THOMAS NELSON PAGE.
AUTHOR OF “IN OLE VIRGINIA.”
N old adage declares it “an ill wind that blows nobody good;” and certainly the world may take whatever consolation it can find out of the fact that the long and bloody war between the North and South has at least afforded the opportunity for certain literary men and women to rise upon the ruins which it wrought, and win fame to themselves as well as put money in their purses by embalming in literature the story of times and social conditions that now exist only in the history of the past.
Thomas Nelson Page was born in Oakland, Hanover county, Virginia, on the twenty-third day of April, 1853, consequently, he was only eight years old when Fort Sumter was fired upon, and, during the imaginative period of the next few years, he lived in proximity to the battle fields of the most fiercely contested struggles of the war. His earliest recollections were of the happiest phases of life on the old slave plantations. That he thoroughly understands the bright side of such a life, as well as the Negro character and dialect, is abundantly established by the charming books which he has given to the world.
His childhood was passed on the estate which was a part of the original grant of his maternal ancestor, General Thomas Nelson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, for whom he was named. His early education was received in the neighborhood “subscription” schools (there were no free public schools in the South at that time), and at the hand of a gentle old aunt of whom Mr. Page tells in one of his stories. The war interfered with his regular studies but filled his mind with a knowledge schools cannot give, and, as stated above, it was out of this knowledge that his stories have grown. After the war, young Page entered the Washington and Lee University and later studied law, taking his degree in this branch from the University of Virginia, in 1874, and after graduating, practiced his profession in Richmond, Virginia, until 1884, when his first story of Virginia life “Marse Chan,” a tale of the Civil War, was printed in the “Century Magazine.” He had previously written dialectic poetry, but the above story was his first decided success, and attracted such wide attention that he forsook law for literature. In 1887, a volume of his stories was brought out under the title “In Ole Virginia,” which was followed in 1888 by “Befo’ de War; Echoes in Negro Dialect,” which was written in [♦]collaboration with Mr. A. C. Gordon. The next year a story for boys entitled, “Two Little Confederates,” appeared in the “St. Nicholas Magazine,” and was afterward published in book form. A companion volume to this is “Among the Camps or Young People’s Stories of the War.”
[♦] ‘colaboration’ replaced with ‘collaboration’
Mr. Page has been a frequent contributor to the current magazines for many years, and has also lectured extensively throughout the country. In 1897 he went abroad for a tour of England and the Continent of Europe. It is announced that on his return he will issue a new novel which we understand, he has been engaged upon for some time and expects to make the most pretentious work of his life up to this date.
OLD SUE.[¹]
(FROM “PASTIME STORIES.”)
[¹] Copyright, Harper & Bros.
UST on the other side of Ninth Street, outside of my office window, was the stand of Old Sue, the “tug-mule” that pulled the green car around the curve from Main Street to Ninth and up the hill to Broad. Between her and the young bow-legged negro that hitched her on, drove her up, and brought her back down the hill for the next car, there always existed a peculiar friendship. He used to hold long conversations with her, generally upbraiding her in that complaining tone with opprobrious terms which the negroes employ, which she used to take meekly. At times he petted her with his arm around her neck, or teased her, punching her in the ribs and walking about around her quarters, ostentatiously disregardful of her switching stump of a tail, backed ears, and uplifted foot, and threatening her with all sorts of direful punishment if she “jis dyarred to tetch” him.
“Kick me—heah, kick me; I jis dyah you to lay you’ foot ’g’inst me,” he would say, standing defiantly against her as she appeared about to let fly at him. Then he would seize her with a guffaw. Or at times, coming down the hill, he would “hall off” and hit her, and “take out” with her at his heels her long furry ears backed, and her mouth wide open as if she would tear him to pieces; and just as she nearly caught him he would come to a stand and wheel around, and she would stop dead, and then walk on by him as sedately as if she were in a harrow. In all the years of their association she never failed him; and she never failed to fling herself on the collar, rounding the sharp curve at Ninth, and to get the car up the difficult turn.
