Tales of the Home Folks in Peace and War/The Colonel's "Nigger Dog"
THE COLONEL'S "NIGGER DOG"
one morning Colonel Rivers of Jasper, standing on his back porch, called to a negro man who was passing through the yard.
"Ben!"
"Yasser!"
"How 's everything at the home place?"
"Tollerble, suh,—des tollerble."
"Tell Shade I want to see him this morning."
"Unk Shade done gone, suh. He sho is. He done gone!"
"Gone where?"
"He done tuck ter de woods, suh. Yasser! he done gone!"
A frown clouded the colonel's otherwise pleasant brow.
"What is the matter with the old simpleton?"
"Some kinder gwines on 'twix him an' Marse Preston, suh. I dunno de rights un it. But Unk Shade done gone, suh!"
"When did he go?"
"Yistiddy, suh."
The colonel turned and went into the house, and the negro passed on, shaking his head and talking to himself. The colonel walked up and down the wide hall a little while, and then went into his library and flung himself into an easy-chair. As it happened, the chair sat facing his writing-desk, and over the desk hung a large portrait of his mother. It was what people call "a speaking likeness," and the colonel felt this as he looked at it. The face was full of character. Firmness shone in the eyes and played about the lips. The colonel regarded the portrait with an interest that was almost new. Old Shade in the woods,—old Shade a runaway! What would his mother say if she were alive? The colonel felt, too,—he could not help but feel,—that he was largely responsible for the fact that old Shade was a fugitive.
When Mary Rivers married Jack Preston, the colonel, Mary's father, insisted that the couple should live at the old home place. The desire was natural. Mary was the apple of his eye, and he wanted to see her rule in the home over which his mother had reigned. The colonel himself had been born there, and his mother had lived there for more than forty years. His father had died in 1830, but his mother lived until the day after the fiftieth anniversary of her wedding.
For near a quarter of a century this excellent lady had been the manager of her own estate, and she had succeeded, by dint of hard and pinching economy and untiring energy, in retrieving the fortune which her husband had left in a precarious condition. It was said of the colonel's father, William Rivers, that he was a man perverse in his ways and with a head full of queer notions, and it seems to be certain that he frittered away large opportunities in pursuit of small ones.
When William Rivers died he left his widow as a legacy four small boys—the colonel, the oldest, was in his teens—a past-due mortgage on the plantation, and a whole raft (as you may say) of small debts. She had one consolation that she breathed often to her little boys,—their father had lived temperately and died a Christian. Besides that consolation, she had an abundance of hope and energy. She could have sold a negro or two, but there were only a dozen of them, big and little, and they were all members of one family. The older ones had grown up with their mistress, and the younger ones she had nursed and attended through many an hour's sickness. She would have parted with her right hand sooner than sell one of them. She took her little boys from school—the youngest was ten and the oldest fourteen—and put them to work in the fields with the negroes for one year. At the end of that period she began to see daylight, as it were, and then the boys went back to school, but their vacations for several years afterward were spent behind the plough. She was as uncompromising in her business as in her religion. In one she stickled for the last thrip that was her due; in the other she believed in the final perseverance of the saints.
It is enough to say that she succeeded. She transacted her own business. She did it well at the very beginning, and thereafter with an aptitude that was constantly growing. She paid the estate out of debt, and added to it, and when her oldest son graduated at Princeton, she had the finest and most profitable plantation in Jasper County. All the old people said that if her father, Judge Walthall, could have returned to life, he would have been proud of the success of his daughter, which was in that day and still remains the most remarkable event in the annals of Jasper County.
The main dependence of Mrs. Rivers, even after her boys grew up, was a negro man named Shadrach. He grew old with his mistress and imbibed many of her matter-of-fact ways and methods. At first he was known as Uncle Shed, but the negro pronunciation lengthened this to Shade, and he was known by everybody in the counties round as Uncle Shade.
Uncle Shade knew how important his services were to his mistress and what store she set by his energy and faithfulness, and the knowledge made him more independent in his attitude and temper than the average negro. The truth is, he was not an average negro, and he knew it. He knew it by the fact that the rest of the negroes obeyed his most exacting orders with as much alacrity as they obeyed those of white men, and were quite as anxious to please him. He knew it, too, by the fact that his mistress had selected him in preference to his own father to take charge of the active management of the plantation business.
