Aaron in the Wildwoods

by Joel Chandler Harris

  "Shall I use a club on you, White Grunter? Shall I make bacon of you? You heard him call my name."

  The White Pig paused. His small eyes glittered in the dark, and Chunky Riley heard his tusks grate ominously. He knew the creature was foaming with rage.

  "Ooft! Your name, Son of Ben Ali?" said the White Pig in language that Chunky Riley thought was merely a series of angry grunts and snorts. "Ooft! I heard him call for Aaron, and how long has it been since I heard you say to the Red Chatterer in the hickory-tree that there were a thousand Aarons, but only one Son of Ben Ali? Ooft-Gooft! Am I a horse to be ridden? Humph! No man could ride me—it is what you call a Thing. Umph! let it ride you and then talk about clubs. Ooft!"

  "Is dat Aaron?" Chunky Riley ventured to inquire. "Ef 't is, I wish you'd be good enough ter run dat ar creetur 'way fum here, kaze I ain't got no knack fer bein' chaw'd up an' spit out, an' trompled on, an' teetotally ruint right 'fo' my own face."

  "What's your name?" inquired Aaron.

  "You ought ter know me, but I dunner whedder you does er not. I'm name Riley—dey calls me Chunky Riley fer short."

  Aaron was silent for a moment, as if trying to remember the name. Presently he laughed and said: "Why, yes; I know you pretty well. Come, we'll kindle a fire."

  "No suh—not me! Not less'n you'll run dat ar wil' hog off. He mo' servigrous dan a pant'er. Ef I hadn't er straddled 'im des now he'd 'a' e't me bodaciously up an' dey wouldn't 'a' been nothin' lef' but de buttons on my cloze, an' nobody in de roun' worl' would 'a' know'd dey wuz buttons."

  Aaron laughed while speaking to the White Pig: "Get to bed, Grunter. It is the Lifter—the man that is as strong in the back as a horse."

  "Gooft-ooft! Let him ride you out as he rode me in—ooft! He's no man! Gooft! No bed for me. When a horse is ridden, he must eat, as I've heard you say, Son of Ben Ali. Gooft-ooft!"

  The White Pig, still grinding his tusks together, turned and trotted off into the darkness, and presently Aaron and Chunky Riley heard him crashing through the canes and reeds. Then Aaron kindled his fire.

  "Why did you come?" inquired the Son of Ben Ali when the two had made themselves comfortable.

  "Des ter fetch word dat Marster wuz layin' off ter git atter you wid Simmons's nigger-dogs 'fo' long."

  "All the way through the dark for that? When did you come to like me so well?"

  "Oh, 't ain't 'zackly dat," replied Chunky Riley frankly. "I hear um talkin' 'bout it when marster an' dat ar Mr. Simmons wuz walkin' out in de hoss lot. I wuz in de corn crib, an' dey didn't know it, an' I des sot dar an' lis'n at um. An' den dis mornin' I seed dat ar little Marse Abercrombie, an' he say, 'Go tell Aaron quick ez you kin.'"

  "The child with the crutches?" queried Aaron.

  "De ve'y same," replied Chunky Riley. He paused awhile and then added: "I'd walk many a long mile fer dat white chil', day er night, rain er shine."

  He gazed in the flickering fire a long time, waiting for Aaron to make some comment. Hearing none, he finally turned his eyes on his companion. Aaron was looking skyward, where one small star could be seen twinkling through the ascending smoke from the fire, and his lips were moving, though they framed no words that Chunky Riley could hear. Something in the attitude of the Son of Ben Ali disturbed the negro.

  "Well, I done what I come ter do," he said, making a pretense of stretching himself and yawning, "an' I speck I'd better be gwine." The Son of Ben Ali still kept his eye fixed on the twinkling star. "What pesters me," Chunky Riley went on, "is de idee dat dat ar wil' hog went 'zackly de way I got ter go. I don't want ter hatter ride 'im no mo' less'n I got a saddle an' bridle."

  "Come!" exclaimed Aaron suddenly, "I'll go with you. I want to see the Little Master."

  "De dogs'll fin' yo' track sho, ef dey start out to-morrer," suggested Chunky Riley.

  The only response the Son of Ben Ali made to this suggestion was to say: "Take the end of my cane in your hand and follow it. We'll take a short cut."

