Part 9

Nelse had listened to him with close attention, and at the end of his harangue he said, “You hadn’t ought to be so hard on your own people; they mean well enough.”

“My own people!” the stranger flashed back. “My people are the people of the South,—the people who have in their veins the warm, generous blood of Dixie!”

“I don’t see what you stay in the North fur ef you don’t like the people.”

“I am not staying; I’m getting away from it as fast as I can. I only came because I thought, like a lot of other poor fools, that the North had destroyed my fortunes and it might restore them; but five years of fruitless struggle in different places out of Dixie have shown me that it isn’t the place for a man with blood in his veins. I thought that I was reconstructed; but I’m not. My State didn’t need it, but I did.”

“Where’re you from?”

“Kentucky; and there’s where I’m bound for now. I want to get back where people have hearts and sympathies.”

The coloured man was silent. After a while he said, and his voice was tremulous as he thought of the past, “I’m from Kintucky, myself.”

“I knew that you were from some place in the South. There’s no mistaking our people, black or white, wherever you meet them. Kentucky’s a great State, sir. She didn’t secede; but there were lots of her sons on the other side. I was; and I did my duty as clear as I could see it.”

“That’s all any man kin do,” said Nelse; “an’ I ain’t a-blamin’ you. I lived with as good people as ever was. I know they wouldn’t ’a’ done nothin’ wrong ef they’d ’a’ knowed it; an’ they was on the other side.”

“You’ve been a slave, then?”

“Oh, yes, I was born a slave; but the War freed me.”

“I reckon you wouldn’t think that my folks ever owned slaves; but they did. Everybody was good to them except me, and I was young and liked to show my authority. I had a little black boy that I used to cuff around a good deal, altho’ he was near to me as a brother. But sometimes he would turn on me and give me the trouncing that I deserved. He would have been skinned for it if my father had found it out; but I was always too much ashamed of being thrashed to tell.”

The speaker laughed, and Nelse joined him. “Bless my soul!” he said, “ef that ain’t jes’ the way it was with me an’ my Mas’ Tom—”

“Mas’ Tom!” cried the stranger; “man, what’s your name?”

“Nelse Hatton,” replied the Negro.

“Heavens, Nelse! I’m your young Mas’ Tom. I’m Tom Hatton; don’t you know me, boy?”

“You can’t be—you can’t be!” exclaimed the Negro.

“I am, I tell you. Don’t you remember the scar I got on my head from falling off old Baldy’s back? Here it is. Can’t you see?” cried the stranger, lifting the long hair away from one side of his brow. “Doesn’t this convince you?”

“It’s you—it’s you; ’tain’t nobody else but Mas’ Tom!” and the ex-slave and his former master rushed joyously into each other’s arms.

There was no distinction of colour or condition there. There was no thought of superiority on the one hand, or feeling of inferiority on the other. They were simply two loving friends who had been long parted and had met again.

After a while the Negro said, “I’m sure the Lord must ’a’ sent you right here to this house, so’s you wouldn’t be eatin’ off o’ none o’ these poor white people ’round here.”

“I reckon you’re religious now, Nelse; but I see it ain’t changed your feeling toward poor white people.”

“I don’t know about that. I used to be purty bad about ’em.”

“Indeed you did. Do you remember the time we stoned the house of old Nat, the white wood-sawyer?”

“Well, I reckon I do! Wasn’t we awful, them days?” said Nelse, with forced contrition, but with something almost like a chuckle in his voice.

And yet there was a great struggle going on in the mind of this black man. Thirty years of freedom and the advantages of a Northern State made his whole soul revolt at the word “master.” But that fine feeling, that tender sympathy, which is natural to the real Negro, made him hesitate to make the poor wreck of former glory conscious of his changed estate by using a different appellation. His warm sympathies conquered.

“I want you to see my wife and boys, Mas’ Tom,” he said, as he passed out of the room.

Eliza Hatton sat in her neatly appointed little front room, swelling with impotent rage.

