Joel Chandler Harris

“ As Mr. Joe-Bob Grissom passed the Bascom Place on his way home, after gathering from Major Jimmy Bass all the news and gossip of the town, he heard Mr. Francis Underwood, the owner of the Place, walking up and down the piazza, singing. Mr. Underwood appeared to be in a cheerful mood, and he had a right to be. He was young,—not more than thirty,—full of life, and the world was going on very well with him. Mr. Grissom paused a moment and listened; then he made up his mind to go in and have a chat with the young man. He opened the gate and went up the avenue under the cedars and Lombardy poplars. ”

“ What better could a young man do than to follow in the footsteps of these illustrious citizens?
It may be supposed, therefore, that Bolling [205] Bascom had mapped out a tremendous career for his son and heir. No doubt, as he sat dozing on his piazza in the long summer afternoons near the close of his life, he fancied he could hear the voice of his boy in the halls of legislation, or hear the wild shouts of the multitudes that greeted his efforts on the stump in the heat and fury of a campaign. But it was not to be. The stormy politics of that period had no charms for Briscoe Bascom. ”

“ This is Jesse behind me? Stand out there, Jesse, and let me look at you. Ah, yes, a likely negro; a very likely negro indeed. And what Bascom did you belong to, Jesse? Merriwether Bascom! Why, to be sure; why, certainly!” [236] the Judge continued with as much animation as his feebleness would admit of. “Why, of course, Merriwether Bascom. Well, well, I remember him distinctly. A rough-and-tumble sort of man he was, fighting, gambling, horse-racing, always on the wing. A good man at bottom, but wild. And so you belonged to Merriwether Bascom? Well, boy, once a Bascom always a Bascom. ”

“ His legs were as long as any man’s, but his whole body seemed to be contracted in his hump. He was very spry, too, moving along as active as a boy, and there was an elfish expression on his face such as one sees in old picture-books—a cunning, leering expression, which yet had for its basis the element of humor. The little man carried a rifle longer than himself, which he flourished about with surprising ease and dexterity—practicing apparently some new and peculiar manual.
“Have you seen Israel Spurlock?” inquired Captain Moseley, reining in his horse. ”

“ On the floor lay Berrien Cozart dead, and crouching beside him was Balaam. How the negro had managed to make his way through the masonry of the dungeon without discovery is still one of the mysteries of Billville. But, prompt as he was, he was too late. His master had escaped through a wider door. He had made his way to a higher court. Death, coming to him in that dark dungeon, must have visited him in the similitude of a happy dream, for there [44] under the light of the lanterns he lay smiling sweetly as a little child that nestles on its mother’s breast ”

“ One Saturday afternoon in the spring of 1876, as Farmer Joe-Bob Grissom was on his way to Hillsborough for the purpose of hearing the news and having an evening’s chat with his town acquaintances,—as was his invariable custom at the close of the week,—he saw, as he passed the old Bascom Place, an old gentleman and a young lady walking slowly along the road. The old gentleman was tall and thin, and had silvery white hair. He wore a high-crowned, wide-brimmed felt hat, and his clothes, though neat, were too glossy to be new. The young lady was just developing into womanhood. ”

“ My name is Willis Featherstone, and I am simply a vagabond, else you would never have seen me trudging along the public road with only a fiddle at my back; but I have a rich daddy hereabouts, and I’m on my way to see how he is getting along. Now,” he continued, “I’ll give you a riddle. If you can’t unriddle it, it will unriddle itself. A father had a son. He sent him to school in Augusta, until he was fifteen. By that time, the father grew to hate the son, and one day, in a fit of anger, sold him to a nigger speculator.” ”

“ He knew how the plantation ought to be managed, but he stood in awe of the colonel, and he was somewhat backward in giving his advice. In fact, he had nothing to say unless his opinion was asked, and this was not often, for Colonel Flewellen had come to entertain the general opinion about Ananias, which was, in effect, that he was a sneaking, hypocritical rascal who was not to be depended on; a good-enough worker, to be sure, but not a negro in whom one could repose confidence. ”

“ So far as they are concerned, the old saying, “Handsome is that handsome does,” has lost its force. They will tell you that Berrien Cozart was the handsomest man in the world and—probably the worst.
He was willful and wrongheaded from the first. He never, even as a child, acknowledged any authority but his own sweet will. He could simulate obedience whenever it suited his purpose, but only one person in the world had any real influence over him—a negro named Balaam. ”

