by Kyle Onstott
‘Ol’ Masta say I come back and he’p with his boots.’
‘Then mind; mind, you hear? An’ take care you polite,’ his mother cautioned.
Meg’s eyes were riveted upon Hammond. He had seen many naked Negroes, but it had never before occurred to him that white folks removed their clothes. He had assumed that white gentlemen were disembodied angels, but they were flesh he saw, beautiful pink flesh covered with golden hair. So far from disillusioning the boy, the revelation augmented his reverence for white mastery. He obtained but a lingering glance, but it was enough to excite a physical love. He had seen Dite in Hammond’s bed, and in his jealousy Meg hated the girl.
He returned to Maxwell’s room and knelt before his seated master. Maxwell threw his socks to the boy and stuck his feet towards him. Meg put them on the old man, after which he struggled with the boots, preoccupied the while with thoughts about the pleasure it would be for him to perform the same office for his younger master. He dreamed of becoming Hammond’s body servant. His imagination ran to the removal of Ham’s clothes, to putting him to bed, and bathing him.
4
Hammond’s first morning chore was to go to the pest house to see Big Pearl. As he entered the door she sat upright and reached with her arms towards him. He sat on the side of her bed and she grasped his hands and began to whimper.
‘Whut ails you, Big Pearl? Whure you hurts?’ Hammond inquired with a kindly tone.
‘Don’t hurts nowhure now. Misery done left me,’ Big Pearl replied, clinging to him. ‘Masta, suh! Masta, suh!’ she wept.
‘Don’t cry, Big Pearl. You all right.’
‘Yessum, suh. I knows I all right, you here—Masta, Masta.’
‘Whut you cry about?’
‘You goin’ to leave me, and then my misery come back. Masta, Masta, stay here, stay right here, please suh, Masta!’ Pearl begged passionately.
‘How was she all night, Lance?’ Ham turned to the big buck who had risen on his entrance.
‘First off, when you leave, suh, Big Pearl go off to sleep right nice. I set right here by fire all the night. Then she wake up and begin to howl and beller, and she keep that up until you comes in that door, suh.’
Ham felt Big Pearl’s forehead. It seemed cool. He noted, however, a slight convulsive movement of her body when he laid his hands on her. He was baffled. There were no symptoms of the vomit or of smallpox. Possibly this was the evil effects of in-breeding.
Not because he thought it would do the girl any good, but because he did not know what else to give her, he poured out a dose of laudanum and held the glass for her while she drank it. She fixed her eyes on Hammond in an expression of gratitude that was adulation.
‘I tell you, Lance, you put a bridle on that grey mule and ride to Benson and git that veterinary. You know Doc Redfield. You know the way to Benson, don’ you?’
‘Yes, suh, Masta, I knows him. He the white gen’man whut cure Nimrod las’ year.’
‘You’ll find him around the tavern or over at the grocery store, drinkin’. Tell him come right out to Mista Maxwell’s Falconhurst Plantation. Kin you remember that?’
‘Yas, suh, Masta.’ Lance was elated at being chosen to go on such an errand. He could boast of it around the quarters and recount the sights he should see in the town. ‘I got to have pass, though, Masta. I don’ want to be ketched up fer no runnin’ nigger.’
‘I’ll write you out a pass. Stop at the big house and git it. And be careful of that mule. Go easy like, and don’t sink in the mire.’
‘Yas, suh. I be careful. I careful nigger.’
‘Better take a pocketful of pone, if you should git hongry,’ Ham warned, always thoughtful of the welfare, if not of the comfort, of his hands.
The opiate began to have its effects upon his patient, and Hammond went to the house to eat his breakfast. Meg heard him come in and limp down the hall. Without waiting for orders, he galloped into the kitchen and excitedly pulled at Lucretia Borgia’s skirt. ‘A toddy fer Masta, a toddy fer Masta Hammond, a toddy. It fer Masta Ham,’ he insisted with impatience. His mother paused in her preparation of the breakfast to mix the toddy.
Hammond entered the sitting-room and stopped to extend his hands to the fire and to turn before it ere he sat down, more from habit than from chill.
‘Better drink a toddy, Ham,’ his father admonished. ‘Do you good.’
Hardly had Hammond sunk into his chair when Meg rushed through the door, glass in hand. His impetuosity vanished, and he grew diffident as he approached his young master. He bit his lip as he extended the unordered libation to his god, uncertain as to how his ministration would be received.
‘Whut’s this?’ Hammond asked.
‘Do you good,’ repeated Maxwell.
