ABRUM, CA’LINE AND ASPHALT
(W. N. Harben: The Round Table.)
Upon the church, the negro denizens of Crippletown focused their opinions. They were about equally divided between the Methodist and Baptist denominations, and no matter how much sociability existed among the men as they went to work together, or among the women as they chatted or sang over their wash-tubs, when Sunday came with its suggestive clangor of church bells, friendliness drew itself into its shell of finery, and only protruded its head to cast depreciative glances at members of any church save its own.
Squads of people bound for the Baptist church, passed squads of people bound for the Methodist church without exchanging even nods of greeting. Extreme reserve and solemnity characterized the general religious bearing.
It is Sunday evening in the cottage of Abraham Wilson, a most devout Methodist of the blackest physical type. He had talked Methodism to his young wife until her brain and tongue were in a tangle. He made it the theme of his evening and morning discourses, and threw in foot-notes at all possible opportunities. He, as well as his neighbors, were curious to know which denomination Caroline would finally join, especially as it had been whispered for some time that she was “on the fence” owing to the fact that her parents had been Baptists and her husband a Methodist.
Few doubted that Abraham’s powers of argument would in time bring her wavering mind to his views. But it seemed that Caroline’s besetting sin, vanity, and love of display, linked with the persuasive powers of the Baptist minister, who called on her often through the day while Abraham was away, were to bulwark the latter’s earnest endeavors.
She had ever looked with charmed eyes on the baptismal ceremonies, which usually took place in a neighboring creek, and her heart had suffered frequent pangs at thinking that she was hindered from being the cynosure of the thousands that sung and shouted on the shore as the dripping candidates were led from the stream. From childhood up she had looked forward to immersion with as much anticipation as she had to marriage. Regardless of this she had married a Methodist, because she had loved him.
“Abrum,” said she, after listening to him in silence for an hour, “Abrum, I know you think you is right, en ev’ybody kin hat der own way er thinkin’ ’bout chu’ches, but ez fur me, I know I’s hat my min’ set on ’mersion in runnin’ water ev’y since I know my min’. I’s been puttin’ it off frum summer ter summer, en now you gwine to disagree wid me.”
Abraham’s surprise rendered him almost speechless. He had felt intuitively that Caroline did not agree with him for a long time, but had nursed the belief that his arguments would wear away her objections ere she gave them voice.
“You ever let me yer er you gwine wadin’ in ’at creek en I swear ’fo’ God I’ll trash you ev’y step frum deh home.”
“Huh!” his wife grunted defiantly. “Shuh, Abrum Wilson! you ain’t man enough; your feared to tech me. I don’t want none er yo’ ol’ ’ligion. ’Sides anything ’at’s good ’nough for Jesus Christ certney is good ’nough fer me. De bible seh He went down into de water; now, Abrum, I can’t go down into de water en hat de preacher des sprinkle my haid out’n er gravy bowl, same as I does w’en I’s ironin’. Now w’t’s de use in talkin’ dat way. Whyn’t Christ des ax um fer er lil in er goa’d dipper? Seem lak dat enough ’cordin’ ter yo all’s way.”
Abraham had exhausted every argument in his brain already, so he could formulate no reply, but inflated almost to explosion with turbulent spleen, he resumed his seat in the door, while she, momentarily triumphant, bustled round the cottage to put their only child, little Asphalt, to bed. The latter two-year old innocent owed its name to the fact that he happened to be born one day while Abram was employed in laying asphalt pavement in the city. He was struck with the high-sounding name and told Caroline that the mixture had “des enough pitch in it fer er nigger child’s name.”
When she had put Asphalt to bed, Caroline timidly drew her chair near to his. He did not look at her.
“Now, Abrum,” said she, pacifically, “you is hat yo’ way, en I hain’t seh nothin’ ergin it all ’long sence we is married.” She waited a moment for him to speak, but as he was stubbornly silent she went on with growing firmness, as she slily eyed him askance: “I ’low ter jine de Baptist chu’ch, de Lawd willin’, en git my ’mersion ’long wid Sallie en Lindy. Brer Brown was here yistiddy en I done give ’im my promise; an he give me lessons w’en ter hol’ my bref ter keep from stranglin’.”
Abraham turned upon her with such suddenness that she shrank back into her chair as if smitten.
