His voice broke suddenly. All the black women had their faces buried in their aprons except Extra; she was staring fixedly at Ira, eyes bulging, nostrils distended, mouth open and dripping.
He continued, The National Government says that you are free. You belong to no one except yourselves, and to God above. I may no longer order you about except as one man orders another because he is the supervisor, the boss; thus he orders him. But no longer as master and slave.
Naomi burst out with a shrill, but you is our mastah—
I was your master; no longer; the Federal law says that you are free, and now the Federal law prevails, it rules here. But I can still be your employer, and as my employees you may still live here as you’ve always done—dwell in the same cabins, eat the same food, live as you have done before. But now I must pay you wages.
There was a general beaming as they began to appreciate this statement. You pay us real money, Mastah? Cash money? We get hard money?
If you work for me, and do your work well, you will receive real money. But if you do not do your work well, done as I wish it done, then I’ll get some other people to work for me, to live in the houses where you lived before. You will be turned out. I shall need to employ other people in your stead. . . .
Old Leander was nodding pontifically throughout and he said clearly as Ira paused: My children do work like you bid, Mastah. Yes sir, I make them do it. We all belong to you, like it say in Scriptures.
Ira said, I provided for you people, just as I provided for the many we had here before the war. You had no thought of the morrow; I thought of that for you. If you were sick, I doctored you myself; if I could do no good for you, and Miss Lucy could do you no good, then I fetched the doctor, and I paid him money to make you well. As with you, Jonas, when you broke your hip whilst lumbering; as with you, Coffee, when the cotton bale toppled on your foot long ago; as with Naomi and her tumor, and the doctor took it out and healed her. You were clothed and fed, fed better than most black people, even in parlous times. No one has ever gone hungry on my place. Is that not true?
True! It true! You good mastah, Mastah—
But now the law says that you must take charge of yourselves. If I am to pay you wages, then with your wages you must buy food and clothing; for I cannot afford to give you these things if I am to pay you money. If you ask me to give you meat and meal, shoes and stockings, then must I charge them against you. You are to sell me the work you do, and I am to pay you wages; if I give you fruit or corn or bacon or a shawl or a blanket, then I shall write it down in a book, each time, and I must show that book to officers who might come and wish to see it, to make sure that I am paying you wages as the law says. And— And I may not keep you on the place against your will! If one of you wishes to leave, he may go elsewhere. You are free men and women and children.
Old Leander declared feelingly that he didn’t want any old Yankee law. He said that all this was none of the Yankees’ business.
Ira’s heart had gone from him as he spoke. Enough, enough, I can say nothing more; I cannot make them understand this thing which has befallen; indeed, do I understand it myself? I fear not.
He managed to tell them that he would explain further, when and if they wished further explanation; in the meantime he must examine his accounts, find out exactly how much money he had, how much he might reasonably expect to make off the plantation, and thus what wages he could offer; and if he said eight dollars or ten dollars, if he spoke of ninety-six dollars a year, then he would try to explain to them exactly what ninety-six dollars might be and what it would buy.
Ira went to his desk and sat among ledgers until he was half blind, until his head rang each time he moved it. He unlocked his iron cash box and counted currency contained therein. He placed Confederate scrip in one pile, the few bits of gold coin in another, the silver in another; he had no greenbacks, the law had said that he might have none, and he had obeyed as few other individuals obeyed. He owned however a sheaf of bills, some issued by the Central Railroad and Banking Company, more by the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company, and these he had held since before the war began. Thank God that the best of the old Georgia banks had been connected with railroads. Ira knew that in 1861 his own State had a greater mileage of railroads than Alabama and Mississippi put together. He had heard that these bills were selling at the North for from seventy-five to ninety-five per cent of their par value. Thus he was not at the moment penniless; he might be penniless in another year if he did not manage cautiously. He shoved his small riches back into the cash box without counting all of the piles, locked the heavy box and put it in its cupboard, locked the cupboard. He went outside with a swimming head, trying to clear head and spirit in the ministration of sun and garden smells, for the day was fair.
