The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864

"What is all this, James?" he inquires of his son, who comes out to the gate to meet him.

"Frisbie's meanness!" says the young man, almost choking. "And the whole town is laughing at us!"

"Laughing at us? What have we done?" mildly answers the parent. "I tell you what, James,—they sha'n't laugh at us long. We can live so as to compel them to reverence us; and if there is any ridicule attached to the affair, it will soon rest where it belongs."

"Such a sty stuck right down under our noses!" muttered the mortified James.

"We will make of it an ornament," retorts the Judge, with mounting spirits. "Come with me,"—taking the youth's arm. "My son, call no human habitation a sty. These people are our brothers, and we will show them the kindness of brethren."

A servant receives the horse, and Gingerford and his son cross the street.

"Good evening, Friend Williams! So you have concluded to come and live neighbor to us, have you?"

Friend Williams was at the end of the house, occupied in improvising a cowshed under an old apple-tree. Piggy was already tied to the trunk of the tree, and the hens and turkeys were noisily selecting their roosts in the boughs. At sight of the Judge, whose displeasure he feared, the negro was embarrassed, and hardly knew what to say. But the pleasant greeting of the silver-toned voice reassured him, and he stopped his work to frame his candid, respectful answer.

"It was Mr. Frisbie that concluded. All I had to do was to go with the house wherever he chose to move it."

"Well, he might have done much worse by you. You have a nice landlord, a nice landlord, Mr. Williams. Mr. Frisbie is a very fine man."

It was Gingerford's practice to speak well of everybody with whom he had any personal relations, and especially well of his enemies; because, as he used to say to his son, evil words commonly do more harm to him who utters them than to those they are designed to injure, while fair and good words are easily spoken, and are the praise of their author, if of nobody else: for, if the subject of them is a bad man, they will not be accepted as literally true by any one that knows him, but, on the contrary, they will be set down to the credit of your good-nature,—or who knows but they may become coals of fire upon the head of your enemy, and convert him into a friend?

James had now an opportunity to test the truth of these observations. Was Mr. Williams convinced that Frisbie was a nice landlord and a fine man? By no means. But that Judge Gingerford was a fine man, and a charitable, he believed more firmly than ever. Then there was Stephen standing by,—having, no doubt, been sent by his master to observe the chagrin of the Gingerfords, and to bring back the report thereof; who, when he heard the Judge's words, looked surprised and abashed, and presently stole away, himself discomfited.

"I pray the Lord," said Mr. Williams, humbly and heartily, "you won't consider us troublesome neighbors."

"I hope not," replied the Judge; "and why should I? You have a good, honest reputation, Friend Williams; and I hear that you are a peaceable and industrious family. We ought to be able to serve each other in many ways. What can I do for you, to begin with? Wouldn't you like to turn your cow and calf into my yard?"

"Thank you a thousand times,—if I can, just as well as not," said the grateful negro. "We had to tear down the shed and pig-pen when we moved the house, and I ha'n't had time to set 'em up again."

"And I imagine you have had enough to do, for one day. Let your children drive the creatures through the gate yonder; my man will show them the shed. Are you a good gardener, Mr. Williams?"

"Wal, I've done consid'able at that sort of work, Sir."

"I'm glad of that. I have to hire a good deal of gardening done. I see we are going to be very much obliged to your landlord for bringing us so near together. And this is your father?"

"My grandfather, Sir," said Mr. Williams.

"Your grandfather? I must shake hands with him."

"Sarvant, Sah," said the old man, cap off, bowing and smiling there in the December twilight.

"He's deaf as can be," said Mr. Williams; "you'll have to talk loud, to make him hear. He's more 'n a hunderd year old."

"You astonish me!" exclaimed the Judge. "A very remarkable old person! I should delight to converse with him,—to know what his thoughts are in these new times, and what his memories are of the past, which, I suppose, is even now more familiar to his mind than the objects of to-day. God bless you, my venerable friend!" shaking hands a second time with the ancient black, and speaking in a loud voice.

"Tankee, Sah,—very kind," smiled the flattered old man. "Sarvant, Sah."

"'Tis you who are kind, to take notice of young fellows like me," pleasantly replied the Judge.—"Well, good evening, friends. I shall always be glad to know if there is anything I can do for you. Ha! what is this?"

It was the cow and calf coming back again, followed by Joe and Fessenden's.