‘Whure did this come from?’ Hammond said rather than questioned, nodding toward Meg. ‘This nigger better than the other one. Don’t have to tell this ’un,’ Ham smiled at the boy.
Meg was abashed at the praise for which he had longed. He hung his head and chewed his lower lip as he returned a sickly grin. Then emotion overcame him and he began to cry.
‘Whut ails you, boy? Nobody ain’t goin’ to hurt you. You good boy,’ Hammond consoled him.
Meg knew it was sacrilege, but he was unable to restrain himself. He could no longer stand. His knees folded under him and he fell kneeling with his face between Hammond’s legs. ‘I your nigger, Masta, I your nigger, Masta, suh. Say I your nigger, Masta Ham; jest your little nigger. Nobody’s nigger, but jest yourn,’ the boy begged between his sobs.
‘Course, you my nigger. Whose nigger you afeard you goin’ to be? Course, you my nigger and you Ol’ Masta’s nigger, too,’ Hammond, uncomprehending, sought to comfort the boy.
Meg looked Hammond full in the face to swear his allegiance. ‘You so good, Masta, I loves you, Masta.’
Lucretia Borgia appeared with the breakfast bell. Breakfast was late, but Lucretia Borgia had not been idle. She saw the tears on Meg’s face. She knew that something unusual had occurred. ‘That little nigger been troublin’ you gen’lemen? I’ll skin him, I skin him till he cain’t stan’ up.’
Hammond smiled at her and said, ‘You’ll mind your business, Lucretia Borgia. That my nigger. I wants him skinned, I’ll skin him. Keep your han’s offn him.’ The rebuke was jocular and Lucretia Borgia knew her son had not offended.
Alph was duly posted beside the table, wielding his peacock-feather brushes. He managed to move enough to display his limp. Lucretia Borgia pulled the chair to seat Maxwell, and Meg was alert and ceremonious in his withdrawing of Hammond’s chair. He hastened to pull the napkin from its glass, to shake it open and place it in Hammond’s lap.
Lucretia Borgia served the breakfast, but in all that pertained to Hammond’s needs Meg forestalled her. Ignoring Maxwell and Brownlee, he filled Ham’s glass with milk, heaped bacon and eggs upon his plate, shifted the platter on which the cornbread was served so as to extend it with the largest piece on the side nearest Hammond.
There was an unstated rule that Negroes should not eat from dishes reserved for whites. Yet Meg now whispered to Ham, ‘Masta, kin I eat whut you doesn’t?’
‘Oh, I see; that why you help me so good. You wants my leavin’ vittles?’ Hammond joked with the boy to his father’s disapproval.
The accusation was unfair and the boy could only deny it with, ‘Naw, suh, Masta. I wan’s you should eat all you kin, but, please suh, let me have yo’ leavin’s.’
‘Course you kin. You my nigger, ain’t you?’ Ham had intended no rebuff to the child.
‘Right offn yo’ plate? Please, Masta, suh, kin I?’
‘Right offn my plate.’
Maxwell kept his eye upon Alph’s limp. The more Alph limped the more Maxwell was assured of his own improvement.
Hammond had noted his father’s bearing without comment until he could be sure that he was better. His increased dexterity was apparent. He could raise his knife to his mouth with sureness and without flinc
hing.
‘You chipper, kind of, this mornin’, Papa,’ Ham at length remarked.
‘Better, Ham, better. I goin’ to git well, now I’s found the cure. See that little buck, Alph, limp? The pizen is all dreenin’ away. I goin’ to git well and take this plantation offn your back. I’ll straddle a hoss agin first thing you knows.’
‘Don’t you worry none ’bout me. I all right an’ Falconhurst all right.’
‘I knowed a nigger belly sovereign for rheumatiz. I tol’ you,’ Brownlee took credit. ‘That man Bronson over at Natchez——’
‘Wonder how Big Pearl come on,’ Maxwell declared. ‘You better go down after breakfast and see how she do, Ham.’
‘Done went. She some better, but Lancelot say she carry on all night.’
‘Better git Redfield,’ Maxwell advised.
‘Done sent Lancelot.’
‘Damndest thing, Mista Brownlee, on this plantation. Cain’t suggest nothin’, not a thing, but it already been ’tended to. This Hammond think of ever’thing an’ do it afore I gits around to talkin’ about it. Jest have to nurse my rheumatiz, drink my toddies and stop my mappin’, I reckon.’
‘Reckon Lance git through to Benson. Mire is terrible deep and thick,’ Hammond pondered.
‘Ought to of put him on a mule,’ Maxwell suggested.