The selection was certainly a good one. Whatever effect it may have had on Uncle Shade, it was the salvation of the plans of his mistress. The negro seemed to have a keen appreciation of the necessities of the situation. He worked the hands harder than any white man could have worked them, and kept them in a good humor by doing as much as any two of them. The Saturday half-holiday was abolished for a time, and the ploughs and the hoes were kept going just as long as the negroes could see how to run a furrow.
A theory of the neighborhood was that Uncle Shade was afraid of going to the sheriff's block, and if this theory was wrong it was at least plausible. The majority of those who worked under Uncle Shade were his own flesh and blood, but his mistress had made bold to hire four extra negroes in order to carry out the plans she had in view, and these four worked as hard and as cheerfully as any of the rest.
Such was the energy with which Uncle Shade managed the rougher details of the plantation work, that at the end of the first year his mistress saw her way clear to enlarging her plans. She found that within five years she would be able to pay off all the old debts and make large profits to boot. So she sent her boys back to school, bought two of the four hired hands, and hired four more. These new ones, under Uncle Shade's management, worked as willingly as the others. In this way the estate was cleared of debt, and gradually enlarged, and Mrs. Rivers had been able, in the midst of it all, to send her boys to Princeton, where they took high rank in their studies.
The youngest drifted to California in the fifties, and disappeared; the second went into business in Charleston as a cotton factor and commission merchant. The oldest, after taking a law course, settled down at home, practiced law a little and farmed a great deal. He finally fell in love with a schoolma'am from Connecticut. His mother, who had been through the mill, as the saying is, and knew all about the dignity and lack of dignity there is in labor, rather approved the match, although some of the neighbors, whose pretensions were far beyond their possessions, shook their heads and said that the young man might have done better.
Nevertheless, the son did very well indeed. He did a great deal better than some of those who criticised his choice, for he got a wife who knew how to put her shoulder to the wheel when there was any necessity for it, and how to economize when her husband's purse was pinched. The son, having married the woman of his choice, built him a home within a stone's throw of his mother's, and during her life not a day passed but he spent a part of it in her company. He had always been fond of his mother, and as he grew older, his filial devotion was fortified and strengthened by the profound impression which her character made on him. It was a character that had been moulded on heroic lines. As a child, she had imbibed the spirit of the Revolution, and everything she said and did was flavored with the energy and independence that gave our colonial society its special and most beautiful significance,—the significance of candor and simplicity.
Something of his mistress's energy and independence was reflected in the character of Uncle Shade, and the result of it was that he was not very popular with those that did not know him well. The young master came back from college with a highly improved idea of his own importance. His mother, although she was secretly proud of his airs, told him with trenchant bluntness that his vanity stuck out like a pot-leg and must be lopped off. This was bad enough, but when Uncle Shade let it be understood that he was n't going to run hither and yon at the beck and call of a boy, nothing prevented a collision but the firm will that controlled everything on the plantation. After that, both the young master and the negro were more considerate of each other, but neither forgot the little episode.
When the young man married, he and Uncle Shade saw less of each other, and there was no more friction between them for four or five years. But in 1850 the negro's mistress died, and he and the rest of the negroes, together with the old home place, became the property of the son, who was now a prosperous planter, looked up to by his neighbors, and given the title of colonel by those who knew no other way of showing their respect and esteem. But in her will the colonel's mother made ample provision, as she thought, for the protection of Uncle Shade. He was to retain, under all circumstances, his house on the home place; he was never to be sold, and he was to be treated with the consideration due to a servant who had cheerfully given more than the best part of his life to the service of the family.
The terms of the will were strictly complied with. The colonel had loved his mother tenderly, and he respected her memory. He made it a point to treat Uncle Shade with consideration. He appealed to his judgment whenever opportunity offered, and frequently found it profitable to do so. But the old negro still held himself aloof. Whether from grief at the death of his mistress, or for other reasons, he lost interest in the affairs of the plantation. The other negroes said he was "lonesome," and this description of his condition, vague as it was, was perhaps the best that could be given. Except in the matter of temper, Uncle Shade was not the negro he was before his old mistress died.