If this story were chronicling the doings of some fanciful Negro, or some really rude plantation hand, it might be said that the “front room was filled with a conglomeration of cheap but pretentious furniture, and the walls covered with gaudy prints”—this seems to be the usual phrase. But in it the chronicler too often forgets how many Negroes were house-servants, and from close contact with their master’s families imbibed aristocratic notions and quiet but elegant tastes.

This front room was very quiet in its appointments. Everything in it was subdued except—Mrs. Hatton. She was rocking back and forth in a light little rocker that screeched the indignation she could not express. She did not deign to look at Nelse as he came into the room; but an acceleration of speed on the part of the rocker showed that his presence was known.

Her husband’s enthusiasm suddenly died out as he looked at her; but he put on a brave face as he said,—

“’Lizy, I bet a cent you can’t guess who that pore man in there is.”

The rocker suddenly stopped its violent motion with an equally violent jerk, as the angry woman turned upon her husband.

“No, I can’t guess,” she cried; “an’ I don’t want to. It’s enough to be settin’ an on’ry ol’ tramp down to my clean table, without havin’ me spend my time guessin’ who he is.”

“But look a-here, ’Lizy, this is all different; an’ you don’t understand.”

“Don’t care how different it is, I do’ want to understand.”

“You’ll be mighty su’prised, I tell you.”

“I ’low I will; I’m su’prised already at you puttin’ yourself on a level with tramps.” This with fine scorn.

“Be careful, ’Lizy, be careful; you don’t know who a tramp may turn out to be.”

“That ol’ humbug in there has been tellin’ you some big tale, an’ you ain’t got no more sense ’an to believe it; I ’spect he’s crammin’ his pockets full of my things now. Ef you don’t care, I do.”

The woman rose and started toward the door, but her husband stopped her. “You mustn’t go out there that way,” he said. “I want you to go out, you an’ the childern; but I want you to go right—that man is the son of my ol’ master, my young Mas’ Tom, as I used to call him.”

She fell back suddenly and stared at him with wide-open eyes.

“Your master!”

“Yes, it’s young Mas’ Tom Hatton.”

“An’ you want me an’ the childern to see him, do you?”

“Why, yes, I thought—”

“Humph! that’s the slave in you yet,” she interrupted. “I thought thirty years had made you free! Ain’t that the man you told me used to knock you ’round so?”

“Yes, ’Lizy; but—”

“Ain’t he the one that made you haul him in the wheelbar’, an’ whipped you because you couldn’t go fast enough?”

“Yes, yes; but that—”

“Ain’t he the one that lef’ that scar there?” she cried, with a sudden motion of her hand toward his neck.

“Yes,” said Nelse, very quietly; but he put his hand up and felt the long, cruel scar that the lash of a whip had left, and a hard light came into his eyes.

His wife went on: “An’ you want to take me an’ the childern in to see that man? No!” The word came with almost a snarl. “Me an’ my childern are free born, an’, ef I kin help it, they sha’n’t never look at the man that laid the lash to their father’s back! Shame on you, Nelse, shame on you, to want your childern, that you’re tryin’ to raise independent,—to want ’em to see the man that you had to call ‘master’!”

The man’s lips quivered, and his hand opened and shut with a convulsive motion; but he said nothing.

“What did you tell me?” she asked. “Didn’t you say that if you ever met him again in this world you’d—”

“Kill him!” burst forth the man; and all the old, gentle look had gone out of his face, and there was nothing but fierceness and bitterness there, as his mind went back to his many wrongs.

“Go on away from the house, ’Lizy,” he said hoarsely; “if anything happens, I do’ want you an’ the childern around.”

“I do’ want you to kill him, Nelse, so you’ll git into trouble; but jes’ give him one good whippin’ for those he used to give you.”

“Go on away from the house;” and the man’s lips were tightly closed. She threw a thin shawl over her head and went out.