  Chunky Riley had queer thoughts as he followed his tall conductor, being led as if he were a blind man; but he said nothing. Presently (it seemed but a few minutes to Chunky Riley) they stood on the top of a hill.

  "Look yonder!" said Aaron. Away to the left a red light glimmered faintly.

  "What dat?" asked the superstitious negro.

  "The light in the Little Master's window."

  "How came it so red, den?" inquired Chunky Riley.

  "Red curtain," replied Aaron curtly.

  "Well, de Lord he'p us! Is we dat close?" cried Chunky Riley.

  "Your way is there," said the Son of Ben Ali; "this is mine."

  The negro stood watching Aaron until his tall form was lost in the darkness.

  * * *

  III.

  WHAT CHUNKY RILEY SAW AND HEARD

  Left alone, Chunky Riley stood still and tried to trace in his mind the route he and Aaron had followed in coming from the Swamp. But he could make no mental map—and he knew every "nigh-cut" and by-path for miles around—that would fit in with the time it had taken them to reach the spot where he now stood. He looked back toward the Swamp, but the night covered it, and he could see nothing. Then he looked around him, to see if he knew his present whereabouts. Oh, yes, that was easy; every foot of ground was familiar.

  The hill on which he had stood had been given over to scrub pines. The hill itself sloped away to the Turner old fields. But still he was puzzled, and still he scratched his head, for he knew that the Swamp was a good four miles away—nearly five—and it seemed to him that he and Aaron had been only a few minutes in making the journey. So he scratched his head and wondered to himself whether Aaron was really a "conjur' man."

  It was perhaps very lucky for Chunky Riley that he stopped when he did. If he had kept on he would have run into the arms of three men who were going along the plantation path that led from Gossett's negro quarters to the Abercrombie Place. The delay that Chunky Riley made prevented him from meeting them, but it did not prevent him from hearing the murmur of their voices as he struck into the path. They were too far off for Chunky Riley to know whether they were white or black, but just as he turned into the path to go to Gossett's the scent of a cigar floated to his nostrils. He paused and scratched his head again. He knew by the scent of the cigar that the voices he heard belonged to white men: but who were they? If they were the "patterollers" they'd catch Aaron beyond all question; it would be impossible for him to escape.

  So thought Chunky Riley, and so thinking, he turned and followed the path towards the Abercrombie Place. He moved rapidly but cautiously. The scent of the cigar grew stronger, the sound of men's voices fell more distinctly on his ear. Chunky Riley left the path and skirted through the low pines until he came to the fence that inclosed the spring lot. He knew that if he was heard, the men would think he was a calf, or, mayhap, a mule; for the hill on which Aaron had left him was now a part of a great pasture, in which the calves and dry cattle and (between seasons) the mules were allowed to roam at will.

  Coming to the fence, Chunky Riley would have crossed it, but the voices were louder now, and he caught a glimpse of the red sparks of lighted cigars. Creeping closer and closer, but ever ready to drop on the ground and run away on all-fours, Chunky Riley was soon able to hear what the men were saying. He knew the voices of his master and young master, Mr. Gossett—Old Grizzle, as he was called—and George, and he rightly judged that the strange voice mingling with theirs belonged to Mr. Jim Simmons, who, with a trained pack of hounds,—"nigger dogs" they were called,—held himself at the service of owners of runaway negroes.

  Mr. Simmons's average fee was $15—that is to say when he was "called in time." But in special cases his charge was $30. When Chunky Riley arrived within earshot of the group, Mr. Gossett was just concluding a protest that he had made against the charge of $30, which he had reluctantly agreed to pay for the capture of Aaron.

  "You stayed at my house to-day, you'll stay there to-night, and maybe you'll come back to dinn
er to-morrow. There's the feeding of you and your dogs. You don't take any account of that at all."

  Mr. Gossett's voice was sharp and emphatic. His stinginess was notorious in that region, and gave rise to the saying that Gossett loved a dollar better than he did his wife. But he was no more ashamed of his stinginess than he was of the shabbiness of his hat.

  "But, Colonel," remonstrated Mr. Jim Simmons, "didn't you send for me? Didn't you say, 'Glad to see you, Simmons; walk right in and make yourself at home'? You did, fer a fact." He spoke with a drawl that irritated the snappy and emphatic Mr. Gossett.