This was the state of affairs when the colonel's daughter, Mary, married Jack Preston in 1861. When this event occurred, the colonel insisted that the young couple should take up their abode at the old home place. He had various sentimental reasons for this. For one thing, Mary was very much like her grandmother, in spite of her youth and beauty. Those who had known the old lady remarked the "favor"—as they called it—as soon as they saw the granddaughter. For another, the old home place was close at hand, almost next door, and the house and grounds had been kept in apple-pie order by Uncle Shade. The flower-garden was the finest to be seen in all that region, and the house itself and every room of it was as carefully kept as if the dead mistress had simply gone on a visit and was likely to return at any moment.
Naturally, the young couple found it hard to resist the entreaties of the colonel, particularly as Mary objected very seriously to living in town. So they went to the old home place, and were affably received by Uncle Shade. They found everything arranged to their hands.
Their first meal at the old home place was dinner. The colonel had told Uncle Shade that he would have company at noon, and they found the dinner smoking on the table when they arrived. A young negro man was set to wait on the table. He made some blunder, and instantly a young negro girl came in, smiling, to take his place. Uncle Shade, who was standing in the door of the dining-room, dressed in his Sunday best, took the offender by the arm as he passed out, and in a little while those who were at table heard the swish of a buggy whip as it fell on the negro's shoulders. The unusual noise set the chickens to cackling, the turkeys to gobbling, and the dogs to barking.
"Old man," said Preston, when Uncle Shade had gravely resumed his place near the dining-room door, "take 'em farther away from the house the next time you kill em."
"I 'll do so, suh," replied Uncle Shade dryly, and with a little frown.
Matters went along smoothly enough for all concerned, but somehow Preston failed to appreciate the family standing and importance of Uncle Shade. The young man was as genial and as clever as the day is long, but he knew nothing of the sensitiveness of an old family servant. On the other hand, Uncle Shade had a dim idea of Preston's ignorance, and resented it. He regarded the young man as an interloper in the family, and made little effort to conceal his feelings.
One thing led to another until finally there was an explosion. Preston would have taken harsh measures, but Uncle Shade gathered up a bundle of "duds," and took to the woods.
Nominally he was a runaway, but he came and went pretty much as suited his pleasure, always taking care to keep out of the way of Preston.
At last the colonel, who had made the way clear for Uncle Shade to come back and make an apology, grew tired of waiting for that event; the longer he waited, the longer the old negro stayed away.
The colonel made one or two serious efforts to see Uncle Shade, but the old darky, misunderstanding his intentions, made it a point to elude him. Finding his efforts in this direction unavailing, the colonel grew angry. He had something of his mother's disposition—a little of her temper if not much of her energy—and he decided to take a more serious view of Uncle Shade's capers. It was a shame and a disgrace, anyhow, that one of the Rivers negroes should be hiding in the woods without any excuse, and the colonel determined to put an end to it once for all. He would do more—he would teach Uncle Shade once for all that there was a limit to the forbearance with which he had been treated.
Therefore, after trying many times to capture Uncle Shade and always without success, the colonel announced to his wife that he had formed a plan calculated to bring the old negro to terms.
"What is it?" his wife asked.
"Well, I 'll tell you," said the colonel, hesitating a little. "I 'm going to get me a nigger dog and run old Shade down and catch him, if it takes me a year to do it."
The wife regarded the husband with amazement.
"Why, Mr. Rivers, what are you thinking of?" she exclaimed. "You don't mean to tell me that you are going to put yourself on a level with Bill Favers and go trolloping around the country, hunting negroes with hound-dogs? I never heard you say that any of your family ever stooped to such as that."
"They never did," the colonel rejoined testily. "But they never had such a rantankerous nigger to deal with."
"Just as he is, just so he was made," was Mrs. Rivers's matter-of-fact comment.
"1 know that mighty well," said the colonel. "But the time has come when he ought to be taken in hand. I could get Bill Favers's dogs and run him down in an hour, but I 'm going to catch my own nigger with my own nigger dog."