As soon as she had gone Nelse’s intense feeling got the better of him, and, falling down with his face in a chair, he cried, in the language which the Sunday sermons had taught him, “Lord, Lord, thou hast delivered mine enemy into my hands!”

But it was not a prayer; it was rather a cry of anger and anguish from an overburdened heart. He rose, with the same hard gleam in his eyes, and went back toward the kitchen. One hand was tightly clinched till the muscles and veins stood out like cords, and with the other he unconsciously fingered the lash’s scar.

“Couldn’t find your folks, eh, Nelse?” said the white Hatton.

“No,” growled Nelse; and continued hurriedly, “Do you remember that scar?”

“Well enough—well enough,” answered the other, sadly; “and it must have hurt you, Nelse.”

“Hurt me! yes,” cried the Negro.

“Ay,” said Tom Hatton, as he rose and put his hand softly on the black scar; “and it has hurt me many a day since, though time and time again I have suffered pains that were as cruel as this must have been to you. Think of it, Nelse; there have been times when I, a Hatton, have asked bread of the very people whom a few years ago I scorned. Since the War everything has gone against me. You do not know how I have suffered. For thirty years life has been a curse to me; but I am going back to Kentucky now, and when I get there I’ll lay it down without a regret.”

All the anger had melted from the Negro’s face, and there were tears in his eyes as he cried, “You sha’n’t do it, Mas’ Tom,—you sha’n’t do it.”

His destructive instinct had turned to one of preservation.

“But, Nelse, I have no further hopes,” said the dejected man.

“You have, and you shall have. You’re goin’ back to Kintucky, an’ you’re goin’ back a gentleman. I kin he’p you, an’ I will; you’re welcome to the last I have.”

“God bless you, Nelse—”

“Mas’ Tom, you used to be jes’ about my size, but you’re slimmer now; but—but I hope you won’t be mad ef I ask you to put on a suit o’ mine. It’s put’ nigh brand-new, an’—”

“Nelse, I can’t do it! Is this the way you pay me for the blows—”

“Heish your mouth; ef you don’t I’ll slap you down!” Nelse said it with mock solemnity, but there was an ominous quiver about his lips.

“Come in this room, suh;” and the master obeyed. He came out arrayed in Nelse’s best and newest suit. The coloured man went to a drawer, over which he bent laboriously. Then he turned and said: “This’ll pay your passage to Kintucky, an’ leave somethin’ in your pocket besides. Go home, Mas’ Tom,—go home!”

“Nelse, I can’t do it; this is too much!”

“Doggone my cats, ef you don’t go on—”

The white man stood bowed for a moment; then, straightening up, he threw his head back. “I’ll take it, Nelse; but you shall have every cent back, even if I have to sell my body to a medical college and use a gun to deliver the goods! Good-bye, Nelse, God bless you! good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Mas’ Tom, but don’t talk that way; go home. The South is changed, an’ you’ll find somethin’ to suit you. Go home—go home; an’ ef there’s any of the folks a-livin’, give ’em my love, Mas’ Tom—give ’em my love—good-bye—good-bye!”

The Negro leaned over the proffered hand, and his tears dropped upon it. His master passed out, and he sat with his head bowed in his hands.

After a long while Eliza came creeping in.

“Wha’ ’d you do to him, Nelse—wha’ ’d you do to him?” There was no answer. “Lawd, I hope you ain’t killed him,” she said, looking fearfully around. “I don’t see no blood.”

“I ain’t killed him,” said Nelse. “I sent him home—back to the ol’ place.”

“You sent him home! how’d you send him, huh?”

“I give him my Sunday suit and that money—don’t git mad, ’Lizy, don’t git mad—that money I was savin’ for your cloak. I couldn’t help it, to save my life. He’s goin’ back home among my people, an’ I sent ’em my love. Don’t git mad an’ I’ll git you a cloak anyhow.”