‘I did a’ready. Ol’ Grey.’
‘I thinkin’ about that mire,’ said Brownlee. ‘Purty bad comin’ in yestidy, worse this mornin’. Still, this wind and sun dries out them roads right fast. Course I goin’ to wait to see you thresh that nigger.’
‘Don’ reckon he fitten to thresh this mornin’. He sick,’ Ham explained.
‘Playin’ off, more ’an likely.’ The trader was disappointed.
‘No, he sick. I was mad an’ I poured too much ipecac into him. He awful sick.’
‘Deserved it, deserved it. Wasn’t more than right,’ said Maxwell.
‘Wouldn’t hurt to whup him, too, I reckon,’ Brownlee urged. ‘You promised him, you know. Ought to always keep a promise of a larrupin’ to a nigger.’
‘I’ll keep my promise all right, but not while he sick. No hidin’ of sick niggers at Falconhurst. Besides, ’ll do him good to relish his whuppin’ a few days afore he git it. Let him ponder how sore he goin’ to be.’
‘Cain’t wait, cain’t wait to see it, much as I’d like it. Always admire to see ’em squirm and hear ’em holler. Sometimes right comical.’
Meg sidled to Ham’s side. ‘Kin I see? I won’ cry.’
‘See? See whut?’
‘Memnon git hided,’ whispered Meg.
‘Course you kin,’ Hammond promised. ‘Do you good. Learn you whut to expect.’
‘You spoils your niggers at Falconhurst, suh; spoils ’em till they putrid. No Saturday workin’! No threshin’ when they sick! Veternary fer belly-ache! ’D think the niggers owned you stead of you ownin’ niggers,’ Brownlee voiced his disapproval.
‘That, kind of fact,’ Hammond agreed. ‘One way our niggers does own us, and we owns them. They feeds us and we feeds them. Nothin’ I craves more than good niggers, fat and well and happy—and a-growin’.’
When the whites had moved into the front room Meg appeared before Ham and asked, ‘Does you want a toddy?’
‘No, too soon after breakfast,’ Ham replied. But it was not too soon for Brownlee and Maxwell.
Meg retired a little crestfallen, but complacent. To serve his master was a joy, to serve anybody else a chore. He fetched the drinks and served them with politest unction; and when he passed his young master on his way out of the room, Hammond caught him a playful but sharp blow with his hand across the boy’s seat. It caused Meg to drop his tray, and tears gathered to his eyes. As he stooped to retrieve the tray, he looked into Ham’s face and blossomed into a wide and satisfied grin.
‘Send that other’n here soon as he feeds,’ Maxwell commanded.
Meg acknowledged the command and hastened into the dining-room lest the table should be cleaned. He picked up Hammond’s plate with the food he had left on it, hurried into the kitchen and began to eat from it.
Lucretia Borgia saw. ‘Nigger boy,’ she said, akimbo, ‘you knows better’n eat offn white dish!’
‘My masta said.’
‘Whut your masta say?’
‘He said I could—right offn his plate. I ast him an’ he say yes.’
‘I say no. Now scrape that feed onto that crack’ platter and you two eat like you always does.’
‘My masta say,’ Meg persisted.
‘Nigger, I’ll smash you,’ and Lucretia Borgia stepped toward him with upraised hand.
A glare of defiance shot from Meg’s eyes. ‘Nigger, don’t tetch me. Don’t you ever tetch me. I bust this platter on your haid. My masta want me whup, he whup me hisself. No nigger ain’t goin’ whup me.’
Lucretia Borgia was taken aback, halted.
‘My masta say I eat offn his dish, I eats offn his dish. Ain’t no nigger goin’ to stop me,’ the boy declared between bites. ‘My masta say you not whup me, you not whup me, d’you hear?’
Lucretia Borgia hesitated to disobey Ham’s commands, no matter how casually given. She felt her authority vanishing.
‘I Masta Ham’s nigger now, jest Masta Ham’s,’ Meg gloated. ‘Masta Ham hang me up and skin me alive, he want to; he kill me, he want to. I Masta Ham’s nigger,’ he impressed Lucretia Borgia. ‘Masta Ham whup me this mornin’, whup me hard, harder than you kin,’ he announced, triumphant.
‘Whut you do, nigger? Whut you do, makin’ Masta trouble?’
‘I not makin’ my masta no trouble. I crave him to whup me and my masta done it.’ Meg had finished Ham’s food and had picked up the plate to lick it clean.
Alph had listened with trepidation to Meg’s quarrel with their mother. He sensed that his brother’s victory would redouble her tyranny over him. Meg turned to him and with contempt in his voice told him, ‘Ol’ Masta say you come in to him, soon as you feed.’
