“OLD HARRISON”
A few years after the war old John Harrison came into the coast country from somewhere beyond Caw Caw Swamp. He boasted a strain of Indian blood, and he showed it in his pigeon-toed walk and the red, coppery tint that stained his bronzed face. Six feet tall and powerfully built, he carried his fifty-odd years lightly, although his high, heavy shoulders were somewhat hunched from the heavy burdens to which they were accustomed for, a noted “pot hunter,” he thought nothing of “packing” a hundred and fifty-pound buck five or ten miles through the forest. During the close season for game he was not averse to working, and had quite a local reputation as a shingle-maker and rail-splitter. His speech was the ordinary “cracker” dialect of the low-country with a suggestion of the Gullah, but he clipped his words, and when excited, his sentences ran into a quick crescendo, almost unintelligible and defying reproduction in print.
When he came to Pon Pon he was allowed to clear a small field in a distant part of the plantation, a mile away from the “big house,” now only a beautiful ruin, with ivy, woodbine, and Lamarque roses clambering 50 feet in the air over the 200-year-old chimneys of English brick. On his “new ground,” old Harrison built a large and trim-looking log cabin, and here he took up residence with his motherless children, two small girls and a straight and strapping son of 18, who helped his father with his work, but not in the chase, for Harrison hunted alone, sometimes, with a single well-trained hound, disappearing for two or three days at a time, to return laden with venison or wild turkeys which were sold at the railway station. His dog, like those of most of the “pot hunters” who follow the chase on foot, was trained to silence, and never gave tongue. A small bell was attached to his collar and he was seldom out of sight of his master, who could tell by the movement of his ears and tail when the animal had found a trail, and when the lifting of the ears and the more rapid wagging of the tail indicated the near approach to the myrtle thicket where the deer lay in his bed, both barrels of the muzzle-loader were cocked and Harrison usually got a shot as the deer “jumped.”
Ben Summers, a large black negro in late middle-age, was a “locus” preacher in the neighborhood and, a jackleg carpenter, worked as well as preached. Throughout his life he had been partial to wives, having been more or less affiliated with six or seven, whom he put away and took back again, with no more ceremony than his change of mind. Unruly and insubordinate as a slave, he became “swonguh” with freedom, and was more or less insolent, save to his former master’s family. He was regarded as a rascal by whites and blacks, and when a calf or a shoat was missed in the community, Ben was not infrequently suspected of having shared the meat, either as a participant in the slaughter, or as a welcomed guest at the banqueting board of the thief.
One of Ben’s wives had achieved a son by a former husband, before Ben took her over, and this stepson had acquired a wife, a husky, cornfed wench, an Amazon in strength and fierceness. Soon after her marriage, old Ben, a rough-talking, brutal fellow, who tyrannized over the women of his entourage, undertook to discipline this step-daughter-in-law with physical chastisement. Cutting a hickory, he proceeded to manhandle her as he had been accustomed to use his wives. She accepted two or three blows, and then turned upon him so swiftly that he was swept off his feet and mauled almost into unconsciousness. After he had been patched up and rehabilitated, and the first bitterness of defeat had worn off, he really liked to tell the story, laying the unction to his soul that only his Christian spirit had stayed his hand and saved the life of the virago.
“Ben, you are a big strong man, why did you let that woman beat you?”