  "Why, certainly, Simmons; certainly I did. I mentioned the matter to show you that your charges are out of all reason in this case. All you have to do is to come here with your dogs in the morning, skirt around the place, pick up his trail, and there you are."

  "But, Colonel!" insisted Mr. Jim Simmons with his careless, irritating drawl, "ain't it a plum' fact that this nigger's been in the woods a month or sech a matter? Ain't it a plum' fact that you've tracked him and trailed him with your own dogs?—and good dogs they are, and I'll tell anybody so. Now what do you pay me fer? Fer catching the nigger? No, sirree! The nigger's as good as caught now—when it comes to that. You pay me fer knowing how to catch him—that's what you pay me fer. You send fer the doctor. He comes and fumbles around a little, and you have to pay the bill whether he kills or cures. You don't pay him fer killing or curing; you pay him fer knowing how to fumble around. It's some different with me. If I don't catch your nigger, you button up your pocket. If I do catch him you pay me $30 down, not fer catching him, but fer knowing how to fumble around and catch him."

  The logic of this argument, which was altogether lost on Chunky Riley, silenced Mr. Gossett, but did not convince him. There was a long pause, as if all three of the men were wrestling with peculiar thoughts. Finally Mr. Gossett spoke:—

  "It ain't so much the nigger I'm after, but I want to show Abercrombie that I can't be outdone. He's laughing in his sleeve because I can't keep the nigger at home, and I'll be blamed"—here his voice sank to a confidential tone—"I'll be blamed if I don't believe that, between him and that son of his, they are harboring the nigger. Yes, sir, harboring is the word."

  Mr. Jim Simmons threw down his lighted cigar with such energy as to cause the sparks to fly in all directions. A cigar was an unfamiliar luxury to Mr. Simmons, and he had had enough of it.

  "Addison Abercrombie harboring a nigger!" exclaimed Mr. Simmons. "Why, Colonel, if every man, woman, and child in the United States was to tell me that I wouldn't believe it. Addison Abercrombie! Why, Colonel, though you're his next-door neighbor, as you may say, you don't know him half as well as I do. You ought to get acquainted with that man."

  "Humph! I know him well enough, I reckon," responded Mr. Gossett. "I went to school with him. Folks get to know one another at school. He was always stuck up, trying to hold his head higher than anybody else because his daddy had money and a big plantation. I made my prop'ty myself; I earned every dollar; and I know how it came."

  "But, Colonel!" Mr. Jim Simmons insisted, "Addison Abercrombie would hold his head high if he never seen a dollar, and he'd have the right to do it. Him harbor niggers? Shucks, Colonel! You might as well tell me that the moon ain't nothing but a tater pudding."

  "What do you see in the man?" Mr. Gossett asked with some irritation in the tones of his voice.

  There was a pause, as though Mr. Simmons was engaged in getting his thoughts together. Finally he said:—

  "Well, Colonel, I don't reckon I can make it plain to you, because when I come to talk about it I can't grab the identical idee that would fit what I've got in my mind. But I'll tell you what's the honest truth, in my opinion—and I'm not by myself, by a long shot—Addison Abercrombie is as fine a man as ever trod shoe leather. That's what."

  "Humph!" grunted Mr. Gossett.

  "Yes, sirree!" persisted Mr. Simmons, warming up a little. "It makes no difference where you see him, nor when you see him, nor how you see him, you can up and say: 'The Lord has made many men of many minds, and many men of many kinds, but not sence Adam has he made a better man than Addison Abercrombie.' That's the way I look at it, Colonel. I may be wrong, but if I am I'll never find it out in this world."

  Plainly, Mr. Gossett was not prepared to hear such a tribute as this paid to Addison Abercrombie, and he winced under it. He hemmed and hawed, as the saying is, and changed his position on the fence. He was thoroughly disgusted. Now there was no disagreement between Mr. Gossett and Mr. Abercrombie,—no quarrel, that is to say,—but Gossett knew that Abercrombie regarded him with a feeling akin to contempt. He treasured in his mind a remark that Abercrombie had made about him the day he bought Aaron from the negro speculator. He never forgot nor forgave it, for it was an insinuation that Mr. Gossett, in spite of his money and his thrifty ways, was not much of a gentleman.

  On this particular subject Mr. Gossett was somewhat sensitive, as men are who have doubts in their own minds as to their standing. Mr. Gossett had an idea that money and "prop'ty," as he called it, made a gentleman; but it was a very vague idea, and queer doubts sometimes pestered him. It was these doubts that made him "touchy" on this subject.