Therefore he was in the implement shed, reassuring his hand with the feel of his favorite knife, and thinking vaguely of plum weevils, when Jonas approached.
So you and Extra are determined to go. To what place?
Mastah? murmured Jonas as in a dream, and his eyes were dreaming also, they were intense within narrowed lids.
I said, where are you going?
Savannah, Mastah.
But you’ve never been there. Why do you wish—?
Get all our back money, Mastah.
Back money? Damn it, said Ira fiercely (almost never had he allowed himself to curse before his blacks; even more rarely did he curse them directly), you damned idiot, what are you talking about?
Scooper say you owe us wage now, Mastah. All time you own us, you owe us wage every day. You own me how long, Mastah? He inquired as one making a most delicate plea.
So Scooper’s at the bottom of this!
Scooper he done gone already.
Gone where?
Savannah. Done left at sun-up, take his woman, take all the children.
What? Had he a mule, a rig?
No, Mastah. They a-walking. Old Miss Barney Yeoman, she say she not give him no cart, no nothing. She say she not owe him no wage. But Atlanta niggers, they come through lass fortnight, they walking on the railroad, and they say all our old mastahs owe us money for every day we work, and they get that money in Savannah.
Jonas, you’re my best hand. I don’t want to see you believing this silly thing. Tis an untruth from start to finish! No one owes you money, not one copper cent—not until now. From this time forth—
Scooper say them Atlanta niggers say white folks ain’t got no money give us now. But Linkum got money, and he send folks pay us all them dimes, them dollars!
Jonas, Lincoln is dead. He was murdered at the theatre! He—
Could Jonas appreciate a cruel fact so quickly (even now, after only a fortnight) turned into history? He could not appreciate it. Since he stood in the first sturdiness of young maturity Jonas had been owned by Ira, had been dutiful and obliging, had been able to cope with the complication of more demanding tasks better than most slaves. He had trusted Ira, appealed to him, begged before him, begged to have Extra as his wife, had had her awarded to him as a prize when Extra admitted her willingness. In an exceedingly humble way he had shared the rise and fall of Claffey fortunes as a dog might share: a fine beef bone with meat attached, on occasion—scrawny table scraps when the fare was thin. He lamented honestly when the stroke of death fell, bragged about the prowess of young Claffeys when he saw them in uniform, wept afresh when the stroke came down again, wept sincerely again, remembered with pride how he had pulled the toddler Lucy out of a Sweetwater marsh when she went floundering there, loved to read the time from a plated watch which Ira gave him as tribute for this feat, loved to impress his fellows by reading the time even incorrectly. Jonas had tended Deuce when the puppy was near to dying of distemper, had volunteered with Extra to assume parental duties when little Dick was orphaned—he and Extra had volunteered kindly, they did not have to be ordered to take the charge. Ira had nev
er considered selling Jonas and Extra and their children as he had sold so many when it became necessary. Extra was indigenous to the place, Jonas very nearly so.
Yet he would heed the word of the massive bully Scooper, the word of idle strangers; and solely because they were black words, so now to be considered as gospel.
If old Linkum dead, Scooper say they got other folks give us money—
Jonas, no longer are you a slave. As a master I may no longer forbid you to go. But do you believe I am your friend?
You always good to us, and Jonas began to cry.
Then as your friend I forbid you to go!
Scooper say— Jonas blubbered softly, unintelligibly.
Don’t mention Scooper to me again, you hear?
Mastah, we wants to walk off.
Ira cursed savagely. And, I presume, take your children with you? Take Bun and little Gracious—?
Mastah, they our—children. They ain’t belong you no more, like you say. They our’n.
What of Orphan Dick? He’s not your child, you shan’t have him.
No—Mastah. Pet and Coffee—they say they—look after Orphan Dick.
