The Dover Anthology of American Literature Volume II

by Bob Blaisdell

  There came a time, one day in spring, when there was no longer any question about it: uncle Wellington was desperately homesick.

  Liberty, equality, privileges,—all were but as dust in the balance when weighed against his longing for old scenes and faces. It was the natural reaction in the mind of a middle-aged man who had tried to force the current of a sluggish existence into a new and radically different channel. An active, industrious man, making the change in early life, while there was time to spare for the waste of adaptation, might have found in the new place more favorable conditions than in the old. In Wellington age and temperament combined to prevent the success of the experiment; the spirit of enterprise and ambition into which he had been temporarily galvanized could no longer prevail against the inertia of old habits of life and thought.

  One day when he had been sent to deliver clothes he performed his errand quickly, and boarding a passing street car, paid one of his very few five-cent pieces to ride down to the office of the Hon. Mr. Brown, the colored lawyer whom he had visited when he first came to the city, and who was well known to him by sight and reputation.

  “Mr. Brown,” he said, “I ain’ gitt’n’ ’long very well wid my ole ’oman.”

  “What’s the trouble?” asked the lawyer, with business-like curtness, for he did not scent much of a fee.

  “Well, de main trouble is she doan treat me right. An’ den she gits drunk, an’ wuss’n dat, she lays vi’lent han’s on me. I kyars de marks er dat ’oman on my face now.”

  He showed the lawyer a long scratch on the neck.

  “Why don’t you defend yourself ?”

  “You don’ know Mis’ Braboy, suh; you don’ know dat ’oman,” he replied, with a shake of the head. “Some er dese yer w’ite women is monst’us strong in de wris’.”

  “Well, Mr. Braboy, it’s what you might have expected when you turned your back on your own people and married a white woman. You weren’t content with being a slave to the white folks once, but you must try it again. Some people never know when they’ve got enough. I don’t see that there’s any help for you; unless,” he added suggestively, “you had a good deal of money.”

  “ ’Pears ter me I heared somebody say sence I be’n up heah, dat it wuz ’gin de law fer w’ite folks an’ colored folks ter marry.”

  “That was once the law, though it has always been a dead letter in Groveland. In fact, it was the law when you got married, and until I introduced a bill in the legislature last fall to repeal it. But even that law did n’t hit cases like yours. It was unlawful to make such a marriage, but it was a good marriage when once made.”

  “I don’ jes’ git dat th’oo my head,” said Wellington, scratching that member as though to make a hole for the idea to enter.

  “It’s quite plain, Mr. Braboy. It’s unlawful to kill a man, but when he ’s killed he ’s just as dead as though the law permitted it. I’m afraid you haven’t much of a case, but if you ’ll go to work and get twenty-five dollars together, I ’ll see what I can do for you. We may be able to pull a case through on the ground of extreme cruelty. I might even start the case if you brought in ten dollars.”

  Wellington went away sorrowfully. The laws of Ohio were very little more satisfactory than those of North Carolina. And as for the ten dollars,—the lawyer might as well have told him to bring in the moon, or a deed for the Public Square. He felt very, very low as he hurried back home to supper, which he would have to go without if he were not on hand at the usual supper-time.

  But just when his spirits were lowest, and his outlook for the future most hopeless, a measure of relief was at hand. He noticed, when he reached home, that Mrs. Braboy was a little preoccupied, and did not abuse him as vigorously as he expected after so long an absence. He also perceived the smell of strange tobacco in the house, of a better grade than he could afford to use. He thought perhaps some one had come in to see about the washing; but he was too glad of a respite from Mrs. Braboy’s rhetoric to imperil it by indiscreet questions.

  Next morning she gave him fifty cents.

  “Braboy,” she said, “ye ’ve be’n helpin’ me nicely wid the washin’, an’ I ’m going ter give ye a holiday. Ye can take yer hook an’ line an’ go fishin’ on the breakwater. I ’ll fix ye a lunch, an’ ye need n’t come back till night. An’ there’s half a dollar; ye can buy yerself a pipe er terbacky. But be careful an’ don’t waste it,” she added, for fear she was overdoing the thing.