"Gorry!" cried Joe,—"wa'n't that man mad? Thought he'd bite th' ole cow's tail off!"

"What man? My man?"

"Yes," said honest Fessenden's; "he said he'd be damned if he'd have a nigger's critters along with his'n!"

"Then we'll afford him an early opportunity to be damned," observed the Judge. "Drive them back again. I'll go with you.—By the way, Mr. Williams,"—Gingerford saw his man approaching, and spoke loud enough for him to hear and understand,—"are you accustomed to taking care of horses? I may find it necessary to employ some one before long."

"Wal, yes, Sir; I'm tol'able handy about a stable," replied the negro.

"Hollo, there!" called the man, somewhat sullenly, "drive that cow back here! Why didn't you tell me 't was the boss's orders?"

"Did tell him so; and he said as how I lied," said Joe,—driving the animals back again triumphantly.

The Judge departed with his son,—a thoughtful and aspiring youth, who pondered deeply what he had seen and heard, as he walked by his father's side. And Mr. Williams, greatly relieved and gratified by the interview, hastened to relate to his family the good news. And the praises of Gingerford were on all their tongues, and in their prayers that night he was not forgotten.

Three days after, the Judge's man was dismissed from his place, in consequence of difficulties originating in the affair of the cow. The Judge had sought an early opportunity to converse with him on the subject.

"A negro's cow," said he, "is as good as anybody's cow; and I consider Mr. Williams as good a man as you are."

The white coachman couldn't stand that; and the result was that the Gingerfords had a black coachman in a few days. The situation was offered to Mr. Williams, and very glad he was to accept it.

Thus the wrath of man continued to work the welfare of these humble Christians. It is reasonable to doubt whether the Judge was at heart delighted with his new neighbors; and jolly Mr. Frisbie enjoyed the joke somewhat less, I suspect, than he anticipated. One party enjoyed it, nevertheless. It was a serious and solid satisfaction to the Williams family. No member of which, with the exception, perhaps, of Joe, exhibited greater pleasure at the change in their situation than the old patriarch. It rejuvenated him. His hearing was almost restored. "One move more," he said, "and I shall be young and spry agin as the day I got my freedom,"—that day, so many, many years ago, which he so well remembered! Well, the "one move more" was near; and the morning of a new freedom, the morning of a more perfect youth and gladness, was not distant.

It was the old man's delight to go out and sit in the sun before the door, in the clear December weather, and pull off his cap to the Judge as he passed. To get a bow, and perhaps a kind word, from the illustrious Gingerford, was glory enough for one day, and the old man invariably hurried into the house to tell of it.

But one morning a singular thing occurred. To all appearances—to the eyes of all except one—he remained sitting out there in the sun after the Judge had gone. But Fessenden's, looking up suddenly, and staring at vacancy, cried,—

"Hollo!"

"What, child?" asked Mrs. Williams.

"The old man!" said Fessenden's. "Comin' into the door! Don't ye see him?"

Nobody saw him but the lad; and of course all were astonished by his earnest announcement of the apparition. The old grandmother hastened to look out. There sat her father still, on the bench by the apple-tree, leaning against the trunk. But the sight did not satisfy her. She ran out to him. The smile of salutation was still on his lips, which seemed just saying, "Sarvant, Sah," to the Judge. But those lips would never move again. They were the lips of death.

"What is the matter, Williams?" asked the Judge, on his return home that afternoon.

"My gran'ther is dead, Sir; and I don't know where to bury him." This was the negro's quiet and serious answer.

"Dead?" ejaculates the Judge. "Why, I saw him only this morning, and had a smile from him!"

"That was his last smile, Sir. You can see it on his face yet. He went to heaven with that smile, we trust."

To heaven? a negro in heaven? If that is so, some of us, I suppose, will no longer wish to go there. Or do you imagine that you will have need of servants in paradise, and that that is what Christian niggers are for? Or do you believe that in the celestial congregations there will also be a place set aside for the colored brethren,—a glorified niggers' pew? You scowl; you don't like a joke upon so serious a subject? Hypocrite! do you see nothing but a joke here?

The Judge leaves everything and goes home with his coachman. Sure enough! there is the same smile he saw in the morning, frozen on the face of the corpse.

"Gently and late death came to him!" says Gingerford. "Would we could all die as happy! There is no occasion to mourn, my good woman."