So it seemed that Coffee, whose intelligence was less than that of Jonas (at least that portion of intelligence essential to the performance of successful labors)— And Jem, the lightest-brained of the three— They were not going, they would not walk off with their wives. This course gave Jonas grief, but he stood here now as a man, not a chattel; and this very transformation was a grief in itself. It did not kill the soul but it hurt the soul, and the wound was in Jonas’s eyes as he cried.
For the last time, I tell you it is nonsense, nigger nonsense, you hear? You couldn’t find your way to Savannah! How will you feed Extra and the children, where will you put them at night?
Reckon we sleep out by a fire.
And it rains, it blows, you’re all drenched, you have no roof over you, nothing to eat!
But when we gets to Savannah—
This is his illusion, try to take it from him, you can’t, he adheres to it like a seed in a boll. The shiny table is spread with dollars, dimes, quarters, gold. Linkum or Linkum’s ghost or deputy sits behind the table and calls the roll. He says, What your name? and Jonas say Jonas, and Extra say Extra. Yes, Jonas. Certainly, Extra. I got all this hard money here for you! Clinkety-clink in the money bag. Whole great big bagful money you got now, and never have to work no more. Now you walk in town like white folks, go in the store where once white folks bought Christmas for the black people— But now you are just like white folks, and Freedom done come, this the day of Freedom, Jubilee time! Now you just like white folks, got great big bagful dimes and solid gold, you buy Christmas for yourself any day you wish—
There was nothing left but prayer. Ira heard himself telling the glistening stubborn brown face, I shall go into the house and pray that you do not go. I have appealed to you to no avail. I’ll appeal to the Lord.
He did go into the house and immediately encountered Lucy, who was smiling wanly and gesturing with her finger toward her lips; and this reminded Ira of Veronica, naturally, although Lucy did not much resemble her mother in appearance. Poppy, let’s be still as mice. My dear Harry is asleep on your sofa. He just came in, and I put him there—and soothed him— Praise be, he’s fast asleep! Nineteen hours at a single ssstretch— On this last word her voice was shaking.
Lucy, the Yankees will soon be taken away.
But do the Federals know that many sick are still here?
Of course, child, of course they know. They’ll be along soon.
He told her of Jonas and Extra, the weird belief which tempted them. Lucy’s eyes snapped and she went flying out across the yard; but when she came back much more slowly, and with heavier steps, she said that it was no use, the people were packing their duds. Extra had clung to her and wet her old gown with tears, but it was no use; these two dreamers were free, they were bound to go dreaming along the byways.
When do they go? At once?
I persuaded them to wait until the morning. I told them they should have baskets of food to tote along. It seemed that, if they slept on it— Don’t you think, Poppy, if they slept on it—?
I fear tis no earthly use.
Later Ira had a thought that Leander might prevail upon his daughter Extra to prevail in turn upon her husband— This was senseless: Leander had not enough strength left to persuade or adjure. He had been ailing for years, declining for months, Cousin Harry guessed that he suffered enlargement of the spleen, for the old creature wore an uncomfortable protuberance like pregnancy.
Harry Elkins allayed Ira’s perplexity if not his doubts for Jonas and Extra and the two children. Late in the evening the young man awoke from exhausted slumber, and Lucy fed him cold bacon and cabbage salad, and warmed up a pot of soup over blazing twigs in the library’s fireplace (no longer was there a drop of oil on the plantation, so she might not use her little lamp). Ira came in from a limping plunging walk; he had watched the crescent moon go down, had wandered nearly to the place where Veronica had babbled in slime; then Ira turned back in sadness if not in terror. He thought that there was no terror left. Of what might he now be afraid?
Daughter Lucy told you of my people, Coz?
She did.
Ah, that stupid Jonas!
You know, came Harrell Elkins’s mild grating words, I believe I know why he’s bound and determined to leave.
Ira bent closer, frowning. Then tell me.
