IT wuz dretful sudden, as we count suddenness. But then we don’t know down here in this dark Earth Valley, with high mountains a towerin’ up on each side on us that we can’t see through—we can’t really tell what to call the onexpected, or the expected.
I spoze if we wuz high enough up to see the light and beauty of the Divine Plan, we shouldn’t call anything the onexpected.
But it seemed dretful sudden to us that Miss Seybert should be took down voyalent with a fever that wuz a prevailin’ round Eden Centre, and should die off the second day after the attack.
And for all the world it would seem as if havin’ waited on her through all time, and she laid out to go on a doin’ it through all eternity, old Phyllis, Victor’s mother, jest follered right on after her the next day.
Some say she took the disease a hangin’ over her bed and a waitin’ on her.
But anyway, she passed away the very next day, and wuz buried right at the feet of her beloved “Miss Alice.”
Col. Seybert wuz away on one of his annual wild-cat excursions, so her wishes wuz carried out. And she had her old friend nigh her through the long sleep, jest as she always had had her durin’ her fitful sleep for years. But they both slept well now, and wuzn’t no more to be disturbed by drunken abuse nor mournful forebodings. No, they slept sound and sweet.
Victor mourned deep, deep for ’em both—it would be hard to tell which he mourned for most.
But after the first shock of his heart-felt grief had passed away, he felt that the last ties had been broke now that bound him to this land.
He felt that God had showed him more plain by this dispensation what He wanted him to do.
And as everything wuz ripe for the exodus, and he felt that he could not remain an hour under Col. Seybert’s roof, now that the necessity for his remainin’ had been removed, everything pointed to an immediate departure for Africa.
The party who wuz to go with him wuz all ready, eager, resolute, prepared, only waitin’ for the word of their leader.
And he wuz ready to go. But first he must be married to the light of his eyes, the desire of his heart. And under the circumstances of the case we could not counsel any great delay.
And though, as I said, Victor wuz a mourner, and a deep mourner for his mother and sister mistress, still it wuz mebby partly for that reason that he wuz so happy in the thought of havin’ a sweet wife and a sweet home of his own.
And it wuz a pretty sight to witness the love of Victor and Genieve. And though we all hated to lose her, we wuz happy in the thought of her happiness and her approachin’ marriage.
As for me, though mebby I didn’t say so much, I did the more. I wuz a knittin’ some of the very finest linen edgin’ out of number ninety thread to trim a hull suit of underclothes for her. And if any one would examine close the fineness of the thread, they could see the delicacy and tenderness of my feelin’s for her, and the strength.
I had bought some of the very finest muslin I could get to make the garments of. So, as I say, if I didn’t say so much, mebby I did the more, and acted.
Maggie and Thomas J. wuz goin’ to get her a bedroom set in pretty light wood, and Maggie wuz embroiderin’ some beautiful covers for the bureau, and washstand, and table.
It wuz a pattern of pink and pale blue mornin’ glories on a sort of a cream-colored ground.
They wuz goin’ to be lovely.
Little Snow wanted to do sunthin’, and I told her she should.
So I, myself, cut her out some little linen napkins, and let her fringe out the edges, and I laid out to orniment ’em myself for her in cat stitch. Cat is a very handsome stitch.
And as I sez, we wuz all happy in witnessin’ Genieve’s happiness, which wuz glowin’ and radiant, and Victor’s calm, deep bliss. For he could not undo the past. And the Bible sez a man shall leave all and cleave to his wife. And he wuz only a followin’ the Skripter.
He had been a good son, no better could be found—a good, faithful helper and friend to his mistress; and I felt that he could leave ’em in their peaceful graves and walk off into the Eden road of his happy love with no reflections, and with the desire of his heart.
Col. Seybert wuz ragin’, as we knew, at the thought that his trusty servant wuz goin’ to leave him. He wuz invaluable to him in so many ways. He had no other man in his employ so trustworthy; no one else who would take care of his business durin’ the frequent intervals when he wuz incapable of it; no one else who wuz so honest, so reliable, so intelligent; for Victor wuz one who would do his duty, and do a good day’s work, if he wuz workin’ for Nero or the Old Harry himself, though you wouldn’t ketch him a workin’ for this last-named personage—no, indeed.
Col. Seybert raged over the idee of Victor’s leavin’ him; he had always ruled everything about him, bent everything to his wishes.
And now “this black dog,” as he named Victor in his scornful wrath, had dared to defy him. And worse still, the very best and most intelligent of his hands, nearly all the younger ones, had been influenced by Victor’s purpose and teachin’s, and wuz makin’ preparations to leave this sin-cursed South, that had held only misery and humiliation for them, and join him in his colony in Africa.