"Bless the Lord, I don't mourn!" replied the old negress. "But I'm so brimful of thanks, I must cry for 't! He died a blessed ole Christian; an' he's gone straight to glory, if there's anything in the promises. He is free now, if he never was afore;—for, though they pretend there a'n't no slaves in this 'ere State, an' the law freed us years ago, seems to me there a'n't no r'al liberty for us, 'cept this!" She pointed at the corpse, then threw up her eyes and hands with an expression of devout and joyful gratitude. "He's gone where there a'n't no predijice agin color, bless the Lord! He's gone where all them that's been washed with the blood of Christ is all of one color in His sight!" Then turning to the Judge,—"And you'll git your reward, Sir, be sure o' that!"

"My reward?" And Gingerford, touched with genuine emotion, shook his head, sadly.

"Yes, Sir, your reward," repeated the old woman, tenderly arranging the sheet over the still breast, and still, folded hands of the corpse. "For makin' his last days happy,—for makin' his last minutes happy, I may say. That 'ere smile was for you, Sir. You was kinder to him 'n folks in gin'ral. He wa'n't used to 't. An' he felt it. An' he's gone to glory with the news on 't. An' it'll be sot down to your credit there, in the Big Book."

Where was the Judge's eloquence? He could not find words to frame a fitting reply to this ignorant black woman, whose emotion was so much deeper than any fine phrases of his could reach, and whose simple faith and gratitude overwhelmed him with the sudden conviction that he had never yet said anything to the purpose, in all his rhetorical defences of the down-trodden race. From that conviction came humility. Out of humility rose inspiration. Two days later his eloquence found tongue; and this was the occasion of it:—

The body of the old negro was to be buried. That he should be simply put into the ground, and nothing said, any more than as if he were a brute beast, did not seem befitting the obsequies of so old a man and so faithful a Christian. The family had natural feelings on that subject. They wanted to have a funeral sermon.

Now it so happened that there was to be another funeral in the village about that time. The old minister, had he been living, might have managed to attend both. But the young minister couldn't think of such a thing. The loveliest flower of maidenhood in his parish had been cut down. One of the first families had been bereaved. Day and night he must ponder and scribble to prepare a suitable discourse. And then, having exhausted spiritual grace in bedecking the tomb of the lovely, should he,—good gracious! could he descend from those heights of beauty and purity to the grave of a superannuated negro? Could divine oratory so descend?

"On that fair mountain leave to feed,And batten on this moor"?

Ought the cup of consolation, which he extended to his best, his worthiest friends and parishioners, to be passed in the same hour to thick African lips?

Which questions were, of course, decided in the negative. There was another minister in the village, but he was sick. What should be done? To go wandering about the world in search of somebody to preach the funeral sermon seemed a hard case,—as Mr. Williams remarked to the Judge.

"Tell you what, Williams," said the Judge,—"don't give yourself any more trouble on that account. I'm not a minister, nor half good enough for one,"—he could afford to speak disparagingly of himself, the beautiful, gracious gentleman!—"but if you can't do any better, I'll be present and say a few words at the funeral."

"Thank you a thousand times!" said the grateful negro. "Couldn't be nothin' better 'n that! We never expected no such honor; an' if my ole gran'ther could have knowed you would speak to his funeral, he'd have been proud, Sir!"

"He was a simple-minded old soul!" replied the Judge, pleasantly. "And you're another, Williams! However, I am glad you are satisfied. So this difficulty is settled, too." For already one very serious difficulty had been arranged through this man's kindness.

Did I neglect to mention it,—how, when the old negro died, his family had no place to bury him? The rest of his race, dying before him, had been gathered to the mother's bosom in distant places: long lines of dusky ancestors in Africa; a few descendants in America,—here and there a grave among New-England hills. Only one, a child of Mr. Williams's, had died in Timberville, and been placed in the old burying-ground over yonder. But that was now closed against interments. And as for purchasing a lot in the new cemetery,—how could poor Mr. Williams ever hope to raise money to pay for it?

"Williams," said the Judge, "I own several lots there, and if you'll be a good boy, I'll make you a present of one."

Ah, Gingerford! Gingerford! was it pure benevolence that prompted the gift? Was the smile with which you afterwards related the circumstance to dear Mrs. Gingerford a smile of sincere satisfaction at having done a good action and witnessed the surprise and gratitude of your black coachman? Tell us, was it altogether an accident, with no tincture whatever of pleasant malice in it, that the lot you selected, out of several, to be the burial-place of negroes, lay side by side with the proud family-vault of your neighbor Frisbie?

