. He was pizen, I know; but I wanted to give him a chance to repent."

"He'll repent a heap," said Shorty incredulously. "He'll lay around the house for the next six months, studyin' up new deviltry, and what he can't think of that secesh mother o' his'll put him up to. Co. Q, and particularly the Hoosier's Rest, is the only place you'll find a contrite heart and a Christian spirit cultivated."

"That reminds me," said Si; "we hain't licked the Wagonmaster yit for throwin' cartridges down our chimbley."

"Blamed if that ain't so," said Shorty. "I knowed I'd forgotten some little thing. It's bin hauntin' my mind for days. I'll jest tie a knot in my handker chief to remember that I must tend to that as soon's we git back."

"I'm quite sure that I don't want another sich a tussle," meditated the Deacon. "I never heerd any thing sound so murderin' wicked as them bullets. A painter's screech on a dark night or a rattler's rattle wuzzent to be compared to 'em. It makes my blood run cold to think o' 'em. Then, if that feller that shot at me had wobbled his gun a little to the left, Josiah Klegg's name would 've bin sculped on a slab o' white marble, and Maria would 've bin the Widder Klegg. I wish the war wuz over, and Si and Shorty safe at home. But their giddy young pates are so full o' dumbed nonsense that there hain't no room for scare. But, now that I'm safe through it, I wouldn't 've missed it for the best cow on my place. After all, Providence sends men where they are needed, and He certainly sent me out there.

"Then, I'll have a good story to tell the brethren and sisters some night after prayer meetin's over. It'll completely offset that story 'bout my comin' so near gittin' my head shaved. How the ungodly rapscallions would've gloated over Deacon Klegg's havin' his head shaved an' bein' drummed out o' camp. That thing makes me shiver worse'n the whistlin' o' them awful bullets. But they can't say nothin' now. Deacon Klegg's bin a credit to the church."

They were nearing camp. The Captain of Co. Q ordered:

"Corporal Klegg, take your wagon up that right-hand road to the Quartermaster's corral of mules, and bring me a receipt for it."

Si turned the wagon off, and had gone but a few hundred yards, when he and Shorty saw a house at a little distance, which seemed to promise to furnish something eatable. He and Shorty jumped off and cut across the fields toward it, telling the Deacon they would rejoin him before he reached the picket-line, a mile or so ahead.

The Deacon jogged on, musing intently of the stirring events of the day, until he was recalled to the things immediately around him by hearing a loud voice shout:

"Stop, there, you black scoundrel! I've ketched ye. I'm gwine to blow your onery head off."

He looked up and saw a man about his own age, dressed in butternut homespun, and riding a fine horse. He wore a broad-brimmed slouch hat, his clean-shaven face was cold and cruel, and he had leveled a double-barreled shotgun on a fine-looking negro, who had leaped over from the field into the middle of the road, and was standing there regard ing him with a look of intense disappointment and fear.

"You devil's ape," continued the white man, with a torrent of profanity, "I've ketched ye jest in the nick o' time. Ye wuz makin' for the Yankee camp, and 'd almost got thar. Ye thought yer 40 acres and a mule wuz jest in sight, did ye? Mebbe ye reckoned y'd git a white wife, and be an officer in the Yankee army. I'm gwine to kill ye, right here, to stop yer deviltry, and skeer off others that air o' the same mind."

"Pray God, don't kill me, massa," begged the negro. "I hain't done nuffin' to be killed foh."

"Hain't done nothin' to be killed for!" shouted the white man, with more oaths. "Do ye call sneakin' off to jine the enemy and settin' an example to the other niggers nothin'? Git down on yer knees and say yer prayers, if ye know any, for ye ain't a minnit to live."

The trembling negro dropped to his knees and be gan mumbling his prayers.

"What's the matter here?" asked the Deacon of the teamster.

"O, some man's ketched his nigger tryin' to run away to our lines, an's goin' to kill him," answered the teamster indifferently.

"Goin' to kill him," gasped the Deacon. "Are we goin' to 'low that?"

"'Tain't none o' my business," said the teamster coolly. "It's his nigger; I reckon he's a right to do as he pleases."

"I don't reckon nothin' o' the kind," said the Deacon indignantly. "I won't stand and see it done."

"Better not mix in," admonished the teamster. "Them air Southerners is pretty savage folks, and don't like any meddlin' twixt them and their niggers. What's a nigger, anyway?"

"Amounts to about as much as a white-livered teamster," said the Deacon hotly. "I'm goin' to mix in. I'll not see any man murdered while I'm around. Say, you," to the white man; "what are you goin' ter do with that man?"

"Mind yer own bizniss," replied the white man, after a casual glance at the Deacon, and seeing that he did not wear a uniform. "Keep yer mouth shet if ye know when y're well off."

