A matter of personal property
In deference to the wishes of J. R. C. Tuckerman, I had formed a habit of breakfasting in summer on the little back porch that overlooks the river. Less radical departures from orthodox custom, it is true, have caused adverse comment in our watchful little town; but the spot was secluded from casual censors. And it was pleasant to sit there of a summer morning over an omelette and bacon, coffee such as no other Little Arcadian ever drank, and beaten biscuit beyond the skill of any in our vale save the stout, short-statured, elderly black man who served me with the grace of an Ambassador. Moreover, I was glad to please him, and please him it did to set the little table back of the wall of vines, to place my chair in the shaded corner, and to fetch the incomparable results of his cookery from the kitchen, couched and covered in snowy napkins against the morning breeze.
John Randolph Clement Tuckerman he was; Mr. Tuckerman to many simple souls of our town, and "Clem" to me, after our intimacy became such as to warrant this form of address. A little, tightly kinked, grizzled mustache gave a tone to his face. His hair, well retreated up his forehead, was of the same close-woven pepper-and-salt mixture. His eyes were wells of ink when the light fell into them,—sad, kind eyes, that gave his face a look of patient service long and toilsomely but lovingly bestowed. It is a look telling of kindness that has endured and triumphed—a look of submission in which suffering has once burned but has consumed itself. I have never seen it except in the eyes of certain old negroes. The only colorable imitation is to be found in the eyes of my setter pup when he crouches at my feet and beseeches kindness after a punishment.
In bearing, as I have intimated, Clem was impressive. He was low-toned, easy of manner, with a flawless aplomb. As he served me those mornings in late summer, wearing a dress-coat of broadcloth, a choice relic of his splendid past, it was not difficult to see that he had been the associate of gentlemen.
As I ate of his cooking on a fair Sunday, I marvelled gratefully at the slender thread of chance that had drawn him to be my stay. Alone in that little house, with no one to make it a home for me, Clem was the barrier between me and the fare of the City Hotel. Apparently without suggestion from me he had taken me for his own to tend and watch over. And the marvel was assuredly not diminished by the circumstance that I was beholden to Potts for this black comfort.
Events were in train which were to intensify a thousand fold my amazement at the seeming inconsequence of really vital facts in this big life-plot of which we are the puppets—events so incredible that to dwell upon their relation to the minor accident of a mere Potts were to incur confusion and downright madness.
Apparently fate never made a wilder, a more purposeless cast than when it brought Clem to Little Arcady with Potts.
True, the circumstance enabled Potts for a time to refer to his "body-servant," and to regale the chair-tilted loungers along the City Hotel front with a tale of picking the fellow up on a Southern battle-field, and of winning his doglike devotion by subsequent valor upon other fields. "It was pathetic, and comical, too, gentlemen, to hear that nigger beg me on his bended knees to take better care of myself and not insist upon getting to the front of every charge. 'Stay back and let some of the others do a little fighting,' he would say, with tears rolling down his black cheeks. And I admit I was rash, but—"
Clem, not long after their arrival, confided to such of us as seemed worthy the less romantic tale that he had found the Colonel drunk on the streets of Cincinnati. He had gone there to seek a fortune for his "folks" and had found the Colonel instead; found him under circumstances which were typical of the Colonel's periods of relaxation.
"Yes, seh, anybody could 'a' had that man when Ah found him," averred Clem;" anybody could 'a' had him fo' th' askin'. A p'liceman offaseh neahly git him—yes, seh. But Ah seen him befo' that, an' Ah speaks his notice by sayin', 'This yeh ain' no good place to sleep, on this yeh hahd stone sidewalk. Yo' freeze yo'se'f, Mahstah', an of cose Ah appreciated th' infuhmities of a genaman, but Ah induced him to put on his coat an' his hat an' his boots, an' he sais, 'Ah am Cunnel Potts, an' Ah mus have mah eight houahs sleep.' Ah sais to him, 'If yo' is a Cunnel, yo' is a genaman, an' Ah shall escoht yo' to yo' hotel.' Raght then a p'liceman offaseh come up, an' he sais, 'Yeh, yeh! what all this yeh row about?' an' Ah sais, 'Nothin' 'tall, Mahstah p'liceman offaseh, Ah's jes' takin' Mahstah Cunnel Potts to his hotel, seh, with yo' kindness,' an 'he sais, 'Git him out a yeh an' go 'long with yo' then, so Ah led th' Cunnel off, seh. An' eveh hotel he seen, he sais, 'Yes, tha' she is—tha's mah hotel, but the Mahstahs in th' hotels they all talk ve'y shawtly eveh time. They sais, 'No—no—g'wan, tek him out a' yeh—he ain' b'long in this place, that man ain'.' So we walk an' walk an' ultimately he sais, 'If Ah'm go'n' a' git mah eight houahs sleep this naght, Ah mus' begin sometime,—why not now?' So th' Cunnel lay raght down on th thu'faih an' Ah set mahse'f down beside him twell he wake up in th' mawnin', not knowin' what hahm maght come to him. An' he neveh did have no hotel in that town, seh,—no, seh. He been talkin' reglah foolishness all that theah time. An' he sais: 'Yo' stay by me, boy. Ah's go'n a' go West to mek mah fo'chun.' Well, seh, Ah was lookin' fo' a place to mek some fo'chun mahse'f fo mah folks, an' that theah Cincinnati didn't seem jes' th' raght place to set about it, so Ah sais, 'Thank yo' ve'y much, Mahstah Cunnel,' an' Ah stays by him fo' a consid'ble length of time."