  Uncle Wellington was overjoyed at this change of front on the part of Mrs. Braboy; if she would make it permanent he did not see why they might not live together very comfortably.

  The day passed pleasantly down on the breakwater. The weather was agreeable, and the fish bit freely. Towards evening Wellington started home with a bunch of fish that no angler need have been ashamed of. He looked forward to a good warm supper; for even if something should have happened during the day to alter his wife’s mood for the worse, any ordinary variation would be more than balanced by the substantial addition of food to their larder. His mouth watered at the thought of the finny beauties sputtering in the frying-pan.

  He noted, as he approached the house, that there was no smoke coming from the chimney. This only disturbed him in connection with the matter of supper. When he entered the gate he observed further that the window-shades had been taken down.

  “ ’Spec’ de ole ’oman’s been house-cleanin’,” he said to himself. “I wonder she did n’ make me stay an’ he’p ’er.”

  He went round to the rear of the house and tried the kitchen door. It was locked. This was somewhat of a surprise, and disturbed still further his expectations in regard to supper. When he had found the key and opened the door, the gravity of his next discovery drove away for the time being all thoughts of eating.

  The kitchen was empty. Stove, table, chairs, wash-tubs, pots and pans, had vanished as if into thin air.

  “Fo’ de Lawd’s sake!” he murmured in open-mouthed astonishment.

  He passed into the other room,—they had only two,—which had served as bedroom and sitting-room. It was as bare as the first, except that in the middle of the floor were piled uncle Wellington’s clothes. It was not a large pile, and on the top of it lay a folded piece of yellow wrapping-paper.

  Wellington stood for a moment as if petrified. Then he rubbed his eyes and looked around him.

  “W’at do dis mean?” he said. “Is I er-dreamin’, er does I see w’at I ’pears ter see?” He glanced down at the bunch of fish which he still held. “Heah ’s de fish; heah ’s de house; heah I is; but whar ’s de ole ’oman, an’ whar ’s de fu’niture? I can’t figure out w’at dis yer all means.”

  He picked up the piece of paper and unfolded it. It was written on one side. Here was the obvious solution of the mystery,—that is, it would have been obvious if he could have read it; but he could not, and so his fancy continued to play upon the subject. Perhaps the house had been robbed, or the furniture taken back by the seller, for it had not been entirely paid for.

  Finally he went across the street and called to a boy in a neighbor’s yard.

  “Does you read writin’, Johnnie?”

  “Yes, sir, I ’m in the seventh grade.”

  “Read dis yer paper fuh me.”

  The youngster took the note, and with much labor read the following:—

  “Mr. Braboy:

  “In lavin’ ye so suddint I have ter say that my first husban’ has turned up unixpected, having been saved onbeknownst ter me from a wathry grave an’ all the money wasted I spint fer masses fer ter rist his sole an’ I wish I had it back I feel it my dooty ter go an’ live wid ’im again. I take the furnacher because I bought it yer close is yors I leave them and wishin’ yer the best of luck I remane oncet yer wife but now agin

  “Mrs. Katie Flannigan.

  “N.B. I ’m lavin town terday so it won’t be no use lookin’ fer me.”

  On inquiry uncle Wellington learned from the boy that shortly after his d
eparture in the morning a white man had appeared on the scene, followed a little later by a moving-van, into which the furniture had been loaded and carried away. Mrs. Braboy, clad in her best clothes, had locked the door, and gone away with the strange white man.

  The news was soon noised about the street. Wellington swapped his fish for supper and a bed at a neighbor’s, and during the evening learned from several sources that the strange white man had been at his house the afternoon of the day before. His neighbors intimated that they thought Mrs. Braboy’s departure a good riddance of bad rubbish, and Wellington did not dispute the proposition.

