MY FRIEND PHIL[2]
TO begin with, Phil was black.
The reader will please understand that the word “black” is here used in its literal, and not in its conventional, sense. Phil was actually as well as ethnologically black. There was no trace of a lighter tint anywhere in his complexion. Not a suspicion of brown appeared in his cheeks, and even his great thick lips, protruding far beyond the outposts of his nose, were as sable as the rest of his face. It was all a dead black, too, unaccompanied by that lustre which, by surface reflection, relieves the shadow upon commonplace African faces.
And nobody knew all this better than Phil did.
“Phil ain’t none o’ yer coffee-colored niggas,” he would say in moments of exultation, when his mood was to straighten his broad shoulders and boast a little. “Phil ain’t none o’ yer coffee-colored niggas, ner none o’ yer alapacker niggas, nuther. Ise black, I is. Dat’s sho’. Ain’t got no bacon-rind shine in my skin; but I jes’ tell yer what, mastah, Phil kin jes’ take the very shut offen dem shiny niggas an’ hoff an’ hoff niggas, when’t comes to de wuk. Drive? Kin I? Kin Phil drive? What yer mean, mastah, by axin’ such a question?”
Nobody had asked Phil such a question; but Phil had some remarks that he wanted to make on the subject of his accomplishments in this respect, and was disposed to answer what he wished somebody would ask.
“Drive? Co’se I kin. Der never was a hoss ner mule yit whatever had a mouf an’ two laigs dat Phil can’t han’le, an’ yer better b’lieve, mastah, Phil can plaunt de wheel ’twix’ de acorn an’ de shell.”
If I report Phil’s boastings, it is only because they constitute too large a proportion of what he said to be omitted. I do so to confirm, not to gainsay them, or to hold their author up to ridicule.
He was my friend, the faithfulest one I ever knew, and now he is dead.
If he boasted now and then, no one could have had a better right. His was the pride of performance, and not the vanity of pretension.
Phil was a Virginian—and a gentleman in his way—and a slave, though I doubt if he ever suspected his gentility, or felt his bondage as a burden in the least. He had no aspirations for freedom or for anything else, I think, except jollity and comfort. I do not say that this was well, but it was a fact.
My acquaintance with Phil began when I was a half-grown boy. Until that time I had lived in a free state, so that when I had returned to the land of my fathers, and become an inmate of the old family mansion in one of the south-side counties of Virginia, the plantation negro was a fresh and very interesting study to me.
On the morning after my arrival, as I lay in the antique carved bed assigned to me, wondering at the quaint picturesqueness of my surroundings, and the delightful strangeness of the life which I was now in contact with for the first time, a weird, musical sound, of singular power and marvellous sweetness, floated through the open dormer windows, borne upon the breath of such a June morning as I had never before seen. I listened, but could make nothing of it by guessing. It was music, certainly, at least a “concord of sweet sounds.” It rose and fell like the ground swell of the sea, and was as full of melody and sweetness as is the song of birds, but it was as destitute as they of anything like a tune. It began nowhere, and went nowhither. I had no memory of anything with which to compare it, and could conceive of no throat or instrument capable of producing such a sound. On the great piazza below, at the front of the house, sat the master of the mansion. Of him I straightway made inquiry.
“What is that?” I asked curiously.
“Phil,” answered my uncle.
“And who is ‘Phil,’ and what on earth is he doing, and especially how is he doing it?”
“He is calling the hogs, and you may be sure he is doing it well. If you’ll walk up to that skirt of woods, you can put your other questions to him in person. He is not shy or difficult of approach. Introduce yourself—be sure to tell him whose son you are.”
My uncle’s face wore an amused smile as I walked away. He could imagine the sequel.
In the edge of the timber stood a tall, broad-shouldered, brawny negro man. He was singularly ugly, but with a countenance so full of good humor that I was irresistibly attracted by it from the first. At his feet stood great baskets of corn, and around him were gathered a hundred or more swine, busily eating the breakfast he was dispensing. As I approached, his hat—what there was of it—was doffed. I was greeted with a fabulous bow, apparently meant to be half a tribute of respect, and half a bit of buffoonery, indulged in for my amusement or his own.
“Good mawnin’, young mastah. I hope I see you well dis mawnin’.”
“Thank you, I’m very well,” I replied. “You’re Phil, I suppose?”
“You’re right, fo’ dis wunst, young mastah. Ise Phil toe be sho’. Ax der hawgs—dey done know me.”