"Why, Mr. Rivers, you have n't a dog on the place that will run a pig out of the garden, much less catch a negro. There are ten or fifteen hound-dogs around the yard, and they are actually too no-account to scratch the fleas off."
"Well," replied the colonel, wincing a little, " Matt Kilpatrick has promised to give me one of his beagles, and I 'm going to take him and train him to track niggers."
"Another dog on the place!" exclaimed Mrs. Rivers. "Well, you 'll have to sell some negroes. We can't afford to feed a lot of no-account negroes and no-account dogs without selling something. You can't even give the dogs away—and I would n't let you impose on anybody that way, if you could; so you 'll have to sell some of the negroes. They are lazy and no-account enough, goodness knows, but they can manage to walk around and pick up chips and get a thimbleful of milk from twenty cows, and sweep off the porch when there 's anybody to keep them awake."
Nevertheless, the colonel got his beagle, and he soon came to take more interest in it than in all his other dogs. He named it Jeff, after Matt Kilpatrick's old beagle, and Jeff turned out to be the cutest little dog ever seen in that section. The colonel trained him assiduously. Twice a day he 'd hold Jeff and make one of the little negroes run down by the spring-house and out across the cow-lot. When the little negro was well out of sight the colonel would unleash Jeff and away the miniature hunt would go across the fields, the colonel cheering it on in regulation style.
The colonel's "nigger dog" was eight months old when he was taken in hand, and by the time he was a year old he had developed amazingly. The claim was gravely made that he had a colder nose than Bill Favers's dog Sound, who could follow a scent thirty-six hours old. It is not to be supposed that the training of Jeff went no farther than tracking the little negroes within sight of the house. The time speedily came when he was put on the trails of negroes who had hours the start,—negroes who crept along on fences and waded wide streams in their efforts to baffle the dog.
But Jeff was not easily baffled. He developed such intelligence and such powers of discriminating scent as would have put to shame the lubberly and inefficient dogs known as bloodhounds. Bloodhounds have figured very largely in fiction and in the newspapers as the incarnation of ferocity and intelligence. As a matter of fact, Jeff, the little beagle, could have whipped a shuck-pen full of them without ever showing his teeth, and he could run half a mile while a bloodhound was holding his senseless head in the air to give tongue.
Naturally the colonel was very proud of Jeff. He had the dog always at his heels, whether going to town or about the plantation, and he waited for the opportunity to come when he might run Uncle Shade to his hiding-place in the swamps of Murder Creek and capture him. The opportunity was not long in coming, though it seemed long to the colonel's impatience.
There was this much to be said about Uncle Shade. He had grown somewhat wary, and he had warned all the negroes on both plantations that if they made any reports of his movements, the day of wrath would soon come for them. And they believed him fully, so that, for some months, he might have been whirled away on a cloud or swallowed by the earth for all the colonel could hear or discover.
But one day, while he was dozing in his library, he heard a dialogue between the housemaid and the cook. The housemaid was sweeping in the rear hall, and the cook was fixing things in the dining-room. They judged by the stillness of the house that there was no one to overhear them.
"Mighty quare 'bout Unk Shade," said the house-girl.
"Huh! dat ole nigger-man de devil, mon!" replied the cook, rattling the dishes.
"I boun' ef 'twuz any er we-all gwine on dat away runnin' off an' comin' back when we git good an' ready, an' eatin' right dar in de house in broad daylight, an' marster gwine right by de do'—I boun' you we 'd be kotch an' fotch back," remarked the girl, in an injured tone.
"La! I ain't studyin' 'bout ole Shade kingin' it 'roun' here," exclaimed the cook. "He been gwine on dat away so long dat 't ain't nothin' new." Here she paused and laughed heartily.
"What you laughin' at?" inquired the girl, pausing in her work.
"At de way dat ole nigger man been gwine on," responded the cook. "I hear tell dat marster got dat ar little houn'-dog trainin' now fer ter track ole Shade down. Dar de dog an' dar old Shade, but dey ain't been no trackin' done yit. Dat dog bleedzter be no 'count, kaze all he got ter do is to go down dar by the house whar ole Shade live at 'twix' daybreak an' sun-up, an' dar he 'll fin' de track er dat ole nigger man hot an' fresh."