“Gin’ul, lemme tell you de trute, Gawd bin wid me dat day. You know, all me life uh bin uh strong man. Uh nebbuh hab no man fuh outdo me fuh wu’k, eeduhso fuh fight, en’ uh bin nyuse fuh lick ’ooman en’ t’ing all me life. W’en ’ooman ent sattify me wid ’e wu’k, eeduhso ’e mannus, uh lick’um fuh mek’um mannusubble. W’en my wife Sarah’ son John’ wife come een my house dat day, ’e sassy ’tell ’e mek me bex. Uh nebbuh tek sassy f’um no ’ooman, uh dunkyuh ef ’e big ez cow, en’ da’ gal big ’ooman fuh true. So uh cut one ’tick en’ uh graff’um by ’e sleebe en’ biggin fuh lick’um. Gin’ul, de ’ooman tu’n on me en’ box me same lukkuh him duh man. Blood bin een me yeye! Uh ’membuh de time w’en uh could’uh box’um en’ kick’um alltwo one time, en’ ef uh ebbuh leh de foot folluh de han’, uh would uh kill’um dead. But Gawd hol’ me han’ en’ me foot, alltwo, Gawd tell me fuh peaceubble, en’ spayre de ’ooman life. Gin’ul, me don’ want no ’ooman life ’pun me han’. Enty you know, suh, ef uh had uh kick dat ’ooman ’e would uh dead? Gawd tek’care uh ol’ Ben dat day. Da’ ’ooman t’ink suh him lick me, Gin’ul, but enty you know suh him oughtuh tengk Gawd fuh sabe’um? Ef uh didn’ bin hab ’lij’un, da’ ’ooman’ cawpse would’uh gone Jacksinburruh een one oxin cyaa’t weh ’e come f’um. All de time ’e binnuh box me, uh bin study ’bout how da’ ’ooman’ cawpse would’uh look ef uh had uh hit’um like de time w’en uh nyuse to be uh Ben! En’ uh study ’pun him husbun’, my wife Sarah’ boy John, en’ uh study ’pun John’ maamy, en’ uh t’ink ’bout how dem will mo’n ef uh kill dis ’ooman, en’ wid Gawd’ help uh hab strengk ’nuf fuh hol’ me han’. Gin’ul, w’enebbuh uh look ’puntop de’ dead ’ooman een me mine’, uh tengk Gawd eb’ry day fuh hol’ me han’!”
Once a fine shoat strayed too near to Ben’s little field and soon found its way into the old man’s larder, where it was found by a search party in charge of old Harrison. An examination showed that the animal had been shot with duck shot, and shot of the same size having been found in the undischarged barrel of the negro’s double-barrel, Ben was arrested and sent to Walterboro jail and Harrison was summoned as a witness. Harrison was fond of a dram and looked forward to the approach of court week which would bring him a visit to the county seat with witness fees of 50 cents a day and mileage. Walterboro was 35 miles away, and five cents a mile both ways meant $3.50, which loomed large in the mind of the old hunter. On the Saturday night before the convening of court, he prepared a week’s rations of cornbread, bacon and baked sweet potatoes, and early Sunday morning filled a great knapsack, and, with his long gun on his shoulder, walked all the way to the county seat. On the following day the pig thief was duly arraigned, the jury organized, and old Harrison, loaded to the muzzle with Walterboro whiskey, to which he had been treated by the youngsters who liked to hear him talk, came to the witness stand, a 20-pound knapsack of provisions around his shoulders and his long gun in his hand. His direct testimony was:
“Sunday mornin’ bin over t’ Cap’n Elliott’s, coz mostly Sunday mornin’ ef uh goes by th’ house Cap’n gennully gives me uh pow’ful drink, en’ uh allus likes me dram. W’en uh got through me dram, uh was walkin’ ’long by ol’ Ben’s house, en’ uh heerd uh gun shoot. Uh meet some boys and went to th’ house en’ fin’ th’ shoat en’ fin’ number two duck shot een ’im. Uh fin’ ol’ Ben’s gun in the corner, one barrel been fired, en’ uh drawed th’ load of t’other barrel en’ fin’ number two duck shot, same size ez een th’ shoat. Then uh told Cap’n, he give me ’nother dram, we ’rested ol’ Ben in th’ pulpit where he was preachin’ to a raft uh niggers, en’ we send him to Walterboro.”
Then came the cross-examination. The young lawyer for the defense baited old Harrison to the great amusement of the court room.
“What do you know about duck shot?” he was asked. “I don’t believe you know the size of a duck shot.”
“Uh don’t know de size uv uh duck shot! Course uh knows de size uv uh duck shot. Bin hunt’n’ all me life, bin shoot’n’ duck shot all me life.”
“If you know the size of a duck shot, take this pencil and let the jury see you draw one on the court house wall.”
Harrison rose with bleary eyes and a fatuous smile on his bronzed face. Unable to read or write, he held the pencil as a small boy holds a sizzling firecracker, but he was game and stepped up to the wall primed with the confidence born of ignorance. Judge, jury and spectators craned their necks to see the performance. The draftsman stuck close to the wall and moved the pencil slowly and laboriously over the whitewashed surface. When at last he stepped back and turned around proudly to reveal his work, the court house exploded with laughter, from Judge Wallace on the bench, to the tipstaff at the door, for the tipsy old hunter’s outline of a duck shot was about eight inches long and five inches wide and bore a striking resemblance to the continent of Africa. He returned to the witness chair. Taking the shouts of merriment as tributes to the accuracy of his sketch, he looked scornfully at the young lawyer.