“Well, Phil, I’m glad to make your acquaintance. I’m your mas’ Jo’s son.”
“What dat? Mas’ Jo’s son! MAS’ JO’S SON!! MY MAS’ JO’S SON!!! Lem me shake han’s wid you, mastah. Jes’ to think! MAS’ JO’S SON! An’ Phil done live to shake han’s wid mas’ Jo’s son. Why, my young mastah, I done raise your father! Him an’ me done play ma’bles togeder many and many a time. We was boys togeder right heah, on dis very identumcal plauntation. Used to go in swimmin’ togeder, an’ go fishin’ an’ steal de mules out’n de stables Sundays, an’ ride races wid ’em and git cotched, too, sometimes when ole mastah git home from chu’ch. MY MASTAH. But Ise glad to see yer.”
All this while the great giant was wrenching my hand well-nigh off, laughing and weeping alternately, and stamping with a delight which could find no other vent than in physical exertion. I was naturally anxious to divert the conversation into some other and less personal channel, and managed to do so presently by asking Phil to give me a specimen of his hog-calling cry, which I wished to hear near at hand. That performance over, we talked again. I began by saying I had never heard any one call hogs in that way before.
“Dat’s jes’ it, mastah,” he replied. “Folks don’t understan’ de science o’ hog-callin’. Dey says ‘p-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-r’og,’ when de hogs ain’t po’ at all, but fat as buttah. Dey got to git ‘hog’ in some ways so dey thinks. But dey ain’t no sense in dat. Hogs don’t understan’ dat. Dey can’t talk an’ don’t understan’ de meanin’ o’ talk words. You mus’ jes’ let ’em know dat when you wants ’em to come youse gwine to make a noise, de like o’ which ain’t in heaven or yuth. Den dey gits to knowin’ what dat means. Dat’s my way. When I fetch a yell at ’em, dey jes’ raise der yeahs, an’ say to der se’f: ‘Dat dar’s Phil, fo’ sho’, an’ Phil’s de big, ugly, black nigga wid de bauskets o’ cawn.’ When you says ‘Phil,’ you mean mastah’s big nigga what wuks in de fiel’, an’ plays de banjo, an’ goes fishin’; but when de hogs says ‘Phil,’ dey mean a big black fella, wid a big yell into him, an’ de bauskets o’ cawn. An’ you bettah b’lieve dat makes ’em jump up an’ clap dey han’s fo’ joy, jes’ like de nigga does when he gets religion ’nuff to make him shout, an’ not ’nuff to keep him offen the hen roos’s. If a nigga gits ’nuff religion to keep him from stealin’, it’s a mistake. Dey don’t never mean to do it, and when dey does, dey ain’t glad a bit, an’ dey hurries up an’ sends de surplage back.”
Phil’s respect for what he called “niggas” was exceedingly small, and it was his greatest pleasure in life to demonstrate their inferiority and emphasize their shortcomings in a hundred ways.
He was “head man” of the hoe hands—which is to say he hoed the leading row of tobacco hills, and was charged with the duty of superintending the work of the others. It was his delight to keep his work so far in advance that he must now and then set his hoe in the ground, and walk back to inspect the progress, and criticise the performance of slower workers than he. In all this there was no spice of uncharitableness or malice, however. He wished his fellows well, and had no desire to hurt their feelings; but he keenly enjoyed the fun of outdoing them, and laughing at their inability to cope with him.
It was during wheat harvest, however, that Phil was in his full glory. The rapidity with which he could “cradle” wheat was a matter of astonishment to every one who knew him, and, what was more wonderful still, he was able to maintain a distinctly “spurting” speed all day and every day.
“Phil,” his master would say, as the men entered the field on the first day, “I want no racing now; it’s too hot.”
“Now you heah dat, you slow niggas! Mastah says Phil mustn’t kill his niggas, an’ de onliest way to save yo’ lives is fer yer not to try to follow me. Jes’ take yo’ time, boys. Race a little among yo’selves, if yer want to, but don’ yer try to get a look at de heels o’ my boots, if yer don’ want to go to de bushes an’ has any intrus’ in mastah.”
A negro, exhausting himself in a race, lies down in the bushes to cool off and recuperate, and hence the winner of the race is said to send the others “to the bushes.”