"I don't keer ef dey does ketch 'im," said the house-girl, by way of comment. "De wuss frailin' I ever got he gi' me. He skeer'd me den, an' I been skeer'd un 'im fum dat day."
"De white folks kin git 'im any time dey want 'im," said the cook. "But you hear me!—dey don't want 'im."
"Honey, I b'lieve you," exclaimed the girl.
At this juncture the colonel raised his head and uttered an exclamation of anger. Instantly there was the most profound silence in the dining-room and in the hall. The house-girl slipped up the stairway as noiselessly as a ghost, and the cook disappeared as if by magic.
The colonel called both negroes, but they seemed to be out of hearing. Finally the cook answered. Her voice came from the spring lot, and it was the voice of conscious innocence. It had its effect, too. for the colonel's heavy frown cleared away, and he indulged in a hearty laugh. When the cook came up, he told her to have breakfast the next morning by sunrise.
The woman knew what this meant, and she made up her mind accordingly. In spite of the fact that she pretended to despise Uncle Shade, she had a secret respect for his independence of character, and she resolved to repair, as far as she knew how, the damage her unbridled tongue had wrought.
Thus it was that when Uncle Shade made his appearance that night he found the cook nodding by the chimney corner, while his wife was mending some old clothes. A covered skillet sat near the fire, and a little mound of ashes in one corner showed where the ash-cake was baking or the sweet potatoes roasting. Uncle Shade said nothing. He came in silently, placed his tin bucket in the hearth, and seated himself on a wooden stool. There was no greeting on the part of his wife. She laid aside her mending, and fixed his supper on a rude table close at hand.
"I speck you mus' be tired," she said when everything was ready—"tired and hongry too."
Uncle Shade made no response. He sat gazing steadily into the pine-knot flame in the fireplace that gave the only light in the room.
"De Lord knows I 'd quit hidin' out in de woods ef I wuz you," said his wife. "I would n't be gwine 'roun' like some wil' varmint—dat I would n't!—I 'd let um come git me an' do what dey gwine ter do. Dey can't kill you."
"Dat 's so," exclaimed the cook, by way of making herself agreeable.
Uncle Shade raised his eyebrows and looked at the woman until she moved about in her chair uneasily.
"How come you ain't up yonder whar you b'long? " he asked. He was not angry; the tone of his voice was not even unkind; but the cook was so embarrassed that she could hardly find her tongue.
"I 'm here kaze marster tol' me ter get brekkus by sun-up, an' I know by de way he done dat he gwine ter come and put dat ar nigger dog on yo' track."
"What good dat gwine ter do?" Uncle Shade asked.
"Now, ez ter dat," replied the cook, "I can't tell you. It may do harm, an' it may not, but what good it gwine ter do, I 'm never is ter tell you."
"What de dog gwine ter do?" inquired Uncle Shade.
The cook looked at the other woman and laughed, and then rose from her Seat, adjusting her head handkerchief as she did so.
"You mos' too much fer me," she remarked as she went toward the door. "Mos' a long ways too much. Ef you kin git off de groun' an' walk in de elements, de dog ain't gwine do nothin'. Maybe you kin do dat; I dunno. But ef you can't dat ar dog 'll track you down sho ez you er settin' dar." Then she went out.
Uncle Shade ate his supper and then sat before the fire smoking his pipe. After a while he got a piece of candle out of an old cigar-box, lit it, and proceeded to ransack a wooden chest which seemed to be filled with all sorts of odds and ends,—gimlets, hinges, horn buttons, tangled twine, quilt pieces, and broken crockery. At the bottom he found what he was looking for,—a letter that had been rolled in cylindrical shape. Around it had been wrapped a long strip of cloth. He unrolled the package, took the letter out and looked at it, rolled it up again, and then placed it carefully in his hat.
"Well, den," said his wife, "what you gwine ter do?"
"I 'll tell you," he said. He leaned over and placed one hand on her knee. "Ef he don't ketch me, I ain't comin' back. Ef he ketch me, I 'll show 'im dat,"—indicating the letter,—"an' ef dat ain't do no good, I 'm gwine ter jump off Injun Bluff in de river."
