The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864

He had sat down to his book again. He was a slow, thoughtful, easy, cheerful man, whom suffering and much humiliation had rendered very mild and patient, if not quite broken-spirited. His voice was indulgent and gentle, with that mellow richness of tone peculiar to the negro. After he had spoken, the laughter subsided; and Joe, impressed by the quiet paternal authority, quickly devised means to obey without appearing to do so. For it is not so much obedience, as the manifestation of obedience, that is repugnant to human nature,—not in children only, but in grown folks as well.

Joe disguised his compliance in this way. He got up, took off the beggar's hat, put the spectacles into it, holding his hand on a rip in the crown to keep them from falling through, and passed it around, walking solemnly in his brother's abused coat.

"I'm Deacon Todd," said he, "taking up a collection to buy Gentleman Bill a new cut: gunter make a missionary of him!"

He passed the hat to the women and the girls, all of whom pretended to put in something.

"I ha'n't got nothin'!" said Fessenden's, when it came to him; "I'm real sorry I but I'll give my hat!"—earnest as could be.

When the hat came to Mr. Williams, he quietly put in his hand and took out his glasses.

"Here, I've got something for you; I desire to contribute," said Gentleman Bill.

But Joe was shy of his brother.

"Oh, we don't let the missionary give anything!" he said. "Here's the hat what you're gunter wear;—give it to him, Cresh!"

Bill disdained the beggar's, contribution; but, in his anxiety to seize Joe, he suffered his sister to slip up behind him and clap the wet, ragged straw wreck on his head.

"Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill!" screamed the girls with merriment, in which mother and grandmother joined, while even their father indulged in a silent, inward laugh.

"Good!" said Fessenden's; "he may have it!"

Bill, watching his opportunity, made a dash at the pretending Deacon Todd. That nimble and quick-witted dwarf escaped as fast as his awkward attire would permit. The bed seemed to be the only place of refuge, and he dodged under it.

"Come out!" shouted Bill, furious.

"Come in and git me!" screamed Joe, defiant.

Bill, if not too large, was far too dignified for such an enterprise. So he got the broom, and began to stir Joe with the handle,—not observing, in his wrath, that, the more he worried Joe, the more he was damaging his own precious broadcloth.

"I'm the lion to the show!" cried Joe, rolling and tumbling under the bed to avoid the broom. "The keeper's a punchin' on me, to make me roar!"

And the lion roared.

"He's a gunter come into the cage by-'m-by, and put his head into my mouth. Then I'm a gunter swaller him! Ki! hoo! hoo! oo!"

He roared in earnest this time. Bill, grown desperate, had knocked his shins. As long as he hit him only on the head, the king of beasts didn't care; but he couldn't stand an attack on the more sensitive part.

"Jest look here, now!" exclaimed the old negress, with unusual spirit; "gi' me that broom!"

She wrenched it from Bill's hand.

"Perty notion, you can't come home a minute without pesterin' that boy's life out of him!"

You see, color makes no difference with grandmothers. Black or white, they are universally unjust, when they come to decide the quarrels of their favorites.

"Great lubberly fellow like you, 'busin' that poor babby all the time! Come, Joey! come to granny, poor chile!"

It was a sorry-looking lion that issued whimpering from the cage, limping, and rubbing his eyes. His borrowed hide—namely, Bill's coat—had been twisted into marvellous shapes in the scuffle; and, being wet, it was almost white with the dust and lint that adhered to it. Bill threw up his arms in despair; while Joe threw his, great sleeves and all, around granny's neck, and found comfort on her sympathizing bosom.

"Silence, now," said Mr. Williams, "so's we can go on with the reading."

Order was restored. Bill hung up his coat, and sat down. Joe nestled in the old woman's lap. And now the storm was heard beating against the house.

"Say!" spoke up Fessenden's, "can I stop here over night?"

"You don't suppose," said Mr. Williams, "we'd turn you out in such weather as this, do you?"

"Wal!" said Fessenden's, "nobody else would keep me."

"Don't you be troubled! While we 've a ruf over our heads, no stranger don't git turned away from it that wants shelter, and will put up with our 'commodations. We can keep you to-night, and probably to-morrow night, if you like to stay; but after that I can't promise. Mebby we sha'n't have a ruf for our own heads then. But we'll trust the Lord," said Mr. Williams, with a deep, serious smile,—while Mrs. Williams sighed.