Last fall, however, the road passed into new hands, and the management changed the old mules on the line, and put on a lot of new and green horses. It happened to be a dreary, rainy day in November when the first new team was put in. They came along about three o’clock. Old Sue had been standing out in the pouring rain all day with her head bowed, and her stubby tail tucked in, and her black back dripping. She had never failed nor faltered. The tug-boy in an old rubber suit and battered tarpauling hat, had been out also, his coat shining with the wet. He and old Sue appeared to mind it astonishingly little. The gutters were running brimming full, and the cobble-stones were wet and slippery. The street cars were crowded inside and out, the wretched people on the platforms vainly trying to shield themselves with umbrellas held sideways. It was late in the afternoon when I first observed that there was trouble at the corner. I thought at first that there was an accident, but soon found that it was due to a pair of new, balking horses in a car. Old Sue was hitched to the tug, and was doing her part faithfully; finally she threw her weight on the collar, and by sheer strength bodily dragged the car, horses and all, around the curve and on up the straight track, until the horses, finding themselves moving, went off with a rush, I saw the tug-boy shake his head with pride, and heard him give a whoop of triumph. The next car went up all right; but the next had a new team, and the same thing occurred. The streets were like glass; the new horses got to slipping and balking, and old Sue had to drag them up as she did before. From this time it went from bad to worse: the rain changed to sleet, and the curve at Ninth became a stalling-place for every car. Finally, just at dark, there was a block there, and the cars piled up. I intended to have taken a car on my way home, but finding it stalled, I stepped into my friend Polk Miller’s drug-store, just on the corner, to get a cigar and to keep warm. I could see through the blurred glass of the door the commotion going on just outside, and could hear the shouts of the driver and of the tug-boy mingled with the clatter of horses’ feet as they reared and jumped, and the cracks of the tug-boy’s whip as he called to Sue, “Git up, Sue, git up, Sue.” Presently, I heard a shout, and then the tones changed, and things got quiet.
A minute afterwards the door slowly opened, and the tug-boy came in limping, his old hat pushed back on his head, and one leg of his wet trousers rolled up to his knee, showing about four inches of black, ashy skin, which he leaned over and rubbed as he walked. His wet face wore a scowl, half pain, half anger. “Mist’ Miller, kin I use you’ telephone?” he asked, surlily. (The company had the privilege of using it by courtesy.)
“Yes; there ’tis.”
He limped up, and still rubbing his leg with one hand, took the ’phone off the hook with the other and put it to his ear.
“Hello, central—hello! Please gimme fo’ hund’ an’ sebenty-three on three sixt’-fo’—fo’ hund’ an’ sebent’-three on three sixt’-fo’.
“Hello! Suh? Yas, suh; fo’ hund’ an’ sebent’-three on three sixt’-fo’. Street-car stables on three sixt’-fo’. Hello! Hello! Hello! Dat you, streetcar stables? Hello! Yas. Who dat? Oh! Dat you, Mist’ Mellerdin? Yas, suh; yes, suh; Jim; Jim; dis Jim. G-i-m, Jim. Yas, suh; whar drive Ole Sue, in Mist’ Polk Miller’ drug-sto’—. Yas, suh. ‘Matter’?—Ole Sue—she done tu’n fool; done gone ’stracted. I can’t do nuttin’ ’tall wid her. She ain’ got no sense. She oon pull a poun’. Suh? Yas, suh. Nor, suh. Yas, suh. Nor, suh; I done try ev’ything. I done beg her, done cuss her, done whup her mos’ to death. She ain’ got no reasonment. She oon do nuttin’. She done haul off, an’ leetle mo’ knock my brains out; she done kick me right ’pon meh laig—’pon my right laig.” (He stooped over and rubbed it again at the reflection.) “Done bark it all up. Suh? Yas, suh. Tell nine o’clock? Yas, suh; reckon so; ’ll try it leetle longer. Yas, suh; yas, suh. Good-night—good-bye!”
He hung the ’phone back on the hook, stooped and rolled down the leg of his breeches. “Thankee, Mist’ Miller! Good-night.”
He walked to the door, and opened it. As he passed slowly out, without turning his head, he said, as if to himself, but to be heard by us, “I wish I had a hundred an’ twenty-five dollars. I boun’ I’d buy dat durned ole mule, an’ cut her dog-goned th’oat.”
