III.
Rap, rap, rap, came a knuckle against the door of Thomas Douglass, of Warren, Ohio, in the silent hours of the night. Such occurrences were not frequent of late at the home of the honest Englishman whose love of justice and humanity had risen above all fear of the pains and penalties of an unrighteous law. Hastily dressing himself, he inquired, “Who comes?”
“Ol’ Diligence,” a name recognized at once by Mr. Douglass as the appelation of a colored conductor from Youngstown.
“Hall right; wat’s aboard?”
“Subjec’, Massa Douglass, and hard pressed, too.”
“’Ard pressed his ’e? Well, come in.”
The door was opened, a brief explanation followed, and Jack Watson and “Old Diligence” were consigned to a good bed for the night. In the morning his faithful guide, who had himself escaped from bondage many years before gave Jack some money, a supply of which he always had in hand, and left him with the emphatic assurance, “Massa Douglass am a true man.” But Jack was hard to be assured, and when seated at breakfast with the master machinist’s hands, he trembled like an aspen.
Three gentlemen, Levi Sutliff, John Hutchins and John M. Stull had been early summoned to devise the best means for forwarding Jack safely. The two former of these had been long experienced operators; the latter was rather a novice at the business. A few years previously, an ambitious young man, he had gone south as a teacher, thinking little and caring less about the “peculiar institution.” He had been in Kentucky but a short time when a slave auction was advertised and his Buckeye inquisitiveness prompted him to witness it. Two or three children were struck off and then the mother, a well formed, good-looking octaroon, was put upon the block.
“Now, gentlemen,” said the auctioneer, a hard-shelled Baptist preacher, “I offer you a valuable piece of property. She’s a good cook; can make clothes, or handle a hoe as well as a man. She’s a healthy woman, gentlemen, an more’n that, she’s a Christian. Gentlemen, she’s a member of my own congregation.”
The buyers crowded around. They examined her teeth, her hands, her feet, her limbs as though she had been a horse on sale.
Our spectator began to feel himself getting white in the face, and swear words were rising in his throat, and he beat a hasty retreat.—John was under conviction.
A few mornings after our young teacher was wakened by the sound of heavy blows and cries of pain proceeding from another part of the hotel. That evening when Harry, the boy appointed his special waiter, came to his room, Mr. Stull cautiously inquired who had been punished in the morning.
“Dat was me Massa. De ol’ boss gib’d me a buckin.”
“What was the trouble, Harry, and what is a bucking?”
“Why Lor’ bress you, Massa, dis chile slep’ jus’ a minit too long, an’ de ol’ boss cum’d wid his ‘buck,’ a board wid a short han’l and full ob holes, an’ he bent Harry ober, like for to spank a chil’, an’ o Lor’ how he struck.” (Then lowering his voice,) “Say, Massa Stull, can you tell de Norf star?”
The boy had been all care, attention and manliness. The soul of the teacher was fully aroused.—Stull was converted.
Waiting the coming of these gentlemen, Jack had gone into the back yard, and when they arrived he was nowhere to be found. A prolonged search failed to reveal his whereabouts, and when at length night fell kind Mrs. Douglass placed an ample plate of provisions in the back kitchen and continued it for several weeks, hoping he might return, but no angel ever spirited a particle of it away.