OF all the elections ever conducted by the English speaking race the one held under the “Reconstruction” act of 1867 in the South was the most unique.
Ezra Perkins the agent of the Freedman’s Bureau issued a windy proclamation to the new citizens to come forward on a certain day to register and receive their ‘elective franchise.’
The negroes poured into town from every direction from early dawn. Some carried baskets, some carried jugs, and some were pushing wheelbarrows, but most of them had an empty bag. They were packed around the Agency in a solid black mass.
Nelse laughed until a crowd gathered around him.
“Lordy, look at dem bags!” he shouted. “En dars ole Ike wid er jug. He’s gwine ter take hisen in licker. En bress God dars er fool wid er wheel-barer!” Nelse lay down and rolled with laughter.
They failed to see the joke, and when the Agency was opened they made a break for the door, trampling each other down in a mad fear that there wouldn’t be enough ‘elective franchise’ to go round!
The first negro who emerged from the door came with a crestfallen face and an empty bag on his arm.
He was surrounded by anxious inquirers. “What wuz hit?”
“Nuffin. Des stan up dar befo’ er man wid big whiskers en he make me swar ter export de Constertution er de Nunited States er Nor’f Calliny.”
When Nelse appeared Perkins looked at him a moment and asked, “Are you a member of the Union League?”
“Dat I hain’t.”
“Then stand aside and let these men register. If you want to vote you had better join.”
Nelse made no reply, but in a short time he returned with the Rev. John Durham by his side. He was allowed to register, but from that day he was a marked man among his race.
When the registration closed Perkins was in high glee.
“We’ve got ’em, Timothy! It’s a dead sure thing!” he cried as he slipped his arm around Tim’s shoulder.
“Will the majority be big?” asked Tim.
“If it ain’t big enough we’ll disfranchise more aristocrats and enfranchise the dogs.” Tim wondered whether this proposition was altogether flattering.
During the progress of the campaign, a committee from the organisation of the “truly loyal,” Ezra Perkins and Dave Haley, called on Tom Camp.
“Mr. Camp, we want your help as a leader among the poor white people to save the country from these rebel aristocrats who have ruined it,” said Ezra.
“You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree!” answered Tom dryly.
“The poor men have got to stand together now and get their rights.”
“Well if I’ve got to stand with niggers, have ’em hug me and blow their breath in my face, as you fellers are doin’, you can count me out!—and if that’s all you want with me, you’ll find the door open.”
Haley tried his hand.
“Look here, Camp, we ain’t got no hard feelin’s agin you, but there’s agoin’ to be trouble for every rebel in this county who don’t git on our side and do it quick.”
“I’m used to trouble pardner,” replied Tom.
“You’ve got a nice little cabin home and ten acres of land. Fight us, and we will give this house and lot to a nigger.”
“I don’t believe it,” cried Tom.
“Come, come,” said Perkins, “you’re not fool enough to fight us when we’ve got a dead sure thing, a majority fixed before the voting begins, Congress and the whole army back of us?”
“I ain’t er nigger!” said Tom, doggedly.
“What’s the use to be a fool Camp,” cried Haley. “We are just using the nigger to stick the votes in the box. He thinks he’s goin’ to heaven, but we’ll ride him all the way up to the gate and hitch him on the outside. Will you come in with us?”
“Don’t like your complexion!” he answered rising and going toward the door.
“Then we’ll turn you out into the road in less than two years,” said Haley as they left.
“All right!” laughed the old soldier, “I slept on the ground four years, boys.”
When he came back into the room he met his wife with tears in her eyes. “Oh! Tom, I’m afraid they’ll do what they say.”
“To tell you the truth, ole woman, I’m afraid so too. But we’re in the hands of the Lord. This is His house. If He wants to take it away from me now when I’m crippled and helpless, He knows what’s best.”
“I wish you didn’t have to go agin ’em.”
“I ain’t er nigger, ole gal, and I don’t flock with niggers. If God Almighty had meant me to be one He’d have made my skin black.”
On election day no publication of the polling places had been made. Ezra Perkins had in charge the whole county. He consolidated the fifteen voting precincts into three and located these in negro districts. He notified only the members of the secret Leagues where these three voting places were to be found, and other people were allowed to find them on the day of the election as best they could.