“ She had relatives in Atlanta, and she prevailed on him to go to that lively and picturesque town. He closed his house, being unable to rent it, and became a citizen of the thrifty city. He found himself in a new atmosphere. The north Georgia crackers, the east Tennesseeans,—having dropped their “you-uns” and “we-uns,”—and the Yankees had joined hands in building up and pushing Atlanta forward. Business was more important than politics; and the rush and whirl of men and things were enough to make a mere spectator dizzy. Judge Bascom found himself more helpless than ever ”

“ When I get started, I just rattle along like a runaway horse. I’m all motion and no sense, and there’s no stopping me until I run over a stump or up against a fence. And if I tried to write it out, it would be pretty much the same. When I take a pen in my hand my mind takes all sorts of uncertain flights, like a pigeon with a hawk after it. ”

“ When Lawyer Terrell and his client returned to the court-room they found it filled with spectators. Somehow, it became generally known that the great advocate was to defend Ananias, and a large crowd of people had assembled to watch developments. In some way the progress of Ananias and the deputy-sheriff through the crowd that filled all the aisles and doorways had been delayed; but when the negro, forlorn and wretched-looking, made his appearance in the bar for the purpose of taking a seat by his counsel, there was a general laugh. Instantly Lawyer Terrell was upon his feet. ”

“ So that, take it all in all, the Christmas of the conscript was as jolly as he could have expected it to be.
When the festivities were concluded there was a consultation between Colonel Watson and Danny Lemmons, and then Captain Moseley and his men were told that they were free to go.
“What about Lovejoy?” asked Moseley.
“Oh, bless you! he goes over the mountain,” exclaimed Danny, with a grin. “Lord, yes! Right over the mountain.”
“Now, I say no,” said Polly, blushing. “Turn the man loose an’ let him go.”
There were protests from some of the mountaineers, but Polly finally had her way. ”

“ Then, in a few months, came the news of the surrender, bringing with it a species of paralysis or stupefaction from which the people were long in recovering—so long, indeed, that some of them died in despair, while others lingered on the stage, watching, with dim eyes and trembling limbs, half-hopefully and half-fretfully, the representatives of a new generation trying to build up the waste places. ”

“ Nothing could have been friendlier than the attitude of the mountain men, nor freer than their talk. Captain Moseley learned that Danny Lemmons was acting under the orders of Colonel Dick Watson, the virile paralytic; that he and Chadwick were to be held prisoners in the hope that Adjutant Lovejoy would come in search of them—in which event there would be developments of a most interesting character. ”

“ Pray what else could it be called?”
“Well, it might have been called Grasslands, you know, or The Poplars, but somehow the old name seemed to suit it best. I like to think of it as the Bascom Place.”
“You are right, sir,” said the Judge with emphasis; “you are right, sir. It is the Bascom Place. All the powers of earth cannot strip us of our name.”
Again Underwood looked at the young girl, and again he read in her shining but apprehensive eyes the answer he should make. ”

“ The troubles of that unhappy time—its doubts, its difficulties, and its swift calamities—will never be known to posterity, for they have never been adequately described.
It was during this awful period—that is to say, in January, 1866—that Lawyer Terrell, of Macon, made the acquaintance of his friend Ananias. In the midst of the desolation to be seen on every hand, this negro was the forlornest spectacle of all. Lawyer Terrell overtook him on the public highway between Macon and Rockville. ”

“ At once the troubled expression on Berrien Cozart’s face disappeared. He looked around on the crowd and smiled.
“You see what it is,” he said with a light laugh, “to be the pride of a family! Gentlemen, I am ready. Don’t let me keep you waiting.” And so, followed by half the population of his native village, he was escorted to jail.
This building was a two-story brick structure, as solid as good material and good work could make it, and there was no fear that any prisoner could escape, especially from the dungeon where Berrien’s captors insisted on confining him. ”

“ Negro labor was demoralized, and the overseer class had practically disappeared. He would have sold a part of his landed estate; indeed, so pressing were his needs that he would have sold everything except the house which his father had built, and where he himself was born,—that he would not have parted with for all the riches in the world,—but there was nobody to buy. The Judge’s neighbors and his friends, with the exception of those who had accustomed themselves to seizing all contingencies by the throat and wresting tribute from them, were in as severe a strait as he was ”