“You seh you is hehn? You seh you is?” he growled. “Well, we gwine see. You seh you is gwine wade out in dat creek lak er crippled duck. Le’ me des see it en I’ll git er divo’ce sho en never put my foot in dis house ergin.
“You go git yo’ divo’ce,” she said sullenly, “I’s got er right ter my side same ez you.”
“Look yer, Ca’line!” he snapped out, rising clumsily to his feet, “you des seh ernurr word en I’ll pick up dat plank deh en ’fo’ God I’ll split it over yo’ haid. Huh!”
He waited a moment for the silenced woman to speak, but she did not answer him in words. She angered him more than ever by stealthily regarding him from the corner of her eye and humming, with as much gusto as her caution would allow, a hymn that was usually sung by the Baptists during their baptismal ceremonies.
To this Abraham had no reply, save to look at the offender as if he would thus scorch her with the volcanic heat of his supreme contempt, and walked away into the darkness.
Caroline’s song dwindled into a murmur as he vanished. She went to the door and peered after him as he receded in the misty moonlight, with a look of deep concern upon her.
Abraham went on until he came to the cottage of his widowed sister, Martha Todd. Here he took a seat on the doorstep. A woman came out of the unlighted room.
“Dat you, Abrum?” she grunted in surprise. “Well, well; I do know you skeered me, sho, kase I ain’t ’spectin’ you. What kin er happen ter tek you off frum home dis time er night; I des fixin’ ter go ter baid?”
“Marfy,” said the visitor, in a deeply pained voice, “de storm has riz in my own home at las’. I reckon me en Ca’line done bust up fer good.”
“Why, Abrum; whut’s de matter? How come you seh dat? My!”
“Sister Marfy, you know Ca’line. You know how she is w’en she set ’er haid. She is sho’ nough set on ’mersion en de Baptist chu’ch. You know how I is on dat subjec’.”
“Brer Abrum, dis done come on us at las’.” The woman seemed to filter her tones through a mixture of resignation and satisfaction. “I been hat my eye open fer er long time. I ain’t seh nothin’ kase it no business er mine, en I ’low it bes’ ter wait. Ev’y day while you hard at wuk de Baptist preacher is been er buzzin’ in Ca’line’s ear. I don’t see no way out’n it. It sholly is too bad; Asphy is so young; you is sech er big Mephodis’ an’ er deacon, too. I do know how you feel.”
“Marfy,” said the ebon devotee, sternly, as he evoked a dull thud from his knee onto which his broad hand descended; “Marfy, me en Ca’line gwine be divo’ced, ’at’s de end.”
“Too bad she tuk dat way,” sighed Martha Todd, more deeply than she was given to over her own misfortunes.
The truth was that nothing could have pleased the widowed and childless woman more than to have her brother, who was such a prominent Methodist, and a steady laborer, a member of her own household, which would be, she knew, in case of a separation between the couple.
“Women is er caution, sho, brer,” she went on, “I do know Ca’line is haid-strong. Mighty bad fer bofe, dis disagreement. ’Tain’t ’cordin’ ter scriptur’.”
Silence fell upon the pair, save for the sound of Martha’s breath as it contended with the nicotine in her uncleanly pipe-stem. The hours passed until the clock within struck twelve jingling strokes. Abraham rose stiffly, lingered, stretched himself, for he felt that he needed to apologize for going back.
“Yer gwine back ter ’er, brer?” Martha Todd asked significantly. “May de Lo’d be ’long wid you den.”
“I wouldn’t go er step, but I hatter git my clothes frum ’er’,” said he sheepishly. “You reckon I gwine ’low dat gal ter keep my clothes? Huh! Marfy, w’at you rekon I is?”
“Once you git back she gwine ’suade you ter let ’er be ’mersed. Who knows, we may see Deacon Abrum wid wet clothes on, too. Some women is too sly——”
“You go ’long, sister, I tell you too much is done pass twixt me en Ca’line. I des gwine atter my things, den I’ll come live wid you—I’ll be yer in de mornin’.”
Thus speaking, Abraham turned slowly homeward. Late as it was he found Caroline sitting in the door smoking her pipe. She had a sulky mien on her bent, portly form. She drew her feet under her chair as her liege lord passed wordless into the cottage. He turned up the wick of the low-burning lamp, and as its feeble rays struggled through the room his glance fell on the features of sleeping Asphalt, and a lump rose in his throat.
