IV.

A company of persons awaiting a western bound train stood chatting with the veteran Seely upon the platform at Girard, Pa. Among them, evidently well up in the sixties, was a man of unusually muscular frame. His countenance was open and pleasant, but mostly enveloped in a heavy beard of almost snowy whiteness. Judging from the appearance of his eyes, he was endowed with a more than average gift of language. Indeed he was the central figure in the company. The “Toledo” rolled up and as the group passed into the coach a colored man seated a little back took a close survey of this individual. As they seated themselves in his rear, the negro arose, passed to the front of the car and turning round placed his eyes squarely upon the face of the old gentleman. Thus he stood until Springfield was passed, until Conneaut was nearly reached. Feeling annoyed himself, and noticing that the gaze was attracting the attention of his fellow passengers, the gentleman arose and going forward said:

“Stranger, let us have this out. I can tolerate this impertinence no longer.”

“No ’pertinence, massa, no’ ’pertinence at all,” responded the negro, “I knowed yer the minit yer comed aboard.”

“You know me? I never saw you before that I remember.”

“Bery like, bery like, massa, you’s named Shipman, and doan yer remember the ‘white rabbit’ yer crawled on the hands and knees wid through the tater patch arter you’d got him out of the cellar whar the old Parson had stowed him. Dis chile hab never forgot that face though it had no whiskers then. The Lor’ bress yer, massa, doan yer ’member so long ago?” and the overjoyed man held out his hand which was grasped in a hearty shake by that of his whiter brother.

Seating themselves together, the colored man told the story of his early servitude, and how, armed with no weapon but a butcher knife for defense, he had made that long flight across the mountains without one sense of fear until he had crossed into Ohio and learned that men were there watching for him to claim the reward offered for his return.

“But how,” queried the venerable Shipman, “did you get along after I left you?”

“Lor’ bress you, massa, de next mornin’ that ole swearer, Massa Wade, he comed over to dat Massa Atkins an’ he say, ‘Doan sen’ dat black k—ss to de harb’r, kase h—ll’s a watchin’ for him.’ So dey sen me on anuder road to Erie an’ put me on the ‘Thomas Jefferson,’ the name of that great author of liberty from ole Virginy, and soon I was safe in Canidy.”

“And what then?” said Uncle Charley.

“An’ den, Massa Shipman, George Gray went to work to earn money to buy his old mother, but when he had enough he learned she was dead, so he bought him a little home, and then the great wah comed and set all his people free, an’ so now he’s jus’ agoin’ down inter that country to see if Massa Jones hab eber heard from dat ‘deah chile’ who was ‘drown,’ or ‘killed hisself’ or ‘runned away.’ But here am my stoppin’ place, an’ may the good Lor’ bress and save Massa Shipman forever, am the prayer ob de White Rabbit.”

There was another hearty hand-shaking, amid the cheerings of the little throng who had been attentive listeners to the conversation, mutual pledges to meet on the “other shore,” and the old ex-conductor from “station 1001, U. g. r. r.,” and his sable passenger parted company under far pleasanter circumstances than they did in the long ago on the doorstep of Anno Mundi in the village home of Giddings and Wade.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

  1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
  2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.