The Judge was one of those cool heads, who, when they have received an injury, do not go raving of it up and down, but put it quietly aside, and keep their temper, and rest content to wait patiently, perhaps years, perhaps a lifetime, for the opportunity of a sudden and pat revenge. Indeed, I suppose he would have been well satisfied to answer Frisbie's spite with the nobler revenge of magnanimity and smiling forbearance, had not the said opportunity presented itself. It was a temptation not to be resisted. And he, the most philanthropical of men, proved himself capable of being also the most cruel.

There, in the choicest quarter of the cemetery, shone the white ancestral monuments of the Frisbies. Death, the leveller, had not, somehow, levelled them,—proud and pretentious even in their tombs. You felt, as you read the sculptured record of their names and virtues, that even their ashes were better than the ashes of common mortals. They rendered sacred not only the still inclosure where they lay, but all that beautiful sunny bank; so that nobody else had presumed to be buried near them, but a space of many square rods on either side was left still unappropriated,—until now, when, lo! here comes a black funeral, and the corpse of one who had been a slave in his day, to profane the soil!

Nor is this all, alas! There comes not one funeral procession only. The first has scarcely entered the cemetery, when a second arrives. Side by side the dead of this day are to be laid: our old friend the negro, and the lovely young lady we have mentioned,—even the fairest of Mr. Frisbie's own children.

For it is she. The sweetest of the faces Fessenden's saw that stormy night at the window, and yearned to be within the bright room where the fire, was,—that dear warm face is cold in yonder coffin which the afflicted family are attending to the tomb.

And Frisbie, as we have somewhere said, loved his children. And in the anguish of his bereavement he had not heeded the singular and somewhat humiliating fact that his daughter had issued from the portal of Time in company with one of his most despised tenants,—that, in the same hour, almost at the same moment, Death had summoned them, leading them together, as it were, one with his right hand, and one with his left, the way of all the world. So that here was a surprise for the proud and grief-smitten parent.

"What is all that, Stephen?" he demands, with sudden consternation.

"It seems to be another funeral, Sir. They're buryin' somebody next lot to yours."

"Who, who, Stephen?"

"I—I ruther guess it's the old nigger, Sir," says Stephen.

The mighty man is shaken. Wrath and sorrow and insulted affection convulse him for a moment. His face grows purple, then pale, and he struggles with his neckcloth, which is choking him. He sees the tall form of Gingerford at the grave, and knows what it is to wish to murder a man. Were those two Christian neighbors quite alone, in this solitude of the dead, I fear one of them would soon be a fit subject for a coroner's inquest and an epitaph. O pride and hatred! with what madness can you inspire a mortal man! O Fessenden's! bless thy stars that thou art not the only fool alive this day, nor the greatest!

Fessenden's walked alone to the funeral, talking by himself, and now and then laughing. Gentleman Bill thought his conduct indecorous, and reproved him for it.

"Gracious!" said the lad, "don't you see who I'm talkin' with?"

"No, Sir,—I can't say I see anybody, Sir."

"No?" exclaimed the astonished youth. "Why, it's the old man, goin' to his own funeral!"

This, you may say, was foolishness; but, oh, it was innocent and beautiful foolishness, compared with that of Frisbie and his sympathizers, when they discovered the negro burial, and felt that their mourning was too respectable to be the near companion of the mourning of those poor blacks, and that their beautiful dead was too precious to be laid in the earth beside their dead.

What could be done? Indignation and sorrow availed nothing. The tomb of the lovely was prepared, and it only remained to pity the affront to her ashes, as she was committed to the chill depths amid silence and choking tears. It is done; and the burial of the old negro is deferentially delayed until the more aristocratic rites are ended.