“Ain’t I tell ye uh know’d d’size uv uh duck shot? Bin shoot’n’ duck shot all me life. Course uh knows d’size uv uh duck shot!” And there was more laughter.
The negro was convicted, and sent to the penitentiary for two years, but was soon leased to a railroad contractor, and, becoming a “trusty” and a cook, had an easy time. When he returned to Pon Pon he resumed his place in the pulpit without the slightest loss of caste, and often referred to his sojourn in the Capital City, telling many stories to the members of his flock about “de time w’en uh bin penitenshus,” or “w’en uh bin Cuhlumbia.”
One Christmas morning old Harrison came to the house with the portentous information that he intended to marry the widow Pendarvis, was then on his way to her habitation seven or eight miles away, and would bring back his bride the same evening.
“Dat whut uh yaim t’do Cap’n. Uh knows hits pow’ful resky t’marry uh widder, coz dey allus knows toomuch, but uh needs uh ’ooman to clean up en’ do about d’house, en’ look after d’children, en’ de widder Pendarvis is uh right peart creeter, en’ she ain’t got uh lazy bone een her, so uh reck’n uh’ll resk it. Den, she’s got a son, John Henry, ’bout d’age uh my William. John Henry he ain’t much account, but uh needs anuther han’ en’ uh reck’n uh kin make out wid John Henry, so uh yaims to tek d’widder.”
The old adventurer was fitted out with a white shirt and a handkerchief, a pocketful of Christmas candies and a couple of stiff snifters, and so, fortified, he started toward the widow, stepping high, gun on shoulder. “Uh allus totes m’gun. Y’never knows whut y’gwine t’see.”
So the widow Pendarvis was duly acquired and proved a faithful and useful spouse, but old Harrison soon reached the conclusion that he had been gold-bricked in John Henry. “He ain’t no manner uv account. Ain’t wuth d’powder’n shot it ud’take t’kill’im! W’en uh married d’widder, uh didn’ aim t’git much uv uh bargin in John Henry, he was jus’ kinder throw’d een fuh good measure like, but now uh wisht he mout uh bin throw’d out.”
A year or two later William Harrison was walking the woods one day, and from a shallow grave at the edge of a negro’s field, his dogs dug up the hide and head of a stolen cow which the thief had buried to hide the ear-marks and the brand. The negro was sent to jail to await trial and William was subpœnæd as the chief witness. Old Harrison protested. “’Taint uh bit uh use t’sen’ William t’Walterboro fuh fifty cents uh day, w’en ’e’s makin’ seventy-five cents uh day now. W’y don’t yuh take my stepson John Henry Pendarvis fer uh witness? He ain’t a workin’ en’ he’ll be glad t’git d’fifty cents uh day.” It was explained to the old hunter that as John Henry had not found the telltale hide and head, and knew nothing about the case, he could not be accepted as proxy. “Don’t make uh bit uh diff’unce. William kin tell John Henry whut he found en’ John Henry kin go t’Walterboro en’ swear to it. John Henry he’s a noble liar, en’ he kin lie en’ stick to’t. Them Walterboro lawyers can’t shake him.”
After awhile, bad health came upon the former widow, and in taking palliatives to relieve her pain, she became addicted to opium and spent all she could scrape for the drug at the village store. At last the neighborhood doctor warned her husband, “Harrison, if you don’t look out, some day your wife will take an overdose of laudanum and go up the spout.”
“Well, Doctor, ’tain’t fuh me to go ag’in her! She’s bin’uh noble ’ooman in ’er time. She’s never had uh lazy bone een ’er body. She’s bin uh pow’ful hand to do about, en’ she’s bin as peart uh ’ooman as ever was wropped up in that much hide, but she’s gitt’n kinder poorly now, she ain’t whut she used to be, she ain’t much account now, she can’t scrub no mo’, she’s got de rheumatism in de jints, so, Doctor, if she aims to go, uh reck’n d’best thing to do is to let her take a pow’ful dost en’ let ’er go!” So—poor, tired soul—she went.