‘Whut he want?’
‘He want you; that whut he want. Cain’t you do whut your masta say without as’in ques’ions?’ Meg was truculent. ‘You Ol’ Masta’s nigger, I guesses. Old Masta’s sleepin’ nigger. But I got the bes’ masta. Ol’ Masta ain’t young and strong like Masta Hammond, an’ purty. Now, go along to your masta.’
Alph’s limp, which he had forgotten, recurred to him. He rubbed the joints of his hands and limped away. He crossed the dining-room to the sitting-room. He waited, unsure of the demand for him. He had nothing but Meg’s word that he was wanted. The gentlemen were talking.
‘Ain’t no call fer niggers from the Texies yet; but they sure to be as time goes,’ Brownlee declared.
‘I sure wish I could go there—not to stay, but jest to look around. If Papa hadn’t got the rheumatiz, I’d sure be off. There’s fortunes to be made in the Texies, I know.’
‘An’ surer fortune, fewer dangers, an’ more comforts right here at Falconhurst. I knows boys. When I Ham’s age, I crave to wander, too, jest like Ham. Hemmed right down here by my rheumatiz, he ain’t had no blowhole fer his spirits. Even when he take a coffle to New Orleans, has to quicken right back home. With my rheumatiz betterin’, he kin git around some, go to N’ Orleans, even to N’ York, at least kin go sparkin’ some of these nice young ladies of good families, pinin’ at home fer some handsome blade to come and marry ’em.’
‘Don’t talk no more, Papa. I ain’t goin’ to the Texies, but I’d sure like it. I goin’ to stay right here; you kin lay to it. Mayhap, I’ll git around, go into town some, go to New Orleans and dress me up some. But, an’ I stay here, whut I wants is a fightin’ nigger to have me some sport with.’
‘You stay home and mind Falconhurst, Son, you kin have the bes’ fightin’ nigger in all Alabam. Don’t pay to have a fighter,’ lessen you has a good one. You’ll have a good one—the best.’
Alph waited, ignored. At length he asked, ‘You send fer me, Masta, suh? I’s here.’
Maxwell resented, or at least disapproved of Hammond’s trifling with Meg, was stern in his reply to Alph. ‘You knows better, boy, than to stick your mouf into white talk. Now, keep your britches on and wait whure you at, an’ shut your mouf.’
The frightened boy rubbed a tear from his eye.
‘Ain’t nothin’ in fightin’ niggers in this part of the county. Young fellers that fight niggers in country taverns ain’t got no money to bet on ’em. They thinks a hundred dollars is money. Ought to see a nigger fight in N’ Orleans. Bets of a thousand dollars nothin’; some of them sports backs their bucks fer five thousand,’ Brownlee expounded.
‘Young gen’men who fetched their niggers to Benson to fight ain’t got much money to back they boys, you right, but they most generally brings along a good young nigger or two to bet with. All got niggers, or they pappy has,’ protested Hammond. ‘Young niggers good as money right in the bank.’
‘Gamblers in N’ Orleans trains they niggers to fight, not jest strappin’ bucks out of the cotton gang. They trained how to fight. They exercised and fed and petted up for the purpose,’ Brownlee continued.
‘That whut I mean,’ said Hammond. ‘That whut I means to do. Git a fine, strong, young buck and learn him to fight, scientific like.’
‘An’ them N’ Orleans niggers knows they has to fight, an’ they does. They owner tells ’em before they shove ’em in that if they loses the fight they goin’ to brand ’em good or take ’em to the doctor to be cut. An’ they niggers knows they means it. They fights an’ fights an’ don’ give up. They claws and they chaws and they gouges like anythin’.’
‘N’ Orleans a right sportin’ like city, I reckon,’ said Maxwell.
‘I see one fight between two French gen’lemen—that is between niggers belongin’ to ’em. Big, young, yaller bucks they was, right purty, and trained down hard as hickory. Them niggers fit and fit all over that place for more ’n an hour and a half, first one a-whuppin’ and then the othern. Them Frenchmen right game! Wouldn’t neither one on ’em give up. Finally one nigger couldn’t move no more. Everybody thought he daid; might as well be, all chawed up. The winnin’ boy not much better off. Don’t know whut them Frenchies done with them boys; wasn’t much they could do, I reckon. Blood jest a spurtin’ over everything—even ruint the fine coat of one of the Frenchies. Five thousand a side, but even the winner never made much. His nigger ’most worth that. I made fifty dollars that fight.’