Perkins made himself the poll holder at Hambright though he was a candidate for member of the Constitutional Convention, and the poll holders were allowed to keep the ballots in their possession for three days before forwarding to the General in command at Charleston, South Carolina.
Scores of negroes, under the instructions of their leaders voted three times that day. Every negro boy fairly well grown was allowed to vote and no questions asked as to his age.
Nelse approached the polls attempting to cast a vote against the Rev. Ezra Perkins the poll holder. A crowd of infuriated negroes surrounded him in a moment.
“Kill ’im! Knock ’im in the head! De black debbil, votin’ agin his colour!”
Nelse threw his big fists right and left and soon had an open space in the edge of which lay a half dozen negroes scrambling to get to their feet.
The negroes formed a line in front of him and the foremost one said, “You try ter put dat vote in de box we bust yo head open!”
Nelse knocked him down before he got the words well out of him mouth. “Honey, I’se er bad nigger!” he shouted with a grin as he stepped back and started to rush the line.
Perkins ordered the guard to arrest him.
As the guard carried Nelse away a crowd of angry negroes followed grinning and cursing.
“We lay fur you yit, ole hoss!” was their parting word as he disappeared through the jail door.
That night at the supper table in the hotel at Ham-bright an informal census of the voters was taken. There were present at the table a distinguished ex-judge, two lawyers, a General, two clergymen, a merchant, a farmer, and two mechanics. The only man of all allowed to vote that day was the negro who waited on the table.
Thus began the era of a corrupt and degraded ballot in the South that was to bring forth sorrow for generations yet unborn. The intelligence, culture, wealth, social prestige, brains, conscience and the historic institutions of a great state had been thrust under the hoof of ignorance and vice.
The votes were sent to the military commandant at Charleston and the results announced. The negroes had elected no representatives and the whites 10. It was gravely announced from Washington that a “republican form of government” had at last been established in North Carolina.
THE new government was now in full swing and a saturnalia began. Amos Hogg was Governor, Simon Legree Speaker of the House, and the Hon. Tim Shelby leader of the majority on the floor of the House.
Raleigh, the quaint little City of Oaks, never saw such an assemblage of law-makers gather in the grey stone Capitol.
Ezra Perkins, who was a member of the Senate, was frugal in his habits and found lodgings at an unpretentious boarding house near the Capitol square.
The room was furnished with six iron cots on which were placed straw mattresses and six honourable members of the new Legislature occupied these. They were close enough together to allow a bottle of whiskey to be freely passed from member to member at any hour of the night. They thought the beds were arranged with this in view and were much pleased.
Ezra was the only man of the crowd who arrived in Raleigh with a valise or trunk. He had a carpet bag. The others simply had one shirt and a few odds and ends tied in red bandana handkerchiefs.
Three of them had walked all the way to Raleigh and kept in the woods from habit as deserters. The other two rode on the train and handed their tickets to the first stranger they saw on the platform of the car they boarded.
“What’s this for!” said the stranger.
“Them’s our tickets. Ain’t you the door keeper?”
“No, but there ought to be one to every circus. You’ll have one when you get to Raleigh.”
The landlady, Mrs. Duke, apologised for the poor beds, when she showed them to their room. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, I can’t give you softer beds.”
“That’s all right M’am! them’s fine. Us fellows been sleeping in the woods and in straw stacks so long dodgin’ ole Vance’s officers, them white sheets is the finest thing we’ve seed in four years, er more.”
They were humble and made no complaints. But at the end of the week they gathered around the Rev. Ezra Perkins for a grave consultation.
“When are we goin’ ter draw?” said one.
“Air we ever goin’ ter draw?” asked another with sorrow and doubt.
“What are we here fer ef we cain’t draw?” pleaded another looking sadly at Ezra.
“Gentlemen,” answered Ezra, “it will be all right in a little while. The Treasurer is just cranky. We can draw our mileage Monday anyhow.”
At daylight they took their places on the bank’s steps, and at ten o’clock when the bank opened, the doors were besieged by a mob of members painfully anxious to draw before it might be too late.
Next morning there was a disturbance at the breakfast table. The morning paper had in blazing head lines an account of one James “Mileage,” who was a member of the Legislature from an adjoining county thirty-seven miles distant. He had sworn to a mileage record of one hundred and seven dollars.
“That’s an unfortunate mistake, sir,” said Perkins.