“Pleggone the cloak!” said Mrs. Hatton, suddenly, all the woman in her rising in her eyes. “I was so ’fraid you’d take my advice an’ do somethin’ wrong. Ef you’re happy, Nelse, I am too. I don’t grudge your master nothin’—the ol’ devil! But you’re jes’ a good-natured, big-hearted, weak-headed ol’ fool!” And she took his head in her arms.

Great tears rolled down the man’s cheeks, and he said: “Bless God, ’Lizy, I feel as good as a young convert.”

AT SHAFT 11

AT SHAFT 11

Night falls early over the miners’ huts that cluster at the foot of the West Virginia mountains. The great hills that give the vales their shelter also force upon them their shadow. Twilight lingers a short time, and then gives way to that black darkness which is possible only to regions in the vicinity of high and heavily wooded hills.

Through the fast-gathering gloom of a mid-spring evening, Jason Andrews, standing in his door, peered out into the open. It was a sight of rugged beauty that met his eyes as they swept the broken horizon. All about the mountains raised their huge forms,—here bare, sharp, and rocky; there undulating, and covered with wood and verdure, whose various shades melted into one dull, blurred, dark green, hardly distinguishable in the thick twilight. At the foot of the hills all was in shadow, but their summits were bathed in the golden and crimson glory of departing day.

Jason Andrews, erstwhile foreman of Shaft 11, gazed about him with an eye not wholly unappreciative of the beauty of the scene. Then, shading his eyes with one brawny hand, an act made wholly unnecessary by the absence of the sun, he projected his vision far down into the valley.

His hut, set a little way up the mountain-side, commanded an extended view of the road, which, leaving the slope, ran tortuously through the lower land. Evidently something that he saw down the road failed to please the miner, for he gave a low whistle and re-entered the house with a frown on his face.

“I’ll be goin’ down the road a minute, Kate,” he said to his wife, throwing on his coat and pausing at the door. “There’s a crowd gathered down toward the settlement. Somethin’ ’s goin’ on, an’ I want to see what’s up.” He slammed the door and strode away.

“Jason, Jason,” his wife called after him, “don’t you have nothin’ to do with their goin’s-on, neither one way nor the other. Do you hear?”

“Oh, I’ll take care o’ myself.” The answer came back out of the darkness.

“I do wish things would settle down some way or other,” mused Mrs. Andrews. “I don’t see why it is men can’t behave themselves an’ go ’long about their business, lettin’ well enough alone. It’s all on account o’ that pesky walkin’ delegate too. I wisht he’d ’a’ kept walkin’. If all the rest o’ the men had had the common-sense that Jason has, he wouldn’t never ’a’ took no effect on them. But most of ’em must set with their mouths open like a lot o’ ninnies takin’ in everything that come their way, and now here’s all this trouble on our hands.”

There were indeed troublous times at the little mining settlement. The men who made up the community were all employees, in one capacity or another, of the great Crofton West Virginia Mining Co. They had been working on, contented and happy, at fair wages and on good terms with their employers, until the advent among them of one who called himself, alternately, a benefactor of humanity and a labour agitator. He proceeded to show the men how they were oppressed, how they were withheld from due compensation for their labours, while the employers rolled in the wealth which the workers’ hands had produced. With great adroitness of argument and elaboration of phrase, he contrived to show them that they were altogether the most ill-treated men in America. There was only one remedy for the misery of their condition, and that was to pay him two dollars and immediately organise a local branch of the Miners’ Labour Union. The men listened. He was so perfectly plausible, so smooth, and so clear. He found converts among them. Some few combated the man’s ideas, and none among these more forcibly than did Jason Andrews, the foreman of Shaft 11. But the heresy grew, and the opposition was soon overwhelmed. There are always fifty fools for every fallacy. Of course, the thing to do was to organise against oppression, and accordingly, amid great enthusiasm, the union was formed. With the exception of Jason Andrews, most of the men, cowed by the majority opposed to them, yielded their ground and joined. But not so he. It was sturdy, stubborn old Scotch blood that coursed through his veins. He stayed out of the society even at the expense of the friendship of some of the men who had been his friends. Taunt upon taunt was thrown into his face.