"Sho nuff?" his wife asked, in a low voice.
"Sho nuff!" he answered, in a voice as low.
The woman sighed as she rose from her chair to clear away the little table. In a little while she began to sing a hymn, and by that time Uncle Shade, lying across the foot of the bed, was fast asleep.
The cook, out of abundant caution, gave her master his breakfast before sunrise. The colonel called Jeff into the dining-room and gave him some substantial scraps of warm victuals—an unheard-of proceeding in that house.
After breakfast the colonel mounted his horse, which was standing saddled at the gate, and rode over to the old home place. He rode straight to Uncle Shade's house, called a negro to hold his horse, and went in, followed by Jeff.
"Where did Shade sleep last night?" he asked of Shade's wife.
"Well, suh, what little sleepin' he done, he done right dar, suh—right dar in de baid, suh."
The colonel pulled off one of the blankets, made Jeff smell of it, and then went out and mounted his horse. Once in the saddle, he spoke an encouraging word to the dog. The task set for Jeff was much more difficult than the colonel thought it was. The dog circled around the house, once, twice, thrice, his nose to the ground. Then he ran back to the door, and tried to unravel the riddle again. He went off a little way, flung back, and entered the house, nosed the bed carefully, and then came out, giving tongue for the first time.
Near by was a low wooden bench. Jeff leaped upon it and gave tongue again. A piece of bacon-rind lay on the bench. The dog nosed around it very carefully. The colonel clenched his teeth together. "If he eats that meat-skin," he thought, "I 'll go get my gun and kill him." But Jeff did no such thing. He had solved a problem that had puzzled his intelligent nose, and he sprang away from the bench with a ringing challenge.
Some of the negroes who had been watching the dog looked at each other and shook their heads. As a matter of fact, Uncle Shade had sat on that bench and greased the soles of his shoes with the bacon-rind. He had a theory of his own that the dog would be unable to follow him after his shoes were greased.
It is certain that Jeff had considerable difficulty in getting away from the negro quarters, for Uncle Shade, true to his habits, had gone to several of the cabins and issued his orders, laying off a week's work for the plough-hands, and telling them what to do in the event that rains suspended their operations. Patiently Jeff threaded the maze of the old negro's comings and goings, and at last he found the final clue at the stile that led from the negro quarters into the avenue.
The colonel rode around by the big gate, and when he passed through Jeff was going down the big avenue at a pretty lively clip, but he was not running as freely as his custom was. Where a bush or a weed touched the footpath, he would examine it with his nose, but he kept the colonel's horse in a canter. When he left the avenue for the public road he ran in a more assured manner, and the colonel was compelled to force the canter into a gallop.
This was nothing like a fox-hunt, of course. The excitement of companionship and rivalry, and the thrill of the restless and eager-moving pack were lacking, but the enthusiasm of the colonel was mingled with pride as he rode after the dog that was guiding him so swiftly and unerringly. The enthusiasm was as persistent as the pride. But Jeff had no room for such emotions. The path of duty, straight or crooked, lay before him, and he followed it up as nimbly as he could.
The colonel was puzzled by the route they were taking. He had heard a good deal of runaway negroes, and had seen some after they were caught, but he had always imagined that they went into the deep woods or into the dim swamps for shelter and safety. But here was old Shade going poling down the public road where every passer-by could see him. Or was the dog at fault? Was it some visiting negro who had called in to see the negroes at the home place, and had then gone home by the road?
While the colonel was nursing these suspicions, Jeff paused and ran back toward him. At a low place in the fence, the dog hesitated and then flung himself over, striking into a footpath. This began to look like business. The path led to a ravine, and the ravine must naturally lead to a swamp. But the path really led to a spring, and before the colonel could throw a few rails from the fence and remount his horse, Jeff had reached the spring and was clicking up the hill beyond in the path that led back to the road.
It appeared that Uncle Shade had rested at the spring a while, for the dog went forward more rapidly. The spring was six miles from the colonel's house, and he began to have grave doubts as to the sagacity of Jeff. What could have possessed old Shade to run away by this public route? But if the colonel had doubts, Jeff had none. He pressed forward vigorously, splashing through the streams that crossed the road and going as rapidly up hill as he went down.