Because he’s the only soul upon the place who’s smart enough to realize that he is free! He and Extra, perhaps. She was Lucy’s playmate, sometimes even her confidante; think you not that it’s possible that her association with Lucy has developed her imagination more than the other wenches’? And often I’ve heard you say that Jonas was smart as tacks. On certain subjects, pertaining—say—to husbandry? Then, you see—
Elkins’s head swayed forward and Lucy pressed her shoulder against his to sustain him.
You see, he knows that he is free. The two of them know it. They have—you might say, graduated—into a state of rapture without bound. Thus they may see sights, hear sounds, tread among visions never glimpsed or heard or trod among by the other blacks. The notion of Linkum and the money to be given away— They don’t believe it actually. They but pretend to.
Harry was silent for a while, so were Ira and Lucy. It serves as an excuse for this seeming descent into starvation and homelessness, said Elkins at last.
Ira gazed long at the young pair through candlelight. If what you say is true, there might be a hope for the future.
Hope? echoed Lucy. For whom?
For black people. All of them, in every place. I mean education. I had not thought of it in that way before; and regarded folks who preached such education as either vicious or demented. But if our slaves are to be set adrift, might it not be wiser and safer for all—for them, for ourselves—to develop their minds, to aid them in developing whatever power might lie within them? Suddenly I feel that it might.
Ira considered this revolutionary departure until he slept belatedly. He thought of it in many phases and ramifications. Would the National Government establish schools quickly for these dogged capricious beasts now designated as humans? The Government should. Our Government, he said very nearly aloud. No longer is it Their Government. What’s in a possessive pronoun? Should I assemble the remaining people tomorrow and set them letters upon slates, and bid them copy? His last conscious thought was a thanks given to Cousin Harry. Son-in-law or not, Ira would always think of him as Cousin Harry.
Some two hours after sunrise Jonas and his family presented themselves at the rear yard gate to speak farewells. Elkins was off to the hospital an hour earlier, but Lucy and Ira came down and stood to receive embraces and handclasps while the rest moaned and muttered beyond the palings.
You will be delayed
a trifle, Jonas, in departing.
Jonas’s eyes widened and his nostrils twitched. You could see that he rose instantly to the willingness for rebellion.
For you are to harness Tiger to the cart. The two-wheeler which little Bun drives about his work.
Mastah? came the guttural shudder of the Negro’s voice.
For you are to take Tiger with you. I’m lending him to you, with the cart. I shan’t have children trudging, stone-bruising themselves over the miles. . . .
Also Ira had prepared a paper, he had risen in gray light to prepare it. To Whom It May Concern: This will certify that I, Ira Claffey, citizen of Sumter County, Georgia, in recognizance of the laws of the United States of America now prevailing since the recent surrenders by Confederate States’ commanders, have given permission to my former slave, Jonas, now a freedman, to proceed with his wife Extra and children Buncombe and Gracious, also formerly my slaves and now freed, to a destination of their own choosing. Warning is given herewith that no person shall interfere with Jonas and his family so long as they proceed peaceably, or attempt to arrest or persecute them, or offer them bodily harm or threat, under penalty of such retaliation as I shall assuredly bring within a court of law, or, if necessary, outside the law. These people have the protection of whatever law now applies to the State of Georgia, and have my own protection as well. The mule and cart in their possession are my property and must be treated as such. Signed by me on the first day of May, 1865. Ira Claffey. Witness: Harrell Elkins, Surgeon, P.A.C.S.
The paper was folded, pinned within the pocket of Jonas’s shirt, and baskets of food were put aboard the cart. Ira gave Jonas an old tobacco bag with strings drawn tight, containing dimes and quarters. He thought that Confederate scrip might suddenly be of no value whatsoever, but feared to have Jonas exhibiting dollars in some wayside store; quickly he might be robbed, indeed probably he would be robbed sooner or later. So goodbye to the Tiger mule and the cart as well. But could Ira sit down to a midday meal and think of these people wandering with empty bellies, the children wailing? No, no, his arm must reach to feed them over whatever distance it could reach, his wheels and hoofs should bear them forward.
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