A crude wardrobe stood against the wall. Through its open door he caught a glimpse of his clothing crowded into the piece of furniture with Caroline’s finery. Therein was his long-tailed broadcloth coat, his bell-shaped silk hat, his shining doeskin trousers, and an overcoat.
He had magnanimously made up his mind that he would demand nothing of the domestic wreck except his own clothing. The furniture of the cottage, all other belongings of him and his wife, should remain with her, even little Asphalt.
While he was looking under the child’s bed for his best boots, which he remembered casting off there a few hours previous, Caroline, with a meaning smile playing round her lips, as if she had divined his plans, rose automatically, walked with a well-assumed air of sleepiness to the wardrobe, and locking it, put the key in her pocket. Then, as if unaware that his startled orbs were on her, she went to the clock on the mantelpiece and began to wind it, singing the while a little air which she often sung when wholly at ease with herself and all the rest of the world.
Abraham stood behind her rigid form, boots in hand, in silence. Something in Caroline’s prompt flank movement gave him a thrill of vague pleasure, while it aroused his aggressiveness. She had thwarted him, it was true, but in doing so had of her own will raised a hindrance to his quitting the place. Abraham had a struggle with himself. Somehow the room seemed to be more cozy than ever before, while Martha Todd’s house rose bleak and dreary before his mental sight. How amicably all might be arranged if Caroline would only relinquish her dream of “runnin’ water.”
Then it occurred to him that, in justice to his usual sternness of manner, he must say something hard to her, must force the key of the wardrobe from her, and secure his clothing, but he could not do it; he was softened by her quiet mien as she stood in the door and looked out at the night. But if he did not take his clothing to his sister in the morning what excuse could he offer for having failed so ignominiously? He decided that he would wait until the next day and see what could be done; so he went into the adjoining room, the “guest-room,” and retired.
He lay in bed with his eyes open, reflecting over the ridiculous position Caroline had placed him in before his fellow churchmen, and smarting over the knowledge that the Baptists were enjoying his discomfiture.
After a while the lamp was extinguished in Caroline’s room, and by her snoring he knew that she was sound asleep. He knew that it would be an easy matter for him to steal into her room and take the wardrobe key from her gown pocket and get possession of his guarded property, but he shrank from hastening matters in any such way. After a while he slept and snored in harmony with his estranged wife.
When he awoke in the morning a most tempting breakfast was waiting him on the table, and Caroline and little Asphalt were looking neat and interesting. He took his accustomed seat glumly and ate his breakfast with a good relish. His pride prevented him from speaking to the woman from whom he was to be divorced, though it did not in any wise interfere with his partaking of the food she had cooked before he was awake. By his wounded taciturnity he would have her comprehend that his day in the cottage was over, that he only delayed to get a chance to lessen the overpacked wardrobe.
So far, it was true, he had made little headway, but then Rome was not built in a day, and he could afford to abide his time, especially as the immersion season had not yet arrived. But he remembered, with a chill, that on his way to work that morning he would be obliged to pass Martha Todd’s house. She would be expecting him to bring along an armful of clothing. What could he do to excuse his delay? He bethought himself all at once of his Sunday boots and the blacking and blacking-brush, still under Asphalt’s little bed. With them he could pay an installment on his sister’s hopes and also shield himself from the appearance of defeat.
Rising from the table, he reached under the bed, and securing the articles in question he tucked them under his arm and sailed forth without looking at Caroline or Asphalt.
Martha Todd was on the lookout, pacing up and down her front yard. She vanquished a rather open look of curiosity as he sauntered down the sidewalk, and gave her face an expression of absolute vacancy of thought.
“Good mornin’, Abrum?” said she.
“Good-mornin’, sister,” he replied, in a sigh, as he passed her into the cottage, “kin I ax yer ter save dese yer boots en blackin’-bresh fer me. It’s all my things I kin git my han’s on now. Ca’line is de beatenes’ woman in dis wull I do know. She’s locked um all up in de wa’drobe en hid de key som’rs. But I gwine back ter night en watch my chances. She ’low she mighty sharp, but you gwine see. You gwine hear supin drap; now min’ whut I seh. She hatter git up ’fo’ day to haid me off. De minute I git my han’s on any er my things I gwine fetch um right ter you, en w’en I got um all frum ’er she kin des go, now you min’ whut I seh. She kin des go ’long en wade en swim tell she tek er tail lak er tadpole fer all I keer. All I want is whut b’longs ter me. I gwine hat um, too, en not many words be passed nurr.”