But little by little after their coming to our town the Colonel had alienated his companion by a lack of those qualities which Clem had been accustomed to observe in those to whom he gave himself. Potts was at length speaking of him as an ungrateful black hound, and wondering if the nation might not have been injudicious in liberating the slave.
Clem, for his part, cut the Colonel dead on Main Street one day and never afterwards betrayed to him any consciousness of his existence. It was said that their final disagreement hinged upon a matter of thirty odd dollars earned by Clem in a Cincinnati restaurant and confided later to the Colonel's too thorough keeping.
Be that as it may, Clem had formed other and more profitable connections. From a doer of odd jobs of wood-sawing, house-cleaning, and stove-polishing he had risen to the dignity of a market gardener. A small house and a large garden a block away from my place were now rented by him. Also he caught fish, snared rabbits, gathered the wild fruits in their seasons, and was janitor of the Methodist church; all this in addition to looking after my own home. It was not surprising that he had money in the bank. He worked unceasingly. The earliest risers in Little Arcady found him already busied, and those abroad latest at night would see or hear him about the little unpainted house in the big garden.
I suspect he had come out into the strange world of the North with large, loose notions that the fortune he needed might be speedily amassed. Such tales had been told him in his Southland, where he had not learned to question or doubt. If so, his disappointment was not to be seen in his bearing. That look of patient endurance may have eaten a little deeper the lines about his inky eyes, but I am sure his purpose had never wavered nor his faith that he would win at last.
As I ate my breakfast that morning he told me of his good year. The early produce of his garden had sold well. Soon there would be half an acre of potatoes to dig, and now there was a fine crop of melons just coming ripe. These he would begin to sell on the morrow.
At this point, breakfast being done, the cloth brushed, and a light brought for my pipe, Clem came from the kitchen with a new pine board upon which he had painted a sign with shoe polish.
"Yes, seh, Mahstah Majah,—Ah beg yo' t' see if hit's raght!" and he held it up to me. It read:—
Mellins on Sale
Mush & Water
Ask Mr. Tuckerman
at his House.
I gave the thing a critical survey under his grave regard, then applauded the workmanship and hoped him a prosperous season with the melons.
Then I beguiled him to talk of his land and his "folks," delighting in his low, soft speech, wherein the vowels languished and the r's fainted from sheer inertia.
"But, Clem, you are a free man now. Those people can't claim your services any longer."
I knew what he would say, but for the sake of hearing it once more, I had braved his quick look of commiseration for my shallowness of understanding.
"Yes, seh, Mahstah Majah, Ah knows 'bout that theah 'mancipation Procalmashum. But Ah was a ve'y diffunt matteh. Yo'-all see Ah was made oveh t' Miss Cahline pussenly by Ole Mahstah. Yes, seh, Ah been Miss Cahline's pussenal propity fo' a consid'able length of time, eveh sence she was Little Miss."
"But you are free, just the same, now."
He looked upon me with troubled, grave eyes.
"Well, seh, Mahstah Majah, Ah ain't eveh raghtly comp'ehended, but Ah've reckoned that theah wah business an' Procalmashum an so fothe was fo' common niggehs an' fiel' han's an' sech what b'long to th' place. But Ah was diffunt. Ah ain't b'longed to th' place. Ah b'longed to Miss Cahline lak Ah endeaveh to explain. Ah was a house niggeh an' futhamoah an' notwithstandin' Ah was th' pussenal propity of Miss Cahline. Yes, seh, Ah b'long dreckly to huh—an' Ah bet them theah lawyehs at Wash'nt'n, seh, couldn't kentrive none a' they laws that would 'a' teched me, seh. No,—seh they cain't lay th' law to Miss Cahline's pussenalities. She ain't go'n' a' stan' no nonsense lahk that, seh; she ain't go'n' a' have no lawyeh mixin' up in huh private mattehs. Ah lahk t' see one try it—yes, seh."
He gazed vacantly into the distance, then laughed aloud as he beheld the discomfiture of the "lawyeh" in this suppositious proceeding.
