—Varner\'s Lynching Songs.
Never, since the day you were born, have you seen such a jump, or heard such a grunt as old Jonas gave. You would have thought the Ku-Klux had him, for this was the year Eighteen-Hundred-and-under-the-Bushes, with old Raw-Head-and-Bloody-Bones keeping his green eyes wide open. For one brief and fleeting moment, old Jonas\'s whole body seemed to be wrenched out of socket, as Mr. Sanders said afterward; his hat fell off, and it was as much as he could do to keep his feet. He scowled, and then he tried to smile, but the scowl felt very much at home on his wrinkled countenance, and refused to be ousted by a feeble smile.
Even the visitor, whose name was Augustus Tidwell, was startled, and he showed it in his face, but he recovered much sooner than old Jonas did. He was one of the most prominent lawyers in that whole section, where prominent lawyers were plentiful. He was dignified, because he had to live up to his position, but all his dignity was dispersed by Adelaide and her Bishop. Adelaide called Mr. Tidwell her Injun-rubber because he wore his hair long, so that it fell in glistening waves over his coat collar. This gave him a very romantic appearance, and when engaged in the practice of law he always made the most of it; he could tousel his hair and look the picture of rage; he could push it straight back from his wide forehead, and seem to stand for innocence and virtue; and he could ruffle it up on one side, and tell juries how they should find in cases where the interests of his clients were concerned.
But dignity and a romantic appearance couldn\'t stand before Adelaide and her Bishop. Mr. Sanders, with the red silk handkerchief thrown over his head and tied under his chin, was a sight you would have gone far to see. He had such marvellous control of his features that, one moment he had the appearance of an overgrown baby, and the next, he was the living image of an old country granny who had come to town to swap a pound of snow-white butter for a hank or two of spun-truck. The fact is, Adelaide was compelled to roll on the floor and kick, so acute were the paroxysms of laughter. Mr. Sanders laughed, too, but when Adelaide glanced at him he would wipe the smile from his face and look as solemn as a real truly-ann Bishop; and this was worse than laughing, for Adelaide would be compelled to roll over the floor again.
Old Jonas didn\'t have any of the pains that come from laughter. At first he was frightened nearly to death at the manifestations for which Adelaide and her Bishop were responsible; then the reaction was toward hot anger, which finally developed into a feeling of impatient disgust at the spectacle which Mr. Sanders presented.
"Sanders," he said, sharply and earnestly, "if I didn\'t know you I\'d be willing to swear you had gone crazy! Why, who under the blue sky ever heard of a grown man indulging in such antics and capers! It\'s simply scandalous, that\'s what it is."
"It is that-away!" blandly remarked Mr. Sanders. "An\' more especially it\'s a scandal when me an\' that child thar can\'t have five minnits\' fun all by ourselves but what you come a-stickin\' your head in the door, an\' try for to turn a somerset wi\'out liftin\' your feet off\'n the floor! I leave it to Gus Tidwell thar ef anybody in this house has cut up more capers than what you have. I wish you could \'a\' seed yourself when you was flinging your hat on the floor, an\' tryin\' for to keep your feet in a slanchindic\'lar position, an\' workin\' an\' twistin\' your mouth like you was tryin\' for to git it on top of your head—ef you could \'a\' seed all that you\'d agree wi\' me that thar wa\'n\'t no room in this house for youth an\' innocence."
Adelaide took advantage of the conversation to run out of the room to see if Cally-Lou had been frightened by all the noise; and presently the men heard her relating all the circumstances to her brown Ariel, and laughing almost as heartily at her own recital as she laughed when Mr. Sanders winked at her with the red handkerchief on his head.
"Who is she talking to?" Lawyer Tidwell inquired.
"Just talking to herself," responded old Jonas, with unnecessary tartness.
"Don\'t you nigh believe it, Gus," said Mr. Sanders. "She ain\'t twins, an\' she\'s talkin\' to some un that she can see an\' we can\'t. Why, ef thar wa\'n\'t nothin\' thar, she\'d be the finest play-actor that ever played in a county courthouse."
"She is certainly a wonderful child," said the lawyer. "Lucindy brought her to see my wife the other day, and I happened to be at home. I never enjoyed anybody\'s company so well on a short acquaintance as I did hers. My wife is daft about her, and she believes with you, Mr. Sanders, that the Cally-Lou she talks about so much is really her companion."
"Why, tooby shore, Gus. Children see an\' know a heap things that they don\' say nothin\' about for fear they\'ll be laughed at. All you\'ve got to do to see Cally-Lou is turn your head quick enough. I ain\'t limber enough myself, an\' I reckon I never will be any more."
"Speaking of Lucindy, Mr. Sanders, I wanted to see you about some little business of hers, and it\'s business that she doesn\'t know anything about. Moreover, she wouldn\'t help matters much if she knew about it. I don\'t know how Mr. Whipple feels, but I know very well how you and I feel. You don\'t need to be told that nearly all the negroes have fallen out of sympathy with the whites; but there are a few we can still trust and have a genuine friendship for—and Lucindy is one of them. Now, I was sitting in my office to-day reading, when all of a sudden I heard someone talking in low tones. I didn\'t hear everything that was said, but I heard enough to learn that Lucindy\'s son Randall is somewhere in the county."