“Ten’ ter yer own business?” answered James.
“I call it er purty sharp trick,” grinned his partner.
“I call it stealin’,” sneered an honourable member, evidently envious.
And James “Mileage” was his name for all time, but “Mileage” shot a malicious look at the member who had called him a thief.
The next morning the paper of the Opposition had another biographical sketch on the front page.
“I see your name in the paper this morning, Mr. Scoggins?” remarked Mrs. Duke, looking pleasantly at the member who had spoken so rudely to James “Mileage” the day before.
“Well I reckon I’ll make my mark down here before it’s over,” chuckled Scoggins with pride. “What do they say about me, M’am?”
“They say you stole a lot of hogs!” tittered the landlady.
Mr. Scoggins turned red.
“Oho, is there another thief in this hon’able body?” sneered James “Mileage.”
“That’s all a lie, M’am, ’bout them hogs. I didn’ steal ’em. I just pressed ’em from a Secessiner.”
“Jes so,” said James ‘Mileage’, “but they say you were a deserter at the time, and not exactly in the service of your country.”
“Ye can’t pay no ’tention ter rebel lies ergin Union men!” explained Scoggins, eating faster.
“Yes, that’s so,” said James ‘Mileage’, “but there’s another funny thing in the paper about you.”
“What’s that?” cried Scoggins with new alarm.
“That Mr. Scoggins met Sherman’s army with loud talk about lovin’ the Union, but that a mean Yankee officer gave him a cussin’ fur not fightin’ on one side or the other, took all that bacon he had stolen, hung him up by the heels, gave him thirty lashes and left him hanging in the air.”
“It’s a lie! It’s a lie!” bellowed Scoggins.
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen! we must not have such behaviour at my table!” exclaimed Mrs. Duke.
And “Hog” Scoggins was his name from that day.
By the end of the week another painful story was printed about one of this group of statesmen. The newspaper brutally declared that he had been convicted of stealing a rawhide from a neighbour’s tanyard. It could not be denied. And then a sad thing happened. The moral sentiment of the little community could not endure the strain. It suddenly collapsed. They laughed at these incidents of the sad past and agreed that they were jokes. They began to call each other James “Mileage,” “Hog” Scoggins, and “Rawhide” in the friendliest way, and dared a scornful world to make them feel ashamed of anything!
But the Rev. Ezra Perkins was pained by this breakdown. He felt that being safely removed two thousand miles from his own past, he might hope for a future.
“Mrs. Duke,” he complained to his landlady, “I will have to ask you to give me a room to myself. I’ll pay double. I want quiet where I can read my Bible and meditate occasionally.”
“Certainly Mr. Perkins, if you are willing to pay for it.”
It was so arranged. But this assumption of moral superiority by Perkins grieved “Mileage,” “Hog” and “Rawhide,” and a coolness sprang up between them, until they found Ezra one night in his place of meditation dead drunk and his room on fire. He had gone to sleep in his chair with his empty bottle by his side, and knocked the candle over on the bed. Then they agreed that forever after they would all stand together, shoulder to shoulder, until they brought the haughty low and exalted the lowly and the “loyal.”
Tim Shelby early distinguished himself in this august assemblage. His wit and eloquence from the first commanded the admiration of his party.
When he had fairly established himself as leader, he rose in his seat one day with unusual gravity. His scalp was working his ears with great rapidity showing his excitement.
He had in his hands a bill on which he had spent months in secret study. He had not even hinted its contents to any of his associates. Under the call for bills his voice rang with deep emphasis, “Mr. Speaker!”
Legree gave him instant recognition.
“I desire to introduce the following: ‘A Bill to be Entitled An Act to Relieve Married Women from the Bonds of Matrimony when United to Felons, and to Define Felony’.”
A page hurried to the Reading Clerk with his bill.
The hum of voices ceased. The five or six representatives of the white race left their desks and walked quickly toward the Speaker. The Clerk read in a loud clear voice.
“The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:
“I That all citizens of the State who took part in the Rebellion and fought against the Union, or held office in the so called Confederate States of America, shall be held guilty of felony, and shall be forever debarred from voting or holding office.”
“II That the married relations of all such felons are hereby dissolved and their wives absolutely divorced, and said felons shall be forever barred from contracting marriage or living under the same roof with their former wives.”