Phil’s preliminary remarks were sure to exasperate his fellows and put them on their mettle. Silently they would determine to “push” him, and the utmost vigilance of the master was taxed to prevent dangerous overexertion. If the reapers were left alone for half an hour, several of them would be sure to overtask their strength, and retire exhausted to the friendly shade of the nearest thicket. But they never succeeded in coming up with Phil, or in so tiring him that he was not ready for a dance or a tramp when night came.
He was a strong man, rejoicing in his strength always; but there was one thing he would not do—he would not work for himself.
His master was one of those who hoped for gradual emancipation, as many Virginians did, and thought it his duty to prepare his negroes for freedom, so far as it was possible for him to do so. Among other means to this end, he encouraged each to make and save money on his own account. Each was expected to cultivate a “patch” of his own. Their master gave them the necessary time and the use of the mules whenever their crops needed attention.
In this way he thought to train them in habits of voluntary industry and thrift; and some of them, having no necessary expenses to bear, accumulated very pretty little hoards of cash from the sale of their crops every year. But Phil would not raise a crop for himself.
“What I want to raise a crop for?” he would ask. “I don’ want no money, on’y a quarter sometimes to buy a banjo string or a fish line, an’ I get plenty o’ quarters pitched at me when I hol’ de gentlemen’s hosses. I don’ want no money, an’ I wouldn’t know what to do wid it if I had it. My mastah takes good care o’ me, an’s long as dar’s a piece o’ meat in de smokehouse, Phil knows he’s gwine to have plenty to eat. I ain’t gwine to earn no money an’ be cas’in’ ’flections on my mastah. My mastah gives me mo’ clo’es ’an I kin war out; an’ what de devil I want to be makin’ money for, I donno.”
It was of no use to argue the matter. His mind was quite made up, and there was no possibility of changing it.
Phil’s marital philosophy was unique. He changed wives half a dozen times while I knew him, but one set of rules governed his choice in every instance. There were certain qualifications of a rather singular sort, which he deemed essential in a wife. She must not live on the plantation for one thing, or on one of those immediately adjoining, “’Cause den we’re sho’ to see too much o’ one anoder, an’ ’ll git tired o’ de ’rangement.” In the second place he would marry none but old women, “’Cause de young ones is no ’count anyway. Dey don’ half take car’ o’ dey husban’s stockin’s and things. ’F you want holes in yer stockin’s an’ buttons off yer shut collahs, jes’ you marry a young gal.” The third requisite was that the wife should be a slave, and the daughter of slaves on both sides. This qualification he insisted upon, even in the choice of masculine associates. His contempt for “free niggas” was supreme, almost sublime. He neglected no possible opportunity of villifying them, and practised no sort of economy in his expenditure of invective upon them.
Most of the negroes—in Virginia, at least—were very religious. Naturally their religion was intensely emotional in its character,—ecstatic, sombre, gloomy,—and quite as naturally it was largely colored with superstition. But religion of this kind had no charm for Phil, who, as the reader may possibly have guessed, prided himself on being strictly logical in all his views and actions.
“Bro’ Ben,” he said to one of his fellows one day, “youse done got religion, I heah. Anyway, your face is twict as long as it ought to be. Has yer got religion fo’ sho’?”
“Now, Phil, I don’t want none o’ your wickedness. Bless de Lord, Ise got religion.”
“Oh, you is got it, is you? Now lemme ax yer a question or two. Youse got religion, yer say?”
Ben: “Yes, Ise got religion.”
Phil: “Well, den, you’re gwine to heaven after while—when yer dies?”
Ben: “Yes, Ise got de ’surance o’ dat, bro’ Phil.”
Phil: “An’ you’d ’a’ gone to hell, if you hadn’t got de ’surance, as you calls it, wouldn’t you?”
Ben: “If I’d ’a’ died in my sins, course I’d ’a’ gone to hell.”
Phil: “Well now fo’ a nigga what’s jes’ made his ’rangements to keep out’n hell an’ git into heaven, youse got de mos’ onaccountable long face I ever did see, an’ dat’s all about it.”
When Ben had retired in disgust, I remonstrated with Phil.
“What do you tease Ben for, Phil?” I asked. “You know better than to make fun of religion.”