Gingerford set the example of standing with his hat off in the yellow sunshine and wintry air, with his noble head bowed low, while the last prayer was said at the maiden's sepulture. Then he lifted up his face, radiant; and the flashing and rainbow-spanned torrent of his eloquence broke forth. He had reserved his forces for this hour. He had not the Williams family and their friends alone for an audience, but many who had come to attend the young lady's funeral remained to hear the Judge. It was worth their while. Finely as he had discoursed at the hut of the negroes, before the corpse was brought out, that was scarcely the time, that was certainly not the place, for a crowning effort of his genius. But here, his larger audience, the open air, the blue heavens, the graves around, the burial of the young girl side by side with the old slave, all contributed to inspire him. Human brotherhood, universal love, the stern democracy of death, immortality,—these were his theme. Life, incrusted with conventionalities; Death, that strips them all away. This is the portal (pointing to the grave) at which the soul drops all its false incumbrances,—rank, riches, sorrow, shame. It enters naked into eternity. There worldly pride and arrogance have no place. There false judgment goes out like a sick man's night-lamp, in the morning light of truth. In the courts of God only spiritual distinctions prevail. That you were a lord in this life will be of no account there, where the humblest Christian love is preferred before the most brilliant selfishness,—where the master is degraded, and the servant is exalted. And so forth, and so forth; a brief, but eloquent address, of which it is to be regretted that no report exists.

Then came the prayer,—for the Judge had a gift that way too; and the tenderness and true feeling with which he spoke of the old negro and the wrongs of his race drew tears from many eyes. Then a hymn was sung,—those who had stayed to sneer joining their voices seriously with those of the lowly mourners.

A few days later, Mr. Williams had the remains of his child taken from the old burying-ground, and brought here, and laid beside the patriarch. And before spring, simple tombstones of white marble (at Gingerford's expense) marked the spot, and commemorated the circumstances of the old man's extreme age and early bondage.

And before spring, alas! three other graves were added to that sunny bank! One by one, all those fair children whom Fessenden's had seen in the warm room where the fire was had followed their sister to the tomb. So fast they followed that Mr. Frisbie had no time to move his family-vault from the degrading proximity of the negro graves. And Fessenden's still lived, an orphan, yet happy, in the family of blacks which had adopted him; while the parents of those children, who had loved them, were left alone in the costly house, desolate. Was it, as some supposed, a judgment upon Frisbie for his pride? I cannot tell. I only know, that, in the end, that pride was utterly broken,—and that, when the fine words of the young minister failed to console him, when sympathizing friends surrounded him, and Gingerford came to visit him, and they were reconciled, he turned from them all, and gratefully received hope and comfort from the lips of a humble old Christian who had nursed the last of his children in her days and nights of suffering, almost against his will.

That Christian? It was the old negro woman.

Early in the spring, Mr. Williams–But no more! Haven't we already prolonged our sketch to an intolerable length, considering the subject of it? Not a lover in it! and, of course, it is preposterous to think of making a readable story without one. Why didn't we make young Gingerford in love with—let's see—Miss Frisbie? and Miss Frisbie's brother (it would have required but a stroke of the pen to give her one) in love with—Creshy Williams? What melodramatic difficulties might have been built upon this foundation! And as for Fessenden's being a fool and a pauper, he should turn out to be the son of some proud man, either Gingerford or Frisbie. But it is too late now. We acknowledge our fatal mistake. Who cares for the fortunes of a miserable negro family? Who cares to know the future of Mr. Williams, or of any of his race?

Suffice it, then, to say, that, as for the Williamses, God has taken care of them in every trial,—turning even the wrath of enemies to their advantage, as we have seen; just as He will, no doubt, in His fatherly kindness, provide for that unhappy race which is now in the perilous crisis of its destiny, and concerning which so many, both its friends and enemies, are anxiously asking, "What will become of them?"

FORGOTTEN

In this dim shadow, whereShe found the quiet which all tired hearts crave,Now, without grief or care,The wild bees murmur, and the blossoms wave,And the forgetful airBlows heedlessly across her grassy grave.Yet, when she lived on earth,She loved this leafy dell, and knew by nameAll things of sylvan birth;Squirrel and bird chirped welcome, when she came:Yet now, in careless mirth,They frisk, and build, and warble all the same.From the great city near,Wherein she toiled through life's incessant quest,For weary year on year,Come the far voices of its deep unrest,To touch her dead, deaf ear,And surge unechoed o'er her pulseless breast.The hearts which clung to herHave sought out other shrines, as all hearts must,When Time, the comforter,Has worn their grief out, and replaced their trust:Not even neglect can stirThis little handful of forgotten dust.Grass waves, and insects hum,And then the snow blows bitterly across;Strange footsteps go and come,Breaking the dew-drops on the starry moss:She lieth still and dumb,And counts no longer any gain or loss.Ah, well,—'t is better so;Let the dust deepen as the years increase;Of her who sleeps belowLet the name perish and the memory cease,Since she has come to knowThat which through life she vainly prayed for,—Peace!