Instantly four Carpet-bagger members of some education rushed for Tim’s seat. “Withdraw that bill, man, quick! My God, are you mad!” they all cried in a breath.
Tim was dazed by this unexpected turn, and grinned in an obstinate way.
“I can’t see it gentlemen. That bill will kill out the breed of rebels and fix the status of every Southern state for five hundred years. It’s just what we need to make this state loyal.”
“You pass that bill and hell will break loose!”
“How so, brother? Ain’t we on top and the rebels on the bottom? Ain’t the army here to protect us?” persisted Tim.
There was a brief consultation among the little group in opposition and the leader said, “Mr. Speaker, I move that the bill be at once printed and laid on the desk of the members for consideration.”
Tim was astonished at this move of his enemy. Le-gree looked at him and waited his pleasure.
“Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that bill for the present,” he said at length.
That night the wires were hot between Washington and Raleigh, and the entire power of Congress was hurled upon the unhappy Tim. His bill was not only suppressed but the news agencies were threatened and subsidised to prevent accounts of its introduction being circulated throughout the country.
Tim decided to lay this measure over until Congress was off his hands, and the state’s autonomy fully recognised. Then he would dare interference. In the meantime he turned his great mind to financial matters. His success here was overwhelming.
His first measure was to increase the per diem of the members from three to seven dollars a day. It passed with a whoop.
Uncle Pete Sawyer a coal-black fatherly looking old darkey from an Eastern county made himself immortal in that debate.
“Mistah Speakah!” he bawled drawing himself up with great dignity, and holding a pen in his left hand as though he had been writing. “What do dese white gem’men mean by ezposen dis bill? Ef we doan pay de members enuf, dey des be erbleeged ter steal. Hit aint right, sah, ter fo’ce de members er dis hon’able body ter prowl atter dark when day otter be here ’tendin’ ter de business o’ de country. En I moves you, sah. Mistah Speakah, dat dese rema’ks er mine be filed in de arkibes er grabity!”
They were filed and embalmed in the archives of gravity where they will remain a monument to their author and his times.
As Tim’s great financial measures made progress, the members began to wear better clothes, assumed white linen shirts, had their shoes blacked, and put on the airs of overworked statesmen.
When they had used up all the funds of the state in mileage and per diem, they sold and divided the school fund, railroad bonds worth a half million, for a hundred thousand ready cash. It was soon found that Simon Legree, the Speaker of the House, was the master of financial measures and Tim Shelby was his mouthpiece.
Legree organised three groups of thieves composed of the officials needed to perfect the thefts in every branch of the government while he retained the leadership of the federated groups. The Treasurer, who was an honest man, was stripped of power by a special act.
The Capitol Ring merely picked up the odds and ends about the Capitol building. They refurnished the Legislative Halls. They spent over two hundred thousand dollars for furniture, and when it was appraised, its value was found to be seventeen thousand dollars at the prices they actually paid for it. The Ring stole one hundred and seventy thousand dollars on this item alone.
An appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars was made for “supplies, sundries and incidentals.” With this they built a booth around the statue of Washington at the end of the Capitol and established a bar with fine liquors and cigars for the free use of the members and their friends. They kept it open every day and night during their reign, and in a suite of rooms in the Capitol they established a brothel. From the galleries a swarm of courtesans daily smiled on their favourites on the floor.
The printing had never cost the state more than eight thousand dollars in any one year. This year it cost four hundred and eighty thousand. Legree drew thousands of warrants on the state for imaginary persons. There were eight pages in the House. He drew pay for one hundred and fifty-six pages. In this way he raised an enormous corruption fund for immediate use in bribing the lawmakers to carry through his schemes.
The Railroad Ring was his most effective group of brigands.
They passed bills authorising the issue of twenty-five millions of dollars in bonds, and actually issued and stole fourteen millions, and never built one foot of railroad.
When Legree’s movement was at its high tide, Ezra Perkins sought Uncle Pete Sawyer one night in behalf of a pet measure of his pending in the House.
Peter was seated by his table counting by the light of a candle three big piles of gold.
His face was wreathed in smiles.
“Peter, you seem well pleased with the world tonight?” said Ezra gleefully.
“Well, brudder, you see dem piles er yaller money?”
“Yes, it is a fine sight.”
Uncle Pete smacked his lips and grinned from ear to ear.