"He shorely is for a fact!" exclaimed Mr. Sanders. "Right in the state, county, town, an\' deestrick aforesaid. Go on, Gus."
"Well you know, he\'s the boy that came within an ace of putting old Tuttle out of business in 1864. But now old Tuttle is the Radical Ordinary, elected by the niggers, and he is afraid to bring suit against Randall in the Superior Court. But he wants the boy put out of business if it can be done without mixing his name with the affair. I couldn\'t overhear all that was said, but I heard enough to know that old Tuttle intends to have Randall arrested on a charge of assault with intent to murder, and run him out of the county. Now, I wouldn\'t care a snap of my finger if it wasn\'t for the fact that Randall is Lucindy\'s son, and he must be taken care of. I don\'t know how you gentlemen feel about it, but that\'s the way I feel."
"Ef it\'ll do you any good to know," Mr. Sanders remarked, "me an\' Jonas feel exactly the same way; an\' what\'s more, we don\'t intend that Randall shall be run off. He\'s right here on this lot, an\' here he\'s a-gwine to stay, ef I have any sesso in the matter. I\'ll pay his board, Jonas, ef that\'ll suit you, bekaze I\'ve got a crow to pick wi\' ol\' Tuttle, an\' when I git it picked he\'ll have more loose feathers than he kin walk off wi\'. Jest mark that down."
"Pish-tush!" exclaimed old Jonas, smacking his thin lips, and frowning. He rose and went to the back door, and presently the others heard him calling Randall, who seemed to be somewhat slow in answering—so much so that Lucindy\'s voice was added to his.
"Randall!" she cried, "what in de name er goodness you doin\' in dar? Don\'t you hear Mr. Whipple hollain\' atter you? Look like you des ez triflin\' now as what you wuz when you loped off!"
Randall replied after a while, and old Jonas\'s command was, "Come here, you no account scoundrel, and black my shoes!"
"Why, Jonas," said Mr. Sanders, when the former had returned to the room, "ain\'t you afraid you\'ll take cold? You ain\'t had your shoes blacked sence the war!"
The only reply old Jonas made to that was in the shape of a scowl. Randall came running with a puzzled expression on his face. He dropped his hat somewhere outside the door, and went in.
"They tell me," said old Jonas, somewhat curtly, "that you are studying to be a bishop."
"That\'s what I laid off in my mind, suh. It come to me when I hear um prayin\' an\' singin\'; I allow to myself, I did, that ef it\'s all ez purty an\' ez nice ez that, they wa\'n\'t nothin\' gwine to keep me from bein\' a minister when the time got ripe. That\'s what I said to myself, suh."
"Well," remarked Mr. Sanders, reassuringly, "you\'ve already got to be a Boogerman, an\' I reckon that\'s long step forrerd."
"Black my shoes!" commanded old Jonas in a tone that was almost brutal. Randall hustled around until he found an old box of blacking that had been in the kitchen for many years. With this and an old brush that Lucindy found in some impossible place, he proceeded to give old Jonas\'s shoes a polish that caused them to shine brightly.
"Don\'t you think it is beneath the dignity of a pastor to black shoes?" old Jonas asked.
Randall chuckled. "That\'s the way some white folks\'d feel about it," he answered; "but me—I\'m black, an\' I ain\'t got no business for to feel so—not me! St. Paul, or it may be St. Timothy, he says, somewhere, I dunner \'zackly where, \'What your han\' finds to do, let your heart commend.\'"
"Wa\'n\'t it Shakespeare said that?" Mr. Sanders inquired.
"It mought \'a\' been, suh," replied Randall. "All I know, it was some of them Bible folks. They say, \'Do what yo\' han\' finds to do, an\' do it better\'n some un else could \'a\' done it.\' That\'s why you see these shoes lookin\' like they\'re spang new."
"\'That\'s why you see these shoes lookin\' like they\'re spang new\'"
"Why, I should have thought that a man who is studying to be a bishop," said old Jonas, sharply, "would think himself above blacking anybody\'s shoes."
"It may be so, suh, in some parts of the country and amongst some people, but it ain\'t that-away wid me—I may come to it, suh, but I ain\'t come to it yit."
Randall finished the shoes, and offered to black those of the other men present, but they declined, and then old Jonas fished around in his pocket for a shin-plaster small enough to fit the job that had been done. He found a ragged one that faintly promised to pay the bearer five cents on demand, but Randall recoiled from it, and held up his hands in protest. "No, suh! Oh, no, suh! It was wuth all I done jest to hear you-all gentermens talkin\' kinder friendly like. Ef you-all had all the trouble I uv done had, all the time dodgin\' an\' lookin roun\' cornders fer fear er Mr. Tuttle er some er his kinnery—he\'s got um all up dar whar I been—you\'d be mo\' than thankful for to hear some un talkin\' like de nex\' minnit ain\'t \'gwine ter be de las\'. I done got it proned inter me that I\'m gwine for to be Ku-Klucked long \'fo\' I have gray ha\'r. You dunner how nice it is for to have white folks talkin\' like they ain\'t gwine to kill you yet awhile."
