TWO months later General Worth, while busy rebuilding his mills at Independence, had served on him a summons to appear before the Agent of the Freedman’s Bureau at Hambright and answer the charge of using “abusive language” to a freedman.

The particular freedman who desired to have his feelings soothed by law was a lazy young negro about sixteen years old whom the General had ordered whipped and sent from the stables into the fields on one occasion during the war while on a visit to his farm. Evidently the boy had a long memory.

“Now don’t that beat the devil!” exclaimed the General.

“What is it?” asked his foreman.

“I’ve got to leave my work, ride on an old freight train thirty miles, pull through twenty more miles of red mud in a buggy to get to Hambright, and lose four days, to answer such a charge as that before some little wizeneyed skunk of a Bureau Agent. My God, it’s enough to make a union man remember Secession with regrets!”

“My stars, General, we can’t get along without you now when we are getting this machinery in place. Send a lawyer,” growled the foreman.

“Can’t do it, John—I’m charged with a crime.”

“Well, I’ll swear!”

“Do the best you can, I’ll be back in four days, if I don’t kill a nigger!” said the General with a smile. “I’ve got a settlement to make with the farm hands anyhow.”

There was no help for it. When the court convened, and the young negro saw the face of his old master red with wrath, his heart failed him. He fled the town and there was no accusing witness.

The General gazed at the Agent with cold contempt and never opened his mouth in answer to expressions of regret at the fiasco.

A few moments later he rode up to the gate of his farm house on the river hills about a mile out of town. A strapping young fellow of fifteen hastened to open the gate.

“Well, Allan, my boy, how are you?”

“First rate, General. We’re glad to see you! but we didn’t make a half crop, sir, the niggers were always in town loafing around that Freedman’s Bureau, holding meetings all night and going to sleep in the fields.”

“Well, show me the books,” said the General as they entered the house.

The General examined the accounts with care and then looked at young Allan McLeod for a moment as though he had made a discovery.

“Young man, you’ve done this work well.”

“I tried to, sir. If the niggers dispute anything, I fixed that by making the store-keepers charge each item in two books, one on your account, and one on an account kept separate for every nigger.”

“Good enough. They’ll get up early to get ahead of you.”

“I’m afraid they are going to make trouble at the Bureau, sir. That Agent’s been here holding union League meetings two or three nights every week, and he’s got every nigger under his thumb.”

“The dirty whelp!” growled the General.

“If you can see me out of the trouble, General, I’d like to jump on him and beat the life out of him next time he comes out here!”

The General frowned.

“Don’t you touch him,—any more than you would a pole cat. I’ve trouble enough just now.”

“I could knock the mud out of him in two minutes, if you say the word,” said Allan eagerly.

“Yes, I’ve no doubt of it.” The General looked at him thoughtfully.

He was a well knit powerful youth just turned his fifteenth birthday. He had red hair, a freckled face, and florid complexion. His features were regular and pleasing, and his stalwart muscular figure gave him a handsome look that impressed one with indomitable physical energy. His lips were full and sensuous, his eyebrows straight, and his high forehead spoke of brain power as well as horse power.

He had a habit of licking his lips and running his tongue around inside of his cheeks when he saw anything or heard anything that pleased him that was far from intellectual in its suggestiveness. When he did this one could not help feeling that he was looking at a young well fed tiger. There was no doubt about his being alive and that he enjoyed it. His boisterous voice and ready laughter emphasised this impression.

“Allan, my boy,” said the General when he had examined his accounts, “if you do everything in life as well as you did these books, you’ll make a success.”

“I’m going to do my best to succeed, General. I’ll not be a poor white man. I’ll promise you that.”

“Do you go to church anywhere?”

“No sir, Maw’s not a member of any church, and it’s so far to town I don’t go.”

“Well, you must go. You must go to the Sunday School too, and get acquainted with all the young folks. I’ll speak to Mrs. Durham and get her to look after you.”

“All right, sir, I’ll start next Sunday.” Allan was feeling just then in a good humour with himself and all the world. The compliment of his employer had so elated him, he felt fully prepared to enter the ministry if the General had only suggested it.

The following day was appointed for a settlement of the annual contract with the negroes. The Agent of the Freedman’s Bureau was the judge before whom the General, his overseer, and clerk of account, and all the negroes assembled.

If the devil himself had devised an instrument for creating race antagonism and strife he could not have improved on this Bureau in its actual workings. Had clean handed, competent agents been possible it might have accomplished good. These agents were as a rule the riff-raff and trash of the North. It was the supreme opportunity of army cooks, teamsters, fakirs, and broken down preachers who had turned insurance agents. They were lifted from penury to affluence and power. The possibility of corruption and downright theft were practically limitless.

The Agent at Hambright had been a preacher in Michigan who lost his church because of unsavory rumours about his character. He had eked out a living as a book agent, and then insurance agent. He was a man of some education and had a glib tongue which the negroes readily mistook for inspired eloquence. He assumed great dignity and an extraordinary judicial tone of voice when adjusting accounts.

General Worth submitted his accounts and they showed that all but six of the fifty negroes employed had a little overdrawn their wages in provisions and clothing.

“I think there is a mistake, General, in these accounts,” said the Rev. Ezra Perkins the Agent.

“What?” thundered the General.

“A mistake in your view of the contracts,” answered Ezra in his oiliest tone.

The negroes began to grin and nudge one another, amid exclamations of “Dar now!”

“Hear dat!”

“What do you mean? The contracts are plain. There can be but one interpretation. I agreed to furnish the men their supplies in advance and wait until the end of the year for adjustment after the crops were gathered. As it is, I will lose over five hundred dollars on the farm.” The General paused and looked at the Agent with rising wrath.

“It’s useless to talk. I decide that under this contract you are to furnish supplies yourself and pay your people their monthly wages besides. I have figured it out that you owe them a little over fifteen hundred dollars.”

“Fifteen hundred dollars! You thief!”——

“Softly, softly!—I’ll commit you for contempt of court!”

The General turned on his heel without a word, sprang on his horse, and in a few minutes alighted at the hotel. He encountered the assistant agent of the Bureau on the steps.



0097

“Did you wish to see me, General?” he asked.

“No! I’m looking for a man—a union soldier not a turkey buzzard!” He dashed up to the clerk’s desk.

“Is Major Grant in his room?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell him I want to see him.”

“What can I do for you, General Worth?” asked the Major as he hastened to meet him.

“Major Grant, I understand you are a lawyer. You are a man of principle, or you wouldn’t have fought. When I meet a man that fought us I know I am talking to a man, not a skunk. This greasy sanctified Bureau Agent, has decided that I owe my hands fifteen hundred dollars. He knows it’s a lie. But his power is absolute. I have no appeal to a court. He has all the negroes under his thumb and he is simply arranging to steal this money. I want to pay you a hundred dollars as a retainer and have you settle with the Lord’s anointed, the Rev. Ezra Perkins for me.”

“With pleasure, General. And it shall not cost you a cent.”

“I’ll be glad to pay you, Major. Such a decision enforced against me now would mean absolute ruin. I can’t borrow another cent.”

“Leave Ezra with me.”

“Why couldn’t they put soldiers into this Bureau if they had to have it, instead of these skunks and wolves?” snorted the General.

“Well, some of them are a little off in the odour of their records at home, I&r............