"And you even let your wife go?—that must have been hard."
"Well, seh, not to say mah wife. Mah raght wife, she daid—an' then Ah mahied this yeh light-shaded gehl fum th' quahtahs, an' she's wild an' misled—yes, seh."
Again he was troubled, but I held him to it.
"You thought a good deal of her, didn't you, Clem?"
He studied a moment as he rearranged the roses in the bowl on the table, seeking a way to let me understand. Then he sighed hopelessly.
"Well, Mahstah Majah, Genevieve she cyahed a raght smaht fo' me, also, an' she mek it up fo' me t' come along t' town with huh. She sais Ah git a mewl an a fahm an' thousan' dollehs money fum yo' Nawthen President an' we all live lahk th' quality. But, yo'-all see, th' ole Mahstah Cunnel say when he go off to th' wah, 'Clem, yo' black houn', ef Ah doan' eveh come back, these yeh ladies is lef' in yo' pussenal chahge. Yo' unde'stan' that? Yo' go on an' do fo' 'em jes' lahk Ah was yeh.' An' young Mahstah Cap'n Bev'ly,—he's Little Miss's engaged-to-mahy genaman,—he sais, Clem, ef Ah doan' neveh come back, Ah pray an' entrus' yo'-all t' cyah fo' Miss Kate an' huh Maw jes lahk Ah was yeh on th' spot.' An Ah said, 'Yes, seh,' an' they ain't neithah one a' them eveh did come back. Mahstah Cunnel he daid by th' hand o' yo' Nawthen President at th' battle a' Seven Pines, an' Mahstah Cap'n Bev'ly Glentwo'th—yo' ole Mahstah Gen'al She'dan shoot him all t' pieces in his chest one day. So theah Ah is—Ah cain't leave—an' Genevieve comes a' repohtin' huhse'f to mek mah rediments, 'cause we all free an' go'n' a' go t' Richmond t' live high an' maghty, an' Ah sais, 'Ah'm Miss Cahline's pussenal propity—Ah ain't no fiel' niggeh!' She sais, 'Is yo' a' comin' aw is you ain't a-comin? Ah sais, 'Ole Cunnel daid, young Cap n'daid yo go 'long an' min' yo' own mindin's—'"
He paused to look out over the waters with shining eyes. After a bit he said slowly, "Ah neveh thought Genevieve would go—but she did."
"Then what?"
"Well, seh, Ah stayed on th' place twell we moved oveh to Miss Cahline's secon cousin, Mahstah Cunnel Peavey, but they wa'n't nothin' theah, so Ah sais t' Miss Cahline that Ah's goin' Nawth wheah all th' money is, an' Ah send fo' huh. So she sais, 'Ve'y good, Clem—yo' all Ah got lef' t' mah name,' an' so Ah come off. Then afteh while Little Miss she git resty an' tehible fractious an she go off t' Baltimoah t' teach in th' young ladies' educationals, an' Miss Cahline she still theah waitin' fo' me. Yes, seh, sh' ain't doin' nothin' but livin' on huh secon' cousin an' he ain' got nothin'—an' Ah lay Ah ain't go'n' a' have that kind a' doin's. No, seh—a-livin' on Cunnel Looshe Peavey. Ah'm go'n' a git huh yeh whah she kin be independent—"
Again he stopped to see visions.
"An' then, afteh a tehible shawt while, Ah git Little Miss fum the educationals an they both be independent. Yes, seh, Ah'm gittin th' money— reglah gole money—none a' this yeh Vaginyah papah-rags money. Ah ain't stahted good when Ah come, but Ah wagah ten hund'ed thousan' dollehs Ah finish up good!"
The last was a pointed reference to the Colonel.
"Have you seen Colonel Potts lately?" I asked. Clem sniffed.
"Yes, seh, on that tavehn cohnah, a-settin' on a cheer an' a-chestin' out his chest lahk a ole ma'ash frawg. Peahs like the man ain't got hawg sense, ack'in' that a-way."
A concluding sniff left it plain that Potts had been put beyond the pale of gentility by Clem.
He left me then to do his work in the kitchen—left me back on a battle-field, lying hurt beside an officer from his land who tried weakly to stanch a wound in his side as he addressed me.
"A hot charge, sir—but we rallied—hear that yell from our men behind the woods. You can't beat us. We needn't be told that. Whatever God is, he's at least a gentleman, above practical jokes of that sort." He groaned as the blood oozed anew from his side, then pleaded with me to help him find the picture—to look under him and all about on the ground. Long I mused upon this. But at last my pipe was out, and I awoke from that troubled spot where God's little creatures had clashed in their puny rage—awoke to know that this was my day to wander in another world—the dream world of children, where everything is true that ought to be true.