"O, massa, save me! save me!" said the negro, jumping up and running toward the Deacon, who had slipped down from the fodder, and was standing in the road.

"All right, Sambo; don't be scared. He sha'n't kill you while I'm around," said the Deacon.

"I tell ye agin to mind yer own bizniss and keep yer mouth shet," said the white man savagely. "Who air ye, anyway? One o' them slinkin' nigger-stealin' Abolitionists, comin' down here to rob us Southerners of our property?"

He followed this with a torrent of profane denunciation of the "whole Abolition crew."

"Look here, Mister," said the Deacon calmly, reaching back into the wagon and drawing out a musket, "I'm a member o' the church and a peaceable man. But I don't 'low no man to call me names, and I object to swearin' of all kinds. I want to argy this question with you, quietly, as between man and man."

He looked down to see if there was a cap on the gun.

"What's the trouble 'twixt you and this man here?"

"That ain't no man," said the other hotly. "That's my nigger bought with my money. He's my property. I've ketched him tryin' to run away tryin' to rob me of $1,200 worth o' property and give it to our enemies. I'm gwine to kill him to stop others from doin' the same thing."

"Indeed you're not," said the Deacon, putting his thumb on the hammer.

"Do you mean to say you'll stop me?" said the master, starting to raise his shotgun, which he had let fall a little.

"Something like that, if not the exact words," an swered the Deacon calmly, looking at the sights of the musket with an interested air.

The master resumed his volley of epithets.

The Deacon's face became very rigid, and the musket was advanced to a more threatening position. "I told you before," he said, "that I didn't allow no man to call me sich names. I give you warnin' agin. I'm liable to fall from grace, as the Methodists say, any minnit. I'm dumbed sure to if you call me an other name."

The master glared at the musket. It was clearly in hands used to guns, and the face behind it was not that of a man to be fooled with beyond a certain limit. He lowered his shotgun, and spoke sharply to the negro:

"Sam, git 'round here in front of the hoss, and put for home at once."

"Stay where you are, till I finish talkin' to this man," commanded the Deacon. "Are you a loyal man?" he inquired of the master.

"If ye mean loil to that rail-splittin' gorilla in Washington," replied the master, hotly; "to that low-down, nigger-lovin', nigger-stealin'—"

"Shet right up," said the Deacon, bringing up his gun in a flash of anger. "You sha'n't abuse the President o' the United States any more'n you shall me, nor half so much. He's your President, whom you must honor and respect. I won't have him blackguarded by an unhung rebel. You say yourself you're a rebel. Then you have no right whatever to this man, and I'm goin' to confiscate him in the name o' Abraham Lincoln, President o' the United States, an' accordin' to his proclamation of emancipation, done at Washington, District o' Columbia, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-three and of our Independence the 87th.

"Now, you jest turn your hoss around and vacate these parts as quick as you can, and leave me and this colored man alone. We're tired o' havin' you 'round."

The master was a man of sense. He knew that there was nothing to do but obey.

CHAPTER XXI. THE PERPLEXED DEACON

TROUBLED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THE FREEDMAN

"WHAT is yer a-gwine tub do wid me, mas'r?" asked the negro, with a look and an attitude curiously like a forlorn stray dog which had at last found an owner and protector.

"Wish to gracious I knowed," answered the Deacon, knitting his brows in thought. "I don't know as I've anything to do with you. I've about as much idee what to do with you as I would with a whale in the Wabash River. I'm neither John Brown nor a colonization society. I've about as much use for a nigger, free or slave, as a frog has for a tail. You're free now that's all there is of it. Nobody's got nothin' to do with you. You've got to do with yourself that's all. You're your own master. You go your way and let other folks go theirs."

In the simplicity of his heart the Deacon thought he had covered the whole ground. What more could the man want, who had youth, health and strength, than perfect liberty to go where he pleased and strive for what he wanted?

The negro looked dazed and perplexed.

"Isn't yo' a-gwine tuh take me wid yo', mas'r?" he asked.

"Take you with me!" repeated the Deacon in astonishment and some petulance. "Certainly not. I don't want you. And you mustn't call me master. You mustn't call any man master. You're no longer a slave. You're your own master. You're free; don't you understand?"

"But whah'm I tuh go?" reiterated the negro hopelessly.

"Go where you please," repeated the Deacon with impatience. "The whole world's open to you. Go to the next County; go to Kaintucky, Injianny, Ohio, Illinoy, Kamskatky, New Guiney, Jericho, or Polkinhorn's tanyard if you like."

"Afo' God, I don't know what tuh do, or wha tuh go," said the negro despairingly. "If yo' leab me here, I know dat ole mas'r 'll fin' me an' done kill me daid."