  Thus ended the second chapter of Wellington’s matrimonial experiences. His wife’s departure had been the one thing needful to convince him, beyond a doubt, that he had been a great fool. Remorse and homesickness forced him to the further conclusion that he had been knave as well as fool, and had treated aunt Milly shamefully. He was not altogether a bad old man, though very weak and erring, and his better nature now gained the ascendency. Of course his disappointment had a great deal to do with his remorse; most people do not perceive the hideousness of sin until they begin to reap its consequences. Instead of the beautiful Northern life he had dreamed of, he found himself stranded, penniless, in a strange land, among people whose sympathy he had forfeited, with no one to lean upon, and no refuge from the storms of life. His outlook was very dark, and there sprang up within him a wild longing to get back to North Carolina,—back to the little whitewashed cabin, shaded with china and mulberry trees; back to the wood-pile and the garden; back to the old cronies with whom he had swapped lies and tobacco for so many years. He longed to kiss the rod of aunt Milly’s domination. He had purchased his liberty at too great a price.

  The next day he disappeared from Groveland. He had announced his departure only to Mr. Johnson, who sent his love to his relations in Patesville.

  It would be painful to record in detail the return journey of uncle Wellington—Mr. Braboy no longer—to his native town; how many weary miles he walked; how many times he risked his life on railroad tracks and between freight cars; how he depended for sustenance on the grudging hand of back-door charity. Nor would it be profitable or delicate to mention any slight deviations from the path of rectitude, as judged by conventional standards, to which he may occasionally have been driven by a too insistent hunger; or to refer in the remotest degree to a compulsory sojourn of thirty days in a city where he had no references, and could show no visible means of support. True charity will let these purely personal matters remain locked in the bosom of him who suffered them.

  4.

  Just fifteen months after the date when uncle Wellington had left North Carolina, a weather-beaten figure entered the town of Patesville after nightfall, following the railroad track from the north. Few would have recognized in the hungry-looking old brown tramp, clad in dusty rags and limping along with bare feet, the trim-looking middle-aged mulatto who so few months before had taken the train from Patesville for the distant North; so, if he had but known it, there was no necessity for him to avoid the main streets and sneak around by unfrequented paths to reach the old place on the other side of the town. He encountered nobody that he knew, and soon the familiar shape of the little cabin rose before him. It stood distinctly outlined against the sky, and the light streaming from the half-opened shutters showed it to be occupied. As he drew nearer, every familiar detail of the place appealed to his memory and to his affections, and his heart went out to the old home and the old wife. As he came nearer still, the odor of fried chicken floated out upon the air and set his mouth to watering, and awakened unspeakable longings in his half-starved stomach.

  At this moment, however, a fearful thought struck him; suppose the old woman had taken legal advice and married again during his absence? Turn about would have been only fair play. He opened the gate softly, and with his heart in his mouth approached the window on tiptoe and looked in.

  A cheerful fire was blazing on the hearth, in front of which sat the familiar form of aunt Milly—and another, at the sight of whom uncle Wellington’s heart sank within him. He knew the other person very well; he had sat there more than once before uncle Wellington went away. It was the minister of the church to which his wife belonged. The preacher’s former visits, however, had signified nothing more than pastoral courtesy, or appreciation of good eating. His presence now was of serious portent; for Wellington recalled, with acute alarm, that the elder’s wife had died only a few weeks before his own departure for the North. What was the occasion of his presence this evening? Was it merely a pastoral call? or was he courting? or had aunt Milly taken legal advice and married the elder?

  Wellington remembered a crack in the wall, at the back of the house, through which he could see and hear, and quietly stationed himself there.

  “Dat chicken smells mighty good, Sis’ Milly,” the elder was saying; “I can’t fer de life er me see why dat low-down husban’ er yo’n could ever run away f’m a cook like you. It’s one er de beatenis’ things I ever heared. How he could lib wid you an’ not ’preciate you I can’t understan’, no indeed I can’t.”

  Aunt Milly sighed. “De trouble wid Wellin’ton wuz,” she replied, “dat he did n’ know when he wuz well off. He wuz alluz wishin’ fer change, er studyin’ ’bout somethin’ new.”

  “Ez fer me,” responded the elder earnestly, “I likes things what has be’n prove’ an’ tried an’ has stood de tes’, an’ I can’t ’magine how anybody could spec’ ter fin’ a better housekeeper er cook dan you is, Sis’ Milly. I’m a gittin’ mighty lonesome sence my wife died. De Good Book say it is not good fer man ter lib alone, en it ’pears ter me dat you an’ me mought git erlong tergether monst’us well.”

