The Southerner | Page 7

This black thing that looked like a man, walked like a man and talked like a man couldn't be one! No real man would grin and laugh and be a slave. The black fool seemed to be happy. He had not only grinned and laughed, but he went away whistling and singing.
In three hours the quilts were finished and the men had gathered for the corn-shucking.
Before eight o'clock the last ear was shucked, and a long white pile of clean husked corn lay glistening in the moonlight where the dark pyramid had stood at sunset.
With a shout the men rose, stretched their legs and washed their hands in the troughs filled with water, provided for the occasion. They sat down to supper at four long tables placed in the kitchen and work room, where the quilts had been stretched.
Never had the Boy seen such a feast--barbecued shoat, turkeys, ducks, chickens, venison, bear meat, sweet potatoes, wild honey, corn dodgers, wheat biscuit, stickies and pound cake--pound cake until you couldn't eat another mouthful and still they brought more!
After the supper the young folks sang and danced before the big fires until ten o'clock, and then the crowd began to thin, and by eleven the last man was gone and the harvest festival was over.
It was nearly twelve before the Boy knelt at his mother's knee to say his prayers.
When the last words were spoken he still knelt, his eyes gazing into the flickering fire.
The mother bent low:
"What are you thinking about, Boy? The house you're going to build for me?"
"No."
"What?"
"That nigger--wasn't he funny? You don't want me to get you any niggers with the house do you?"
"No."
"I didn't think you would," he went on thoughtfully, "because you said General Washington set his slaves free and wanted everybody else to do it too."
He paused and shook his head thoughtfully. "But he was funny--he was laughin' and whistlin' and singin'!"
V
The air of the Southern autumn was like wine. The Boy's heart beat with new life. The scarlet and purple glory of the woods fired his imagination. He found himself whistling and singing at his tasks. He proudly showed a bee tree to his mother, the honey was gathered and safely stored. A barrel of walnuts, a barrel of hickory-nuts and two bushels of chestnuts were piled near his bed in the loft.
But the day his martins left, he came near breaking down. He saw them circle high in graceful sweeping curves over the gourds, chattering and laughing with a strange new note in their cries.
He watched them wistfully. His mother found him looking with shining eyes far up into the still autumn sky. His voice was weak and unsteady when he spoke:
"I--can--hardly--hear--'em--now; they're so high!"
A slender hand touched his tangled hair:
"Don't worry, Boy, they'll come again."
"You're sure, Ma?" he asked, pathetically.
"Sure."
"Will they know when it's time?"
"Some one always tells them."
"Who?"
"God. That's what the Bible means when it says, 'the stork knoweth her appointed time.' I read that to you the other night, don't you remember?"
"But maybe God'll be so busy he'll forget my birds?"
"He never forgets, he counts the beat of a sparrow's wing."
The mother's faith was contagious. The drooping spirit caught the flash of light from her eyes and smiled.
"We'll watch for 'em next spring, won't we? And I'll put up new gourds long before they come!"
Comforted at last, he went to the woods to gather chinquapins. The squirrels were scampering in all directions and he asked his father that night to let him go hunting with him next day.
"All right, Boy!" was the hearty answer. "We'll have some fun this winter."
He paused as he saw the mother's lips suddenly close and a shadow pass over her dark, sensitive face.
"Hit's no use ter worry, Nancy," he went on good-naturedly. "I promised you not ter take him 'less he wanted ter go. But hit's in the blood, and hit's got ter come out."
Tom picked the Boy up and placed him on his knee and stroked his dark head. Sarah crouched at his feet and smiled. He was going to tell about the Indians again. She could tell by the look in his eye as he watched the flames leap over the logs.
"Did ye know, Boy," he began slowly, "that we come out to Kaintuck with Daniel Boone?"
"Did we?"
"Yes sirree, with old Dan'l hisself. It wuz thirty years ago. I wuz a little shaver no bigger'n you, but I remember jest as well ez ef it wuz yistiddy. Lordy, Boy, thar wuz er man that wuz er man! Ye couldn't a made no jackleg carpenter outen him----" He paused and cast a sly wink at Nancy as she bent over her knitting.
"Tell me about him?" the Boy cried.
"Yessir, Dan'l Boone wuz a man an' no mistake. The Indians would ketch 'im an' keep er