"Niggers is like mules," remarked Groundhog savagely. "They only know two places in the whole world: their master's place and somewhere else. They want to run away from their master, but they hain't nary idee whar to go when they run away. A hoss has more sense 'n either a nigger or a mule. When he lights out he's got some idee o' where he wants t' go. I tell you; jest give that nigger to me. I know what to do with him. I know a man that'll give me $100 for him, and I'll whack up fair and square with you."

"Shut up, you mullet-headed mule-whacker," said the Deacon irritably. "You hain't got sense enough to take care o' mules right, let alone a man. I wouldn't trust you an hour with the poorest team on my place. I'll take care o' this man myself, at least, until I kin have a talk with the boys. Here, you nigger, what's your name?"

"Dey call me Sam, mas'r," replied the negro.

"Well, we'll change that. You're a free man, and I'll give you another name. I'm goin' to call you Abraham—Abraham Lincoln the grandest name in the world to-day. For short I'll call you Abe. You must stop callin' me, or anybody, master, I tell you. You just call be Mister Klegg."

"Mistuh what?" said the negro, puzzled.

"Well, jest call me boss. Now, Abe, climb up into the wagon here, and come along with me."

"He can't git into no wagon o' mine," said the teamster surlily. "Government wagons ain't no passenger coaches for runaway niggers. I didn't hire to haul niggers on pleasure excursions. That ain't no part of a white man's bizniss. Let him walk alongside."

"You dumbed citizen," said the Deacon angrily. He had been in camp long enough to catch the feeling of the men toward the Quartermaster's civilian employees. "This man shall ride in this wagon along side o' me, and you'll drive us into camp, or I'll find out the reason why. Now jest gether up your lines and start."

"I won't take no slack from no old Wabash hayseed like you," responded the teamster cordially. "You can't boss me. You hain't no right. You can't ring me in to help you steal niggers, unless you divide with me. You come out here in the road and I'll punch that old sorrel-top head o' your'n."

And the teamster pranced out and brandished his blacksnake whip menacingly.

It had been many years since anybody on the Wabash had dared Deacon Klegg to a match in fisticuffs. The memory of some youthful performances of his had secured him respectful immunity. His last affair had been a severe suppression of a noted bully who attempted to "crowd the mourners" at a camp-meeting for the good order of which the Deacon felt himself somewhat responsible. It took the bully six months to get over it, and he went to the mourner's bench himself at the next revival.

The Deacon looked at the gesticulating teamster a minute, and the dormant impulse of his youth stirred again within him. He laid his gun down and calmly slid from the fodder to the ground. He pulled off his coat and hat, and laid them on the wagon. He took the quid of tobacco from his mouth, carefully selected a place for it on the edge of the wagon-bed, laid it there on a piece of corn-husk, and walked toward the teamster, rolling up his sleeves.

The effect upon the monarch of the mules was immediate and marked. He stopped prancing around, and began to look alarmed.

"Now, don't you hit me," he yelled. "I'm the driver o' this team, and in Gov'ment employ. If you hit me I'll have you courtmartialed."

"I'm not goin' to hit you," said the Deacon, raising a fist as big as a small ham, "if you behave yourself. I want you to shut your mouth, and git on your mule and start for camp. If you don't 'tend to your bizness, or give me any more o' your sass, I'll pound the melt out o' you. D' you hear? Git on your mule at onct."

The teamster did as he was bid, and drove on till they came up to where the boys were sitting on a fence-corner waiting for them.

Si had a brace of chickens tied together by the feet, and Shorty a crock of honey in the comb, with a bag of saleratus biscuits and one of cornmeal, and a number of strings of dried apples.

"Bin waitin' for you a good while, Pap. What kep' you so long? Break-down?" said Si.

"No; had to stop and argy the fugitive slave law with a Southern gentleman, and then debate niggers' civil rights with the teamster," said the Deacon. Then he told them the story. "Here's the darky," he said, as he concluded. "Seems to be a purty fair sort of a farm-hand, if he has sense enough to come in when it rains, which I misdoubt. What are we goin' to do with him?"

"Do with him?" said Shorty. "Do everything with him. Take him into camp first. Hire him out to the Quartermaster. Let him wait on the Captain. Take him back home with you to help on the farm while Si's away. Jehosephat, a big buck like that's a mighty handy thing to have about the house. You kin learn him more tricks in a week than he'd learn with his owner in a lifetime. Say, boy, what's your name?"

"S s-s," the negro began to say, but he caught the Deacon's eye upon him, and responded promptly, "Abr'm Lincoln."

"I believe the nigger kin be taught," thought the Deacon. "Probably this's some more o' Providence's workin's. Mebbe He brung this about jest to give me my share o' the work o' raisin' the fallen race."