“Well, brudder, I tells you. I ben sol’ seben times in my life, but ’fore Gawd dat’s de fust time I ebber got de money!”
Uncle Pete dreamed that night that Congress passed a law extending the blessings of a “republican form of government” to North Carolina for forty years and that the Legislature never adjourned.
But the Legislature finally closed, and in a drunken revel which lasted all night. They had bankrupted the state, destroyed its school funds, and increased its debt from sixteen to forty-two millions of dollars, without adding one cent to its wealth or power.
Legree then organised a Municipal and County Ring to exploit the towns, cities, and counties, having passed a bill vacating all county and city offices.
This Ring secured the control of Hambright and levied a tax of twenty-five per cent for municipal purposes! Tom Camp’s little home was assessed for eighty-five dollars in taxes. Mrs. Gaston’s home was assessed for one hundred and sixty dollars. They could have raised a million as easily as the sum of these assessments.
It cost the United States government two hundred millions of dollars that year to pay the army required to guard the Legrees and their “loyal” men while they were thus establishing and maintaining “a republican form of government” in the South.
IT was the bluest Monday the Rev. John Durham ever remembered in his ministry. A long drought had parched the corn into twisted and stunted little stalks that looked as though they had been burnt in a prairie fire. The fly had destroyed the wheat crop and the cotton was dying in the blistering sun of August, and a blight worse than drought, or flood, or pestilence, brooded over the stricken land, flinging the shadow of its Black Death over every home. The tax gatherer of the new “republican form of government,” recently established in North Carolina now demanded his pound of flesh.
The Sunday before had been a peculiarly hard one for the Preacher. He had tried by the sheer power of personal sympathy to lift the despairing people out of their gloom and make strong their faith in God. In his morning sermon he had torn his heart open and given them its red blood to drink. At the night service he could not rally from the nerve tension of the morning. He felt that he had pitiably failed. The whole day seemed a failure black and hopeless.
All day long the sorrowful stories of ruin and loss of homes were poured into his ear.
The Sheriff had advertised for sale for taxes two thousand three hundred and twenty homes in Campbell county. The land under such conditions had no value.
It was only a formality for the auctioneer to cry it and knock it down for the amount of the tax bill.
As he arose from bed with the burden of all this hopeless misery crushing his soul, a sense of utter exhaustion and loneliness came over him.
“My love, I must go back to bed and try to sleep. I lay awake last night until two o’clock. I can’t eat anything,” he said to his wife as she announced breakfast.
“John, dear, don’t give up like that.”
“Can’t help it.”
“But you must. Come, here is something that will tone you up. I found this note under the front door this morning.”
“What is it?”
“A notice from some of your admirers that you must leave this county in forty-eight hours or take the consequences.”
He looked at this anonymous letter and smiled.
“Not such a failure after all, am I?” he mused.
“I thought that would help you,” she laughed.
“Yes, I can eat breakfast on the strength of that.”
He spread this letter out beside his plate, and read and reread it as he ate, while his eyes flashed with a strange half humourous light.
“Really, that’s fine, isn’t it?”
“You sower of sedition and rebellion, hypocrite and false prophet. The day has come to clean this county of treason and traitors. If you dare to urge the people to further resistance to authority, there will be one traitor less in this county.”
“That sounds like the voice of a Daniel come to judgment, don’t it?”
“I think Ezra Perkins might know something about it.”
“I am sure of it.”
“Well, I’m duly grateful, it’s done for you what your wife couldn’t do, cheered you up this morning.”
“That is so, isn’t it? It takes a violent poison sometimes to stimulate the heart’s action.”
“Now if you will work the garden for me, where I’ve been watering it the past month, you will be yourself by dinner time.”
“I will. That’s about all we’ve got to eat. I’ve had no salary in two months, and I’ve no prospects for the next two months.”
He was at work in the garden when Charlie Gaston suddenly ran through the gate toward him. His face was red, his eyes streaming with tears, and his breath coming in gasps.
“Doctor, they’ve killed Nelse! Mama says please come down to our house as quick as you can.”
“Is he dead, Charlie?”
“He’s most dead. I found him down in the woods lying in a gully, one leg is broken, there’s a big gash over his eye, his back is beat to a jelly, and one of his arms is broken. We put him in the wagon, and hauled him to the house. I’m afraid he’s dead now. Oh me!” The boy broke down and choked with sobs.