“Course I do, mastah, an’ dat’s jes’ it. Ben ain’t got no religion, an’ I knows it. He’s jes’ puttin’ on dat solemncholy face to fool de good Lord wid. Ben’ll steal, mastah, whenever he gits a chaunce. He ain’t got no mo’ religion ’n a hog. Sho. What he know ’bout religion, goin’ down under de hill to pray, an’ all dat nonsense? Couldn’t git him to sing a song or whistle a tune now on no account whatsumever, but he ain’t no better nigga for dat. Didn’t I see? He shouted mighty loud las’ night, but he shu’ked his wuk dis mawnin’ an’ didn’t half curry his mules; an’ religion dat don’t make a nigga take good car’ o’ po’ dumb creeters like mules ain’t wuth nuthin’ at all, no way yo’ kin fix it. When dey keeps de row up jes’ a little better, an’ don’t cover up no weeds dey ought to cut down, an’ takes good car’ o’ mules, an’ quits stealin’, den I begins to ’spect ’em o’ havin’ de real religion. But dey can’t fool Phil wid none o’ dere sham solemncholies.”
Phil was a trifle hard and uncharitable, perhaps, in his judgments upon his fellows in a matter of this kind; but there was, at any rate, no hypocrisy in his composition. And what is more singular still, I was never able to discover any trace of superstition in his conduct. He laughed to scorn the signs and omens with which the other negroes were perpetually encouraged or affrighted. Friday was as lucky a day as any in his calendar. He would even make his fire with the wood of a lightning-riven tree, and stranger still, was not afraid, as all the rest were, on the occasion of a funeral, to bring away the shovels used in the church-yard, without waiting till the moon and stars had shone upon them.
“How is it, Phil,” I once asked him, “that you don’t believe in any of the luck signs?”
“Do you b’lieve in ’em, mastah?” he asked in reply.
“No, of course not, but all the black folks do, except you.”
“Mastah, ain’t you foun’ out yit dat niggas is bawn fools? When my mastah wants de hogs changed from one piece o’ woods to annuder, he don’t go to makin’ blin’ signs to me, but he comes an’ tells me what he wants; an’ de good Lord what made de wuld, he ain’t a-goin’ to make no blin’ signs, nuther. He’s done tole us in de good book an’ in all de wuld aroun’ us what to do. He’s put sense in our heads to un’erstan’ what he means, an’ he ain’t gwine to govern de univarse wid a lot o’ luck signs, like a nigga would do it. ’Sides, Ise done all de unlucky things heaps o’ times, an’ ain’t never had no bad luck yit.”
When the war came, Phil was a stanch Southerner in all his feeling, and firmly held to his faith in the success of his side, even to the end. The end crushed him completely. When his master explained to the colored people their new condition of freedom, and proposed to engage them for wages, Phil stoutly refused.
“De odder folks may do as dey pleases, mastah, but Phil’s gwine to be your nigga jes’ as he always was. I ain’t gwine to be free nohow. I ain’t got no free nigga blood in me. I never saw no free nigga what wasn’t hungry; an’ I don’t know no free nigga what won’t steal; more’n dat, I never know’d a free nigga what wouldn’t sneak up on birds an’ shoot ’em on de groun’. I tell you, I ain’t gwine to be no sich folks as dem. Ise your nigga, an’ Ise gwine to be jes’ dat. I’ll do my wuk, an’ I ain’t goin’ to take no wages, an’ you’ll take car’ o’ me jes’ as you always did, on’y don’t never call me no free nigga. Ise a slave, I is, an’ Ise got de bes’ mastah in ole Virginy, an’ I ain’t fool ’nough to want to change de sitiwation.”
His master explained to him the necessity of the case, and showed him how impossible it was, by any mutual agreement, to alter the fact of freedom, or to escape its consequences.
“You must accept wages, Phil, for I may die or go into bankruptcy, and you may grow old or get ill; and if I should be poor or dead, then there would be nobody to take care of you. You must work for wages and take care of your money, so that it may take care of you.”
“Mastah, do you mean to tell Phil dat de law makes me a free nigga whedder or no?”
“Yes, Phil.”
“Den stick yo’ fingers in yo’ years, mastah, ’cause Ise gwine to swear. Damn de law. Dat’s what I say about dat. An’ now Ise jus’ gwine to die, an’ dat’s all about it.”
The poor fellow walked away with bowed head and tear-stained face. The broad, stalwart shoulders were bent beneath the weight of responsibility for himself. He was a strong man, physically, but the merest child in character, and the feeling that he no longer had any one but himself to lean upon, was more than he could bear. The light of cheerfulness and good humor went out of his face. The joyousness of his nature disappeared, and before the summer had ripened into autumn, poor Phil lay down and died of a broken heart.