Col. Seybert knew, through his spy Burley, that they wuz secretly and quietly makin’ preparations to leave him and go to the New Republic—some of them to go with Victor and his party, some of them to go with the next party fitted out.
HIRAM WIGGINS’S TWO DAUGHTERS.
Deep in his heart and loudly to his chosen friends did Col. Seybert curse Victor—his long-sufferin’ brother, as I would and did call him in my mind—I would.
Why, good land! if Victor had been translated to the court of some mighty kingdom and been proclaimed king, wouldn’t Col. Seybert have claimed relationship with him pretty quick?
Yes, cupidity and ambition would have propped him up on both sides, and he would have proclaimed the fact through his brother’s kingdom that he wuz brother to the king.
Wall, if he wuz his brother under one set of circumstances, I say he wuz under any other.
He wuz his half-brother; if every other evidence had failed to assure the relationship, the portrait of old Gen. Seybert down in the long drawin’ room of Seybert Court would have proclaimed the fact to a gainsaying world. He wuz a fur truer son to Gen. Seybert than Reginald wuz. For by all the ties of congenial tastes, mind, and spirit, he wuz the courtly old Southerner’s true son and heir.
Reginald had always been and always would be true son and heir of Hiram Wiggins, the manufacturin’ tailor. Although as relationships go in this world, he wuz only his grandnephew.
But he had laid claim, and wuz the only possessor of all his crafty, cruel, brutal, aggressive nature, his low habits and tastes, his insolent, half bold, half meachin’ manners.
Hiram Wiggins’es own children wuz two old maid daughters, so meek they could hardly say their souls wuz their own.
They worked samplers, copied from their mother’s, and regulated their behavior on this model, which wuz a eminently Christian one, and did much good in a modest, unassumin’ way with the wealth their father had heaped up. They wuz the children of their mother, and their cousin Reginald, true son of their father.
But I am a eppisodin’, and to resoom.
Col. Seybert, like all men of his class, had some choice spirits that copied his manners and carried out his plans. And among them all who toadied to him and carried out his base plans, the foremost one wuz Nick Burley, as we have said prior and before this.
He hated Victor as much as Col. Seybert did. One of the causes of Burley’s dislike was what feeds enmity so often in base natures—Victor wuz so superior to him that Burley wuz always oncomfortable in his presence.
To be with a young man who neither drank, swore, nor tore the characters of women to tatters, and boasted of great deeds in love and valor, wuz to Burley incomprehensible. What wuz mysterious must be wrong.
And then Victor evidently shunned the society of Burley, and avoided him whenever he could. And as Burley wuz a white man and Victor “a damned nigger,” such a state of things wuz not to be borne.
Col. Seybert had, we may be sure, fanned the coals of hatred to a still greater heat, till at last they wuz at a white glow, and Nick Burley wuz ready to do any act that Col. Seybert recommended, anything for vengeance and “to show that cussed black dog not to feel above a gentleman and a white man.”
And Col. Seybert and Burley had subtly played upon the ignorance and superstition of the lower black element about them, so they had come to look upon Victor as their enemy and the enemy of his people.
He who had all his life long sought only the good of his race, planned through long, wakeful nights for their advancement, and had labored early and late for an education, mainly for the reason that he could help them better—so ignorant wuz they that they could see nothin’ of this, and looked at him through the hate-prejudiced eyes of his enemies.
His preachin’ to his people to be patient under their wrongs and to return good for evil; his warnings to them aginst their habits of lawlessness, and laziness, and theft; his pleadings with them to turn in their evil ways and try to become decent citizens; his admonitions that their future lay in their own hands, and they could become, by the grace of God and by hard work and education, whatever they chose to be, had been mistaken by these more ignorant ones. And subtly wrought upon by Col. Seybert and Burley, they looked upon Victor as one who, while he taught them lessons of patience, and meekness, and unselfishness, wuz himself carryin’ on a secret plan for their humiliation and his own personal wealth and ambition.
Victor knew something of this secret antagonism towards him from the lower black element and his revengeful white enemies, but he hardly knew how strong it wuz.
And so the mills of the gods wuz turnin’ slowly but surely, and slavery, and oppression, and class hatred, and personal spite, and bitterness, and social contempt, and ignorance wuz gettin’ ready to be ground out into the food whereby Vengeance and Horror should be sated.
Very quickly but very surely wuz the preparations goin’ on for Victor’s departure for the colony.
Nearly all of them who wuz goin’ with him had been able to get a little money ahead.
On an average, they had about five hundred dollars each.