“Run, Charlie, for the doctor, and I’ll be there in a minute.”
The boy flew through the gate to the doctor’s house.
When the Preacher reached Mrs. Gaston’s, Aunt Eve was wiping the blood from Nelse’s mouth.
“De Lawd hab mussy! My po’ ole man’s done kilt.”
“Who could have done this, Eve?”
“Dem Union Leaguers. Dey say dey wuz gwine ter kill him fur not jinin’ ’em, en fur tryin’ ter vote ergin ’em.”
“I’ve been afraid of it,” sighed the Preacher as he felt Nelse’s pulse.
“Yassir, en now dey’s done hit. My po’ ole man. I wish I’d a been better ter ’im. Lawd Jesus, help me now!”
Eve knelt by the bed and laid her face against Nelse’s while the tears rained down her black face.
“Aunt Eve, it may not be so bad,” said the Preacher hopefully. “His pulse is getting stronger. He has an iron constitution. I believe he will pull through, if there are no internal injuries.”
“Praise God! ef he do git well, I tell yer now, Marse John, I fling er spell on dem niggers bout dis!”
“I am afraid you can do nothing with them. The courts are all in the hands of these scoundrels, and the Governor of the state is at the head of the Leagues.”
“I doan want no cotes, Marse John, I’se cote ennuf. I kin cunjure dem niggers widout any cote.”
The doctor pronounced his injuries dangerous but not necessarily fatal. Charlie and Dick watched with Eve that night until nearly midnight. Nelse opened his eyes, and saw the eager face of the boy, his eyes yet red from crying. “I aint dead, honey!” he moaned.
“Oh! Nelse, I’m so glad!”
“Doan you believe I gwine die! I gwine ter git eben wid dem niggers ’fore I leab dis worl’.”
Nelse spoke feebly, but there was a way about his saying it that boded no good to his enemies, and Eve was silent. As Nelse improved, Eve’s wrath steadily rose.
The next day she met in the street one of the negroes who had threatened Nelse.
“How’s Mistah Gaston dis mawnin’ M’am?” he asked.
Without a word of warning she sprang on him like a tigress, bore him to the ground, grasped him by the throat and pounded his head against a stone. She would have choked him to death, had not a man who was passing come to the rescue.
“Lemme lone, man, I’se doin’ de wuk er God!”
“You’re committing murder, woman.”
When the negro got up he jumped the fence and tore down through a corn field, as though pursued by a hundred devils, now and then glancing over his shoulder to see if Eve were after him.
The Preacher tried in vain to bring the perpetrators of this outrage on Nelse to justice. He identified six of them positively. They were arrested, and when put on trial immediately discharged by the judge who was himself a member of the League that had ordered Nelse whipped.
Tom Camp’s daughter was now in her sixteenth year and as plump and winsome a lassie, her Scotch mother declared, as the Lord ever made. She was engaged to be married to Hose Norman, a gallant poor white from the high hill country at the foot of the mountains. Hose came to see her every Sunday riding a black mule, gaily trapped out in martingales with red rings, double girths to his saddle and a flaming red tassel tied on each side of the bridle. Tom was not altogether pleased with his future son-in-law. He was too wild, went to too many frolics, danced too much, drank too much whiskey and was too handy with a revolver.
“Annie, child, you’d better think twice before you step off with that young buck,” Tom gravely warned his daughter as he stroked her fair hair one Sunday morning while she waited for Hose to escort her to church.
“I have thought a hundred times, Paw, but what’s the use. I love him. He can just twist me ’round his little finger. I’ve got to have him.”
“Tom Camp, you don’t want to forget you were not a saint when I stood up with you one day,” cried his wife with a twinkle in her eye.
“That’s a fact, ole woman,” grinned Tom.
“You never give me a day’s trouble after I got hold of you. Sometimes the wildest colts make the safest horses.”
“Yes, that’s so. It’s owing to who has the breaking of ’em,” thoughtfully answered Tom.
“I like Hose. He’s full of fun, but he’ll settle down and make her a good husband.”
The girl slipped close to her mother and squeezed her hand.
“Do you love him much, child?” asked her father.
“Well enough to live and scrub and work for him and to die for him, I reckon.”