To any one who knew little of the negro race, Randall\'s remarks would have sounded tremendously like a sly joke, with a little irony thrown in for good measure; but though the negro\'s voice was soft and deliberate, he was terribly in earnest, and those who heard him understood and appreciated this simple recital of a harrowing experience already behind him, and his lively fear of something worse to come.
"Well, when you get to be a bishop," remarked old Jonas, "I expect you to come and black my shoes."
"I\'ll do it, suh, an\' be glad to do it. Des take yo\' stan\' anywhere, jest so it\'s a public place, an\' holla at me, an\' tell me you want yo\' shoes blacked. I\'ll do it, suh, in the face of ten thousand."
"I believe you would!" exclaimed old Jonas almost gleefully.
"You don\'t hafter b\'lieve me, suh; jest holla at me, an\' yo shoes\'ll be blacked."
With that, Randall started out of the room, but Mr. Sanders raised his hand. "B\'ar in mind, Boogerman, that you\'re not to leave the lot after dark. Old Tuttle is a rank Radical, an\' a nigger-lover for what revenue thar is in it, but he\'s fixin\' up his tricks for to give you a taste of the Radical-Republican movement, an\' he\'s got to be watched. We\'ll do the watchin\' ef you\'ll do the hidin\'."
"I\'ll be more than glad to do that, suh," said Randall, with invincible politeness—"mo\' than glad. I uv got so now, sence freedom come, that I can hide most as good as I can eat; an\' when I say that, you may know it means sump\'n."
"I reckon it does," said old Jonas, "something to me!"
Randall laughed pleasantly, and bowed himself out. In a moment the men in the sitting-room heard him talking to Adelaide in the entry.
"My goodness, little mistiss! A little mo\' an\' you\'d a skeer\'d me crooked—an\' I ain\'t right straight now. I had de idee that I was to be the Boogerman, but ef you go on this-a-way, you\'ll be the Boogerman."
"Oho!" laughed Adelaide; "don\'t you know that a young lady could never be a Boogerman?"
"Well, I declare!" Randall exclaimed almost joyously; "that certainly is so in these days of tribulation. But that ain\'t all; I uv got a bigger Boogerman than you uv got. How is Miss Cally-Lou?"
"Oh, shucks!" replied Adelaide, "you don\'t have to call her miss; she ain\'t right white. Don\'t you see her standing here by me?"
"Well, suh!" exclaimed the Boogerman in the tone of one who has just made a remarkable discovery. "Ef I don\'t, I most does; an\' when you git that close to Cally-Lou it\'s the same as seein\' her. She don\'t look right well to me," said the Boogerman at a venture.
"Then you do see her," remarked Adelaide; "she hasn\'t been well for a day or two."
"Make her git outdoors, an\' take the fresh air," suggested the Boogerman.
This suggestion seemed to meet the views of Adelaide, for she went out into the yard, crying, "Come along, Cally-Lou! Come along!"
Old Jonas stirred uneasily in his chair, "Do you know, Sanders," he said, "that my grandmother had a little mulatto girl named Cally-Lou. As I remember her, she was the smartest little thing that ever ran about on two legs. I wonder——" Old Jonas paused, and Mr. Sanders didn\'t give him time to straighten out his thought.
"No, Jonas; you don\'t wonder, an\' you needn\'t pertend to. Nuther here nor here-arter, will that sorter thing work. When I ketch you wonderin\', I\'ll know you\'ve took one of them infectious diseases that you read about. You could see Cally-Lou, an\' so could I, if our gizzards was in the right place. But I kin say as much as that nigger did—I mighty nigh seed her. Folks tell me that you kin see the wind ef you\'ll take a handsaw at the right time of day, an\' hold it so the breeze kin blow over it. I an\'t got the least doubt that we could see a heap of things that we never do see, ef we know\'d when, an\' whar, an\' how to look."
The three men were silent a long time until Lawyer Tidwell remarked, with something that sounded like a sigh, "I reckon we\'d better be going, Mr. Sanders." They went away, leaving old Jonas alone in the house. He neither bade them good-bye, nor turned his head when they went. But when he heard the door shut, he went to the window, as if to make sure they had really gone; and when he was satisfied on this point, he shuffled to the back porch, and called for Randall. The negro came silent, but wondering. For years he had been in a state of uneasy expectation, and he found it almost impossible to free himself from it now. Old Jonas was blunt and brief.
"Go over to the courthouse, walk into the Ordinary\'s office, and ask if Mr. Sanders and Lawyer Tidwell have been there. As a matter of fact, they haven\'t been there, and they are not going there, but old Tuttle will think they are coming and he\'ll be worried about it. I want you to show yourself to him just once. Answer every question he asks you. Tell him where you are staying; say that I have employed you; but pretend you don\'t know him. Then walk around the public square, and through the town, make yourself known to some of your coloured friends, and come right back here and go to work about the lot and yard just as if you had been here a long time."
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