"How is it about that matter?" Gentleman Bill inquired.

"The house is to be tore down Monday, I suppose," replied his father, mildly.

"My gracious!" exclaimed Bill; "Mr. Frisbie a'n't really going to carry that threat into execution?"

"That's what he says, William. He has got a prejudice ag'inst color, you know. Since he lost the election, through the opposition of the abolitionists, as he thinks, he's been very much excited on the subject," added Mr. Williams, in his subdued way.

"Excited!" echoed his wife, bitterly.

She was a much-suffering woman, inclined to melancholy; but there was a latent fire in her when she seemed most despondent, and she roused up now and spoke with passionate, flashing eyes:—

"Sence he got beat, town-meetin' day, he don't 'pear to take no comfort, 'thout 't is hatin' Judge Gingerford and spitin' niggers, as he calls us. He sent his hired man over agin this mornin', to say, if we wa'n't out of the house by Monday, 't would be pulled down on to our heads. Call that Christian, when he knows we can't git another house, there 's sich a s'picion agin people o' color?"

"'T wa'n't alluz so; 't wa'n't so in my day," said the old woman, pausing, as she was administering the gruel to Fessenden's with a spoon. "Here's gran'pa, he was a slave, and I was born a slave, in this here very State, as long ago as when they used to have slaves here, as I've told ye time and agin; though I don't clearly remember it, for I scacely ever knowed what bondage was, bless the Lord! But we allus foun' somebody to be kind to us, and got along,—for it did seem as though God kind o' looked arter us, and took keer on us, same as He did o' white folks. We've been carried through, somehow or 'nother; and I can't help thinkin' as how we shall be yit, spite o' Mr. Frisbie. S'pose God'll forgit us 'cause His grand church-folks do? S'pose all they can say'll pedijice Him?"

Having advanced this unanswerable question, she turned once more to her patient, who put up his head, and opened his mouth wide, to receive the great spoon.

"Lucky for them that can trust the Lord!" said Mrs. Williams, over her patching. "But if I was a man, I'm 'fraid I should put my trust in a good knife, and stan' by the ol' house when they come to pull it down! The fust man laid hands on 't 'ud git hurt, I'm dreffle 'fraid! Prayin' won't save it, you see!"

"Mr. Frisbie owns the house," observed Gentleman Bill, "and I wouldn't resort to violent measures to prevent him; though 't isn't possible for me to believe he'll be so unhuman as to demolish it before you find another."

"I'm inclined to think he will," answered Mr. Williams, calmly. "He's a rather determined man, William. But God won't quite forget us, I'm sartin sure. And we won't worry about the house till the time comes, anyhow. Le' 's see what the Good Book says to comfort us," he added, with a hopeful smile.

Unfortunately, the "Timberville Gazette" had not reached this benighted family; and not having the Judge's Address to read, Mr. Williams read the Sermon on the Mount.

Fessenden's listened with the rest. And alight, not of the understanding, but of the spirit, shone upon him. His intellect was too feeble, I think, to draw any very keen comparison between those houses where the "Timberville Gazette" was taken and read that evening and this lowly abode,—between the rich there, who had shut their proud, prosperous doors against him, and these poor servants of the Lord, who had taken him in and comforted him, though the hour was nigh when they, too, were to be driven forth shelterless in the wintry storms. The deep and affecting suggestiveness of that wide contrast his mind was, no doubt, too weak thoroughly to appreciate. Yet something his heart felt, and something his soul perceived; his pale and vacant face was illumined; and at the close of the reading he rose up. The coarse wrappings of his body fell away; and the muffling ignorance, the swaddling dulness, wherein that divine infant, the bright immortal spirit, was confined, seemed also to fall off. He lifted up his hands, spreading them as if dispensing blessings; and his countenance had a vague, smiling wonder in it, almost beautiful, and his voice, when he spoke, thrilled the ear.

"Praise the Lord! praise the Lord! for He will provide!

"Be comforted! for ye are the children of the Lord!

"Be glad! be glad! for the Angel of the Lord is here!

"Don't you see him? don't you see him? There! there!" he cried, pointing, with an earnestness and radiance of look which filled all who saw him with astonishment. They turned to gaze, as if really expecting to behold the vision; then fixed their eyes again on the stranger.