  Wellington’s heart stood still, while he listened with strained attention. Aunt Milly sighed.

  “I ain’t denyin’, elder, but what I’ve be’n kinder lonesome myse’f fer quite a w’ile, an’ I doan doubt dat w’at de Good Book say ’plies ter women as well as ter men.”

  “You kin be sho’ it do,” averred the elder, with professional authoritativeness; “yas ’m, you kin be cert’n sho’.”

  “But, of co’se,” aunt Milly went on, “havin’ los’ my ole man de way I did, it has tuk me some time fer ter git my feelin’s straighten’ out like dey oughter be.”

  “I kin ’magine yo’ feelin’s, Sis’ Milly,” chimed in the elder sympathetically, “w’en you come home dat night an’ foun’ yo’ chist broke open, an’ yo’ money gone dat you had wukked an’ slaved fuh f’m mawnin’ ’tel night, year in an’ year out, an’ w’en you foun’ dat no-’count nigger gone wid his clo’s an’ you lef’ all alone in de worl’ ter scuffle ’long by yo’self.”

  “Yas, elder,” responded aunt Milly, “I wa’n’t used right. An’ den w’en I heared ’bout his goin’ ter de lawyer ter fin’ out ’bout a defoce, an’ w’en I heared w’at de lawyer said ’bout my not bein’ his wife ’less he wanted me, it made me so mad, I made up my min’ dat ef he ever put his foot on my do’sill ag’in, I ’d shet de do’ in his face an’ tell ’im ter go back whar he come f’m.”

  To Wellington, on the outside, the cabin had never seemed so comfortable, aunt Milly never so desirable, chicken never so appetizing, as at this moment when they seemed slipping away from his grasp forever.

  “Yo’ feelin’s does you credit, Sis’ Milly,” said the elder, taking her hand, which for a moment she did not withdraw. “An’ de way fer you ter close yo’ do’ tightes’ ag’inst ’im is ter take me in his place. He ain’ got no claim on you no mo’. He tuk his ch’ice ’cordin’ ter w’at de lawyer tol’ ’im, an’ ’termine’ dat he wa’n’t yo’ husban’. Ef he wa’n’t yo’ husban’, he had no right ter take yo’ money, an’ ef he comes back here ag’in you kin hab ’im tuck up an’ sent ter de penitenchy fer stealin’ it.”

  Uncle Wellington’s knees, already weak from fasting, trembled violently beneath him. The worst that he had feared was now likely to happen. His
only hope of safety lay in flight, and yet the scene within so fascinated him that he could not move a step.

  “It ’u’d serve him right,” exclaimed aunt Milly indignantly, “ef he wuz sent ter de penitenchy fer life! Dey ain’t nuthin’ too mean ter be done ter ’im. What did I ever do dat he should use me like he did?”

  The recital of her wrongs had wrought upon aunt Milly’s feelings so that her voice broke, and she wiped her eyes with her apron.

  The elder looked serenely confident, and moved his chair nearer hers in order the better to play the rôle of comforter. Wellington, on the outside, felt so mean that the darkness of the night was scarcely sufficient to hide him; it would be no more than right if the earth were to open and swallow him up.

  “An’ yet aftuh all, elder,” said Milly with a sob, “though I knows you is a better man, an’ would treat me right, I wuz so use’ ter dat ole nigger, an’ libbed wid ’im so long, dat ef he ’d open dat do’ dis minute an’ walk in, I ’m feared I ’d be foolish ernuff an’ weak ernuff to forgive ’im an’ take ’im back ag’in.”

  With a bound, uncle Wellington was away from the crack in the wall. As he ran round the house he passed the wood-pile and snatched up an armful of pieces. A moment later he threw open the door.

  “Ole ’oman,” he exclaimed, “here’s dat wood you tol’ me ter fetch in! Why, elder,” he said to the preacher, who had started from his seat with surprise, “w’at’s yo’ hurry? Won’t you stay an’ hab some supper wid us?”