“All right, that settles it, you’re too many for me, you and Hose and your Maw. Get ready for it quick. We’ll have the weddin’ Wednesday night. This home is goin’ to be sold Thursday for taxes and it will be our last night under our own roof. We’ll make the best of it.”
It was so fixed. On Wednesday night Hose came down from the foothills with three kindred spirits, and an old fiddler to make the music. He wanted to have a dance and plenty of liquor fresh from the mountain-dew district. But Tom put his foot down on it.
“No dancin’ in my house, Hose, and no licker,” said Tom with emphasis. “I’m a deacon in the Baptist church. I used to be young and as good lookin’ as you, my boy, but I’ve done with them things. You’re goin’ to take my little gal now. I want you to quit your foolishness and be a man.”
“I will, Tom, I will. She is the prettiest sweetest little thing in this world, and to tell you the truth I’m goin’ to settle right down now to the hardest work I ever did in my life.”
“That’s the way to talk, my boy,” said Tom putting his hand on Hose’s shoulder. “You’ll have enough to do these hard times to make a livin’.”
They made a handsome picture, in that humble home, as they stood there before the Preacher. The young bride was trembling from head to foot with fright. Hose was trying to look grave and dignified and grinning in spite of himself whenever he looked into the face of his blushing mate. The mother was standing near, her face full of pride in her daughter’s beauty and happiness, her heart all a quiver with the memories of her own wedding day seventeen years before. Tom was thinking of the morrow when he would be turned out of his home and his eyes filled with tears.
The Rev. John Durham had pronounced them man and wife and hurried away to see some people who were sick. The old fiddler was doing his best. Hose and his bride were shaking hands with their friends, and the boys were trying to tease the bridegroom with hoary old jokes.
Suddenly a black shadow fell across the doorway. The fiddle ceased, and every eye was turned to the door. The burly figure of a big negro trooper from a company stationed in the town stood before them. His face was in a broad grin, and his eyes bloodshot with whiskey. He brought his musket down on the floor with a bang.
“My frien’s, I’se sorry ter disturb yer but I has orders ter search dis house.”
“Show your orders,” said Tom hobbling before him.
“Well, deres one un ’em!” he said still grinning as he cocked his gun and presented it toward Tom. “En ef dat aint ennuf dey’s fifteen mo’ stanin’ ’roun’ dis house. It’s no use ter make er fuss. Come on, boys!”
Before Tom could utter another word of protest six more negro troopers laughing and nudging one another crowded into the room. Suddenly one of them threw a bucket of water in the fire place where a pine knot blazed and two others knocked out the candles.
There was a scuffle, the quick thud of heavy blows, and Hose Norman fell to the floor senseless. A piercing scream rang from his bride as she was seized in the arms of the negro who first appeared. He rapidly bore her toward the door surrounded by the six scoundrels who had accompanied him.
“My God, save her! They are draggin’ Annie out of the house,” shrieked her mother.
“Help! Help! Lord have mercy!” screamed the girl as they bore her away toward the woods, still laughing and yelling.
Tom overtook one of them, snatched his wooden leg off, and knocked him down. Hose’s mountain boys were crowding round Tom with their pistols in their hands.
“What shall we do, Tom? If we shoot we may kill Annie.”
“Shoot, men! My God, shoot! There are things worse than death!”
They needed no urging. Like young tigers they sprang across the orchard toward the woods whence came the sound of the laughter of the negroes.
“Stop de screechin’!” cried the leader.
“She nebber get dat gag out now.”
“Too smart fur de po’ white trash dis time sho’!” laughed one.
Three pistol shots rang out like a single report! Three more! and three more! There was a wild scramble. Taken completely by surprise, the negroes fled in confusion. Four lay on the ground. Two were dead, one mortally wounded and three more had crawled away with bullets in their bodies. There in the midst of the heap lay the unconscious girl gagged.
“Is she hurt?” cried a mountain boy.
“Can’t tell, take her to the house quick.”
They laid her across the bed in the room that had been made sweet and tidy for the bride and groom. The mother bent over her quickly with a light. Just where the blue veins crossed in her delicate temple there was a round hole from which a scarlet stream was running down her white throat.
Without a word the mother brought Tom, showed it to him, and then fell into his arms and burst into a flood of tears.
“Don’t, don’t cry so Annie! It might have been worse. Let us thank God she was saved from them brutes.”