“He’s on the side of the rich. He’s for capital against labour. He’s in favour of supporting a grinding monopoly.” All this they said in the ready, pat parlance of their class; but the foreman went his way unmoved, and kept his own counsel.

Then, like the falling of a thunderbolt, had come the visit of the “walking-delegate” for the district, and his command to the men to “go out.” For a little time the men demurred; but the word of the delegate was law. Some other company had failed to pay its employees a proper price, and the whole district was to be made an example of. Even while the men were asking what it was all about, the strike was declared on.

The usual committee, awkward, shambling, hat in hand, and uncomfortable in their best Sunday clothes, called upon their employers to attempt to explain the grievances which had brought about the present state of affairs. The “walking-delegate” had carefully prepared it all for them, with the new schedule of wages based upon the company’s earnings.

The three men who had the local affairs of the company in charge heard them through quietly. Then young Harold Crofton, acting as spokesman, said, “Will you tell us how long since you discovered that your wages were unfair?”

The committee severally fumbled its hat and looked confused. Finally Grierson, who had been speaking for them, said: “Well, we’ve been thinkin’ about it fur a good while. Especially ever sence, ahem—”

“Yes,” went on Crofton, “to be plain and more definite, ever since the appearance among you of Mr. Tom Daly, the agitator, the destroyer of confidence between employer and employed, the weasel who sucks your blood and tells you that he is doing you a service. You have discovered the unfairness of your compensation since making his acquaintance.”

“Well, I guess he told us the truth,” growled Grierson.

“That is a matter of opinion.”

“But look what you all are earnin’.”

“That’s what we’re in the business for. We haven’t left comfortable homes in the cities to come down to this hole in the mountains for our health. We have a right to earn. We brought capital, enterprise, and energy here. We give you work and pay you decent wages. It is none of your business what we earn.” The young man’s voice rose a little, and a light came into his calm gray eyes. “Have you not been comfortable? Have you not lived well and been able to save something? Have you not been treated like men? What more do you want? What real grievance have you? None. A scoundrel and a sneak has come here, and for his own purposes aroused your covetousness. But it is unavailing, and,” turning to his colleagues, “these gentlemen will bear me out in what I say,—we will not raise your wages one-tenth of one penny above what they are. We will not be made to suffer for the laxity of other owners, and if within three hours the men are not back at work, they may consider themselves discharged.” His voice was cold, clear, and ringing.

Surprised, disappointed, and abashed, the committee heard the ultimatum, and then shuffled out of the office in embarrassed silence. It was all so different from what they had expected. They thought that they had only to demand and their employers would accede rather than have the work stop. Labour had but to make a show of resistance and capital would yield. So they had been told. But here they were, the chosen representatives of labour, skulking away from the presence of capital like felons detected. Truly this was a change. Embarrassment gave way to anger, and the miners who waited the report of their committee received a highly coloured account of the stand-offish way in which they had been met. If there had been anything lacking to inflame the rising feelings of the labourers, this new evidence of the arrogance of plutocrats supplied it, and with one voice the strike was confirmed.

Soon after the three hours’ grace had passed, Jason Andrews received a summons to the company’s office.

“Andrews,” said young Crofton, “we have noticed your conduct with gratitude since this trouble has been brewing. The other foremen have joined the strikers and gone out. We know where you stand and thank you for your kindness. But we don’t want it to end with thanks. It is well to give the men a lesson and bring them to their senses, but the just must not suffer with the unjust. In less than two days the mine will be manned by Negroes with their own foreman. We wish to offer you a place in the office here at the same wages you got in the mine.”

The foreman raised his hand in a gesture of protest. “No, no, Mr. Crofton. That would look like I was profiting by the folly of the men. I can’t do it. I am not in their union, but I will take my chances as they take theirs.”