  "What has this great man ever done for you, Simmons?" Mr. Gossett asked, with a contemptuous snort.

  "Not anything, Colonel, on the top of the green globe. I went to him once to borrow some money, and he wanted to lend it to me without taking my note and without charging me any interest. I says to him, says I, 'You'll have to excuse me.'"

  "That was right; you did perfectly right, Simmons. The man was trying to insult you."

  "But, Colonel, he didn't go about it that way. Don't you reckon you could tell when anybody was trying to insult you? That was the time I come to you."

  "I charged you interest, didn't I, Simmons?"

  "You did, Colonel, fer a fact."

  "I'm this kind of a man, Simmons," remarked Mr. Gossett, with a touch of sincere pride and gratification in his voice. "When I do business with a man I do business. When I do him a favor it must be outside of business. It's mixing the two things up that keeps so many people poor."

  "What two things, Colonel?" gravely inquired Simmons.

  "Why the doing of business and—er—the doing of favors."

  "Oh, I see," said Mr. Simmons, as if a great light had been turned on the matter. Then he laughed and continued: "Yes, Colonel, I borrowed the money from you and just about that time the fever taken me down, and if it hadn't 'a' been fer Addison Abercrombie the note I give you would have swallowed my house and land."

  "Is that so?" inquired Mr. Gossett.

  "Ask my wife," replied Mr. Simmons. "One day while I was out of my head with the fever, Addison Abercrombie, he rid by and saw my wife setting on the front steps, jest a-boohooing,—you know how wimmen will do, Colonel; if they ain't a-jawing they're a-cryin'. So Addison Abercrombie, he ups and asks her what's the matter, and Jennie, she tells him. He got right off his hoss and come in, and set by my bed the better part of the morning. And all that time there I was a-running on about notes and a-firing off my troubles in the air. So the upshot of the business was that Addison Abercrombie left the money there to pay the note and left word for me to pay him back when I got good and ready; and Jennie hadn't hardly dried her eyes before here come a nigger on horseback with a basket on his arm, and in the basket was four bottles of wine. Wine! Why, Colonel, it was worse'n wine. Jennie says that if arry one of the bottles had 'a' had a load of buckshot in it, the roof would 'a' been blow'd off when the stopper flew out. And, Colonel! if ever you feel like taking a right smart of exercise, jest pass my house some day and stick your head over the palings and tell Jennie that Addison Abercrombie's got a streak of meanness in him."

  "Have you ever paid Abercrombie?" Mr. Gossett inquired. His voice was harsh and businesslike.

  "I was laying off to catch this nigger of yours and pay him some on account," replied Mr. Simmons.

  "Why, it has be
en three years since you paid me," suggested Mr. Gossett.

  "Two years or sech a matter," remarked Mr. Simmons complacently.

  "Then that's the reason you think Abercrombie ain't harboring my nigger?" inquired Mr. Gossett scornfully.

  "But, Colonel," drawled Mr. Simmons, "what under the sun ever got the idee in your head that Addison Abercrombie is harboring your nigger?"

  "It's as simple as a-b ab," Mr. Gossett replied with energy. "He tried to buy the nigger off the block and couldn't, and now he thinks I'll sell if the nigger'll stay in the woods long enough. That's the reason he's harboring the nigger. And more than that: don't I know from my own niggers that the yaller rapscallion comes here every chance he gets? He comes, but he don't go in the nigger quarters. Now, where does he go?"

  "Yes, where?" said Mr. Gossett's son George, who up to that moment had taken no part in the conversation. "Three times this month I've dealt out an extra rasher of bacon to two of our hands, and they tell the same tale."

  "It looks quare," Mr. Simmons admitted, "but as sure as you're born Addison Abercrombie ain't the man to harbor a runaway nigger. If he's ever had a nigger in the woods, it's more'n I know, and when that's the case you may set it down fer a fact that he don't believe in runaway niggers." This was a lame argument, but it was the best that Mr. Simmons could muster at the moment.

  "No," remarked Mr. Gossett sarcastically, "his niggers don't take to the woods because they do as they blamed please at home. It sets my teeth on edge to see the way things are run on this plantation. Why, I could take the stuff that's flung away here and get rich on it in five years. It's a scandal."