Hose’s friends crowded round Tom now with tear-stained faces.
“Tom, you don’t know how broke up we all are over this. Poor child, we did the best we could.”
“It’s all right, boys. You’ve been my friends to-night. You’ve saved my little gal. I want to shake hands with you and thank you. If you hadn’t been here—My God, I can’t think of what would ’a happened! Now it’s all right. She’s safe in God’s hands.”
The next morning when Tom Camp called at the parsonage to see the Preacher and arrange for the funeral of his daughter he found him in bed.
“Dr. Durham is quite sick, Mr. Camp, but he’ll see you,” said Mrs. Durham.
“Thank you, M’am.”
She took the old soldier by the hand and her voice choked as she said, “You have my heart’s deepest sympathy in your awful sorrow.”
“It’ll be all for the best, M’am. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. I will still say, Blessed is the name of the Lord!”
“I wish I had such faith.” She led Tom into the room where the Preacher lay.
“Why, what’s this, Preacher? A bandage over your eye, looks like somebody knocked you in the head?”
“Yes, Tom, but it’s nothing. I’ll be all right by tomorrow. You needn’t tell me anything that happened at your house. I’ve heard the black hell-lit news. It will be all over this county by night and the town will be full of grim-visaged men before many hours. Your child has not died in vain. A few things like this will be the trumpet of the God of our fathers that will call the sleeping manhood of the Anglo-Saxon race to life again. I must be up and about this afternoon to keep down the storm. It is not time for it to break.”
“But, Preacher, what happened to you?”
“Oh! nothing much, Tom.”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” cried Mrs. Durham standing erect with her great dark eyes flashing with anger.
“As he came home last night from a visit to the sick, he was ambushed by a gang of negroes led by a white scoundrel, knocked down, bound and gagged and placed on a pile of dry fence rails. They set fire to the pile and left him to burn to death. It attracted the attention of Doctor Graham who was passing. He got to him in time to save him.”
“You don’t say so!”
“I’m sorry, Tom, I’m so weak this morning I couldn’t come to see you. I know your poor wife is heartbroken.”
“Yes, sir, she is, and it cuts me to the quick when I think that I gave the orders to the boys to shoot. But, Preacher, I’d a killed her with my own hand if I couldn’t a saved her no other way. I’d do it over again a thousand times if I had to.”
“I don’t blame you, I’d have done the same thing. I can’t come to see you to-day, Tom, I’ll be down to your house to-morrow a few minutes before we start for the cemetery. I must get up for dinner and prevent the men from attacking these troops. They’ll not dare to try to sell your place to-day. The public square is full of men now, and it’s only nine o’clock. You go home and cheer up your wife. How is Hose?”
“He’s still in bed. The Doctor says his skull is broken in one place, but he’ll be over it in a few weeks.”
Tom hobbled back to his house, shaking hands with scores of silent men on the way.
The Preacher crawled to his desk and wrote this note to the young officer in command of the post,
My Dear Captain,
In the interest of peace and order I would advise you to telegraph to Independence for two companies of white regulars to come immediately on a special, and that you start your negro troops on double quick marching order to meet them. There will be a thousand armed men in Hambright by sundown, and no power on earth can prevent the extermination of that negro company if they attack them. I will do my best to prevent further bloodshed but I can do nothing if these troops remain here to-day. Respectfully,
John Durham.
The Commandant acted on the advice immediately.
It was the week following before the sales began. There was no help for it. The town and the county were doomed to a ruin more complete and terrible than the four years of war had brought. Independence had been saved by a skillful movement of General Worth, who sought an interview with Legree when his council first issued their levy of thirty per cent for municipal purposes.
“Mr. Legree, let’s understand one another,” said the General.
“All right, I’m a man of reason.”
“A bird in hand is worth two in the bush!”
“Every time, General.”
“Well, call off your dogs, and rescind your order for a thirty per cent tax levy, and I’ll raise $30,000 in cash and pay it to you in two days.”
“Make it $50,000 and it’s a bargain.”
“Agreed.”
The General raised twenty thousand in the city, went North and borrowed the remaining thirty thousand.
Legree and his brigands received this ransom and moved on to the next town.
Poor Hambright was but a scrawny little village on a red hill with no big values to be saved, and no mills to interest the commercial world, and the auctioneer lifted his hammer.