Some had more than this, and wuz takin’ out wife, or children, or parents, who had less; so that the actual amount each member of the colony would have would be about five hundred dollars.
Victor had planned that, with careful and prudent management in that warm climate, where no extra amount wuz needed for fuel or heavy clothin’, where food of a certain kind could be obtained almost by pickin’ it off the trees about them, where a very simple and cheap cabin would be all the shelter and protection they might need—
He thought that this money, in the hands of intelligent and prudent managers, would keep the colony fed and clothed, buy necessary tools and stock, and keep them in comfort till they could raise crops in their own home.
Father Gasperin, the good missionary who had labored all his life amongst the black people, wuz goin’ with them, and he, havin’ the love and confidence of them all, Victor had made chief adviser and treasurer of the company.
Father Gasperin had a good deal of influence with them high in authority (he had renounced a high name and estate to dwell amongst and labor for the poor and lowly). He had made all the necessary arrangements with parties in Africa, and the site of the location wuz already chosen.
When Cousin John Richard decided to cast in his lot with the colonists, Victor wuz overjoyed, for he felt that the good he would accomplish could hardly be estimated in teachin’, and preachin’, and helpin’ the colony in every way.
Their future home wuz a beautiful valley lyin’ between two low, heavily wooded mountain ranges, and a clear river runnin’ through it to the sea.
A sheltered, lovely spot, but with pure air flowin’ in from the east and the west along the course of the sparklin’ river.
“A CLEAR RIVER RUNNING THROUGH.”
This river they looked to as bein’ for the present their highway out to the nearest town, some twenty miles away.
And already in his mind Victor saw the white sails of their boats bearin’ away the fruit of their hands to be exchanged for articles of necessity and comfort.
He could see the little wharf where these boats should come back laden with comforts for his people and news from the great world.
He imagined Genieve and himself standin’ at the door of their tiny cottage, in the golden sunset or the golden dawn, lookin’ down this sparklin’ highway fringed with glistenin’ palm-trees.
He could almost hear the song of the gayly hued birds as they called out to their mates in the glossy foliage overhead.
Here wuz home, here wuz peace, here wuz independence for a long-enslaved and tortured people.
Hard work he knew there must be, and perhaps hard fare for a time; but the reward would be so sweet that it would sweeten toil. It would not be like the hopeless, onthanked-for, onrewarded drudgery for them who returned insults and curses for patient labor, and too often blows and stingin’ lashes.
Felix and Hester wuz makin’ all preparations to go with Victor. On him Victor counted as one who could be relied upon to help the weaker ones, to be a guide and an example of what the black man could do and be.
For Felix, so far as he knew, had not a drop of white blood in his veins, and he wuz faithful, honest, hard-workin’ and intelligent.
Three times he had had his home broken up and his earnings stolen from him by this cursed, unslain spirit of slavery.
But he had agin, by his industry and frugality and by Hester’s help, earned and laid by the sum Victor thought necessary for each colonist to possess, and he and Hester wuz ready to make another start in the New Republic.
He had decided not to build another home in the soil guarded by the American eagle.
He knew the fowl to be largely boasted about as bein’ the first and noblest bird beneath the skies. But he felt that he had been pecked by its too sharp bill, he had been clawed by its talons, he had been wearied by its loud, boastin’, resonant voice.
No, he would make no more homes under the skies where that eagle built its nest.
He wuz ready for a newer republic.
He felt that he would ruther dare the soft embraces of the biggest African serpents than be enfolded about by our beneficent civilization.
He wuz embittered, that wuz a fact. But when we see what he had gone through, I don’t know as anybody could blame him.
But anyway, he wuz ready to go.
And so the days rolled by one after another, as they always will, whether you are gay or sorrowful, whether the hours seem weighted down with lead or tipped with fleet sunbeams.
And to Genieve and Victor all sadness and shadows lay fur away like a faint cloud in the horizon, almost unseen and forgotten in the clear sunshine of their happiness. For true love will make happiness everywhere. Everything looked prosperous, and I had got my edgin’ done, and Maggie and I had made the nice linen garments and ornimented ’em with the lace.
They looked beautiful.
Little Snow’s work on the napkins wuz done, and the cat stitch almost completed—a few stitches only of the cat remained to do, then they would be done.
Maggie had completed her pretty embroidered covers, and they lay folded up on top of a pretty sashay-bag of sweet perfumery in the bureau-draws of the handsome chamber set, and that wuz all packed away in a strong box ready for the voyage.
The weddin’ dress had come home all finished, even to the pretty lace in the neck and sleeves.
It wuz white mull, and I knew Genieve would look like a picture in it.