The colonel's horse was a good one, but the colonel himself was a heavy weight, and the pace began to tell on the animal. Nevertheless, the colonel kept him steadily at his work. Four or five miles farther they went, and then Jeff, after casting about for a while, struck off through an old sedge field.
Here, at last, there was no room for doubt, for Jeff no longer had to put his nose to the ground. The tall sedge held the scent, and the dog plunged through it almost as rapidly as if he had been chasing a rabbit. The colonel, in his excitement, cheered the dog on lustily, and the chase from that moment went at top speed.
Uncle Shade, moving along on a bluff overlooking Little River, nearly a mile away, heard it and paused to listen. He thought he knew the voices of man and dog, but he was not sure, so he lifted a hand to his ear and frowned as he listened. There could be no doubt about it. He was caught. He looked all around the horizon and up at the glittering sky. There was no way of escape. So he took his bundle from the end of his cane, dropped it at the foot of a huge hickory-tree, and sat down.
Presently Jeff came in sight, running like a quarter-horse. Uncle Shade thought if he could manage to kill the dog, there would still be a chance for him. His master was not in sight, and it would be an easy matter to slip down the bluff and so escape. But, no; the dog was not to be trapped. His training and instinct kept him out of the old negro's reach. Jeff made a wide circle around Uncle Shade and finally stopped and bayed him, standing far out of harm's way.
The old negro took off his hat, folded it once and placed it between his head and the tree as a sort of cushion. And then the colonel came galloping up, his horse in a lather of sweat. He drew rein and confronted Uncle Shade. For a moment he knew not what to say. It seemed as though his anger choked him; and yet it was not so. He was nonplussed. Here before him was the object of his pursuit, the irritating cause of his heated and hurried journey. There was in the spectacle that which drove the anger out of his heart, and the color out of his face. Here he saw the very essence and incarnation of helplessness,—an old man grown gray and well-nigh decrepit in the service of the family, who had witnessed the very beginning and birth, as it were, of the family fortune.
What was to be done with him? Here in the forest that was almost a wilderness, the spirit of justice threatened to step forth from some convenient covert and take possession of the case. But the master had inherited obstinacy, and pride had added to the store. Anger returned to her throne.
"What do you mean by defying me in this way?" the colonel asked hotly. "What do you mean by running away, and hiding in the bushes? Do you suppose I am going to put up with it?"
The colonel worked himself up to a terrible pitch, but the old negro looked at his master with a level and disconcerting eye.
"Well, suh," replied Uncle Shade, fumbling with a pebble in his hand, "ef my mistiss wuz 'bove groun' dis day I 'd be right whar she wuz at,—right dar doin' my work, des like I usen ter. Dat what I mean, suh."
"Do you mean to tell me, you impudent rascal, that because your mistress is dead you have the privilege of running off and hiding in the woods every time anybody snaps a finger at you? Why, if your mistress was alive to-day she 'd have your hide taken off."
"She never is done it yet, suh, an' I been live wid 'er in about fifty year."
"Well, I 'm going to do it," cried the colonel excitedly. He rode under a swinging limb and tied his horse. A leather strap fixed to a wooden handle hung from the horn of his saddle. "Take off that coat," he exclaimed curtly.
Uncle Shade rose and began to search in his pockets. "Well, suh," he said, "'fo' I does dat I got sump'n here I want you to look at."
"I want to see nothing," cried the colonel. "I 've put up with your rascality until I 'm tired. Off with that coat!"
"But I got a letter fer you, suh, an' dey tol' me to put it in yo' han' de fus time you flew'd up an' got mad wid me."
It is a short jump from the extreme of one emotion to the extreme of another. The simplicity and earnestness of the old negro suddenly appealed to the colonel's sense of the ridiculous, and once more his anger took wings. Uncle Shade searched in his pockets until he suddenly remembered that he had placed it in the lining of his hat. As he drew it forth with a hand that shook a little from excitement, it seemed to be a bundle of rags. "It 's his conjure-bag," the colonel said to himself, and at the thought of it he could hardly keep his face straight.