“ When Uncle Billy Powers had said an earnest and simple grace he gave his place at the head of the table to Colonel Watson, who had been brought in on his chair. Aunt Crissy gave Chadwick the seat of honor at the foot, and then the two old people announced that they were ready to wait on the company, with Mr. Chadwick to do the carving. If the private betrayed any embarrassment at all, he soon recovered from it.
“It ain’t any use,” he said, glancing down the table, “to call the roll. We’re all here an’ accounted for. ”

“ If there were any love-passages between the young people, only the stately cedars or the restless poplars were in the secret, and these told it only to the vagrant west winds that crept over the hills when the silence of night fell over all things. ”

“ Money must be saved, the old Place must be bought, and to that end everything must tend. The more his daughter economized the more he urged her to economize. His earnestness and enthusiasm impressed and influenced the young girl in a larger measure [237] than she would have been willing to acknowledge, and unconsciously she found herself looking forward to the day when her father and herself would be able to call the Bascom Place their own. In the Judge the thought was the delusion of old age, in the maiden it was the dream of youth ”

“ The only man or woman that can’t answer to their name is Danny Lemmons’s little brown fiddle, an’ I’ll bet a sev’m-punce it’d skreak a little ef he tuck it out’n the bag. But before we whirl in an’ make a charge three deep, le’ ’s begin right. This is Christmas, and that bowl yander, with the egg-nog in it, looks tired. Good as the dinner is, it’s got to have a file leader. We’ll start in with what looks the nighest like Christmas.”
“Well,” said Aunt Crissy, “I’ve been in sech a swivet all day I don’t reelly reckon the nog is wuth your while, but you’ll ha’ ter take it thes like you fin’ it. ”

“ Bass turned her attention to the negro.
“Come out of my pantry, you nasty, trifling rascal! Who are you?”
“’T ain’t nobody but me, Miss Sa’ah,” said Jesse as he issued forth.
“You!” she exclaimed. “You are the nigger that was too biggity to stay with ’em that raised you up and took care of you, and now you come back and try to steal their bread and meat! Well! I know the end of the world ain’t so mighty far off.” ”

“ Lord, yes! Yes, siree! Men an’ gals tergether. You ax ’em, an’ they’ll tell you.”
“Lemmons,” said the captain, repeating the name slowly. “Well, you look it!”
“Boo!” cried Danny Lemmons, making a horrible grimace; “you don’t know what you’re a-talkin’ about. The gals all ’low I’m mighty sweet. You ought to see me when I’m rigged out in my Sunday-go-to-meetin’ duds. Polly Powers she ’lows I look snatchin’. Lord, yes! Yes, siree! I’m gwine down to Polly’s house now.”
Whereat he broke out singing, paraphrasing an old negro ditty, and capering about in the woods like mad. ”

“ On this plateau were abundant signs of life. Cattle were grazing about among the trees, chickens were crowing, and in the distance could be heard the sound of a woman’s voice singing. As they pressed forward along the level road they came in sight of a cabin, and the blue smoke curling from its short chimney was suggestive of hospitality. ”

“ He possessed both courage and sociability in the highest degree, but he was naturally indolent, and he was proud—too indolent to find pleasure in the whirling confusion of active politics, and too proud to go about his county or his State in the attitude of soliciting the suffrages of his fellow-citizens. That he would have made his mark in politics is certain, for he made it at the bar, where success is much more dearly bought. ”

“ The section through which the grim commander pushed his way to the sea smiles under the application of new and fresher energies. We have discovered that war, horrible as it is, sometimes drags at its bloody tumbril wheel certain fructifying and fertilizing forces. ”

“ Why, where on earth have you been? The old Judge drapped in on the town some weeks ago, an’ he’s been here ever sence. He’s been here long enough for the gal to make up a school. Lord, [199] Lord! What a big swing the world’s in! High on one side, high on t’ other, an’ the old cat a-dyin, in the middle! Why, bless your heart, Joe-Bob! I’ve seed the time when ef old Judge Briscoe Bascom jest so much as bowed to me I’d feel proud fer a week. An’ now look at ’im! Ef I knowed I’d be took off wi’ the dropsy the nex’ minute, I wouldn’t swap places wi’ the poor old creetur. ”