Carefully unrolling the long strip of cloth, which the colonel immediately recognized as part of a dress his mother used to wear, Uncle Shade presently came to a yellow letter. This he handed to the colonel, who examined it curiously. Though the paper was yellow with age and creased, the ink had not faded.
"What is this?" the colonel asked mechanically, although he had no difficulty in recognizing the writing as that of his mother,—the stiff, uncompromising, perpendicular strokes of the pen could not be mistaken. "What is this?" he repeated.
"Letter fer you, suh," said Uncle Shade.
"Where did you get it?" the colonel inquired.
"I tuck it right out 'n mistiss' han', suh," Uncle Shade replied.
The colonel put on his spectacles and spread the letter out carefully. This is what he read:—
My dear Son: I write this letter to commend the negro Shade to your special care and protection. He will need your protection most when it comes into your hand. I have told him that in the hour when you read these lines he may surely depend on you. He has been a faithful servant to me—and to you. No human being could be more devoted to my interests and yours than he has been. Whatever may have been his duty, he has gone far beyond it. But for him, the estate and even the homestead would have gone to the sheriff's block long ago. The fact that the mortgages have been paid is due to his devotion and his judgment. I am grateful to him, and I want my gratitude to protect him as long as he shall live. I have tried to make this plain in my will, but there may come a time when he will especially need your protection, as he has frequently needed mine. When that time comes I want you to do as I would do. I want you to stand by him as he has stood by us. To this hour he has never failed to do more than his duty where your interests and mine were concerned. It will never be necessary for him to give you this letter while I am alive; it will come to you as a message from the grave. God bless you and keep you is the wish of your
Mother.
"No, no!" the colonel cried. "It is for me. I need it a great deal worse than you do."
Thereupon he put the document in his pocket. Then he walked off a little way and leaned against a tree. A piece of crystal quartz at his feet attracted his attention. A mussel shell was lying near. He stooped and picked them both up and turned them over in his hand.
"What place is this?" he asked.
"Injun Bluff, suh."
"Did n't we come out here fishing once, when I was a little boy?"
"Yasser," replied Uncle Shade, with some animation. "You wa'n't so mighty little, nudder. You wuz a right smart chunk of a chap, suh. We tuck 'n' come'd out here, an' fished, an' I got you a hankcher full er deze here quare rocks, an' you played like dey wuz diamon's, an' you up'd an' said that you liked me better 'n you liked anybody 'ceppin' yo' own blood kin. But times done change, suh. I 'm de same nigger, but yuther folks ain't de same."
The colonel cleared his throat again and pulled off his spectacles, on which a mist had gathered.
"Whose land is this?" he asked presently.
"Stith Ingram's, suh."
"How far is his house?"
"Des cross dat fiel', suh."
"Well, take my hankcher and get me some more of the rocks. We'll take 'em home."
Uncle Shade gathered the specimens of quartz with alacrity. Then the two, Uncle Shade leading the horse, went across the field to Stith Ingram's, and, as they went, Jeff, the colonel's "nigger dog," fawned first on one and then on the other with the utmost impartiality, although he was too weary to cut up many capers.
Mr. Ingram himself, fat and saucy, was sitting on his piazza when the small procession came in sight. He stared at it until he saw who composed it, and then he began to laugh.
"Well, I declare!" he exclaimed. "Well, the great Tecumseh! Why, colonel! Why, what in the world! I 'm powerful glad to see you! Is that you, Shade? Well, take your master's horse right round to the lot and brush him up a little. Colonel, come in! It 's been a mighty long time since you 've darkened this door. Where 've you been?"
"I 've just been out training my nigger dog," the colonel replied. "Old Shade started out before day, and just kept moving. He was in one of his tantrums, I reckon. But I 'm glad of it. It gives me a chance to take dinner with you."
"Glad!" exclaimed Mr. Ingram. "Well, you ain't half as glad as I am. That old Shade 's a caution. Maybe he was trying to get away, sure enough."
"Oh, no," replied the colonel. "Shade knows well enough he couldn't get away from Jeff."
That afternoon, Mr. Ingram carried the colonel and Jeff home in his buggy, and Uncle Shade rode the colonel's horse.