Discerning Martha began to place a small value on her prospect of gaining her point, but in the sweet delight of being a partner in a family disagreement she did not make her fears known, and pretended to think that he was in the right to a final separation from Caroline.
That day Abraham’s companions wondered at his moods. He was very absent-minded, and seemed extremely nervous and ill at ease. As the hour for dinner arrived he remembered that he would be obliged to go home for a small piece of plug tobacco which he had forgotten.
“My lord, Abrum!” exclaimed a dusky companion in surprise, “whyn’t you step er crost ter de sto’ en buy a piece. It’s er mile, en’ll push you lak smoke ter git back.”
“No use,” said Abraham, taking his luncheon in his hands and eating it as he started off. “No use; I des got ter hat it. It’s my sweet navy, en deh ain’t non er dat kin’ in dat sto’. I cay’nt do er lick dis evenin’ less’n I got it.”
He found it necessary to avoid passing in view of Martha Todd’s house, so his distance was a trifle longer than usual.
He stood in the door in surprise. Caroline and Asphalt were seated at the dining table, and on it for that midday repast was only some bread and water. His heart smote him suddenly as he remembered what a delightful luncheon she had always put up in his pail of mornings. But he must not weaken. He remembered that the desired piece of tobacco was in the pocket of a pair of trousers now locked in the wardrobe. Notwithstanding this knowledge, he went to the mantelpiece, looked in the clock, turned over papers, and ran his hands over the covering of Asphalt’s bed.
Then feeling that some explanation was due Caroline, who was regarding him surreptitiously, he said to Asphalt, whose lack of comprehension was as positive as his blackness:
“Asphy, honey, has you seed yo’ papa’s piece er terbaccer? Seem lak I lef’ it in my blue check pants.”
Caroline, however, as if taking the remark to herself, without deigning to look at him, went to the wardrobe, unlocked it, and threw the pair of trousers referred to on the bed, and placidly resumed her work over the fire-place.
With marked eagerness Abraham ran his hand into a pocket of the garment, and finding the tobacco, he forthwith partook of a quid, as if he were unable to stay his desire for another moment. Then he stood and gazed at his wife steadily for a minute with a mingled look of embarrassment and resentment.
But she took not the slightest notice of him. She did not move save to reach over and fan the flies from Asphalt’s face.
Abraham was in hasty argument with himself in regard to the disposal of the trousers lying before him. He did not like to take them away, for he would be obliged to go to Martha Todd’s house to leave them in her care. If the trousers had been his best he might have thought differently, but as fate would have it they were of the very least value of any of his clothes. They were adorned with vari-colored patches, and fringed badly at the knees.
On the other hand, Caroline, he feared, would consider his failing to take them as an evidence that he was weakening from the rigorous course he was pursuing toward a divorce. He decided upon an exhibition of contempt for the trousers, and again brought his child into diplomatic service.
“Asphy,” said he ruefully, holding the trousers out at arm’s length, while the child was most desperately chewing his cheek to dislocate the colony of flies from the Oklahoma below a wildly rolling orb, “Asphy, yo’ papa has certney got all de use out’n dese yer pants. Some tramp kin hat um. ’Sides I mus’ git er lots er new things ter wear in Texas.” With those words, the last of which caused Caroline to start, he threw the trousers into a corner and left the cottage.
As night after night passed the breach seemed to be widening between the couple. Morning after morning Abraham emerged from his house bearing some article of clothing he had managed to secure. He took them to Martha Todd. She smiled, and shed some crocodile tears over the coat, vest, or trousers, as the case might be, cast depreciating looks at certain grease spots or rents, with a sigh that too plainly suggested her opinion of Caroline’s domestic negligence.
One night while Abraham was sedulously searching under the beds, behind trunks, and everywhere for something belonging to him, he was deeply surprised to detect a loud grunt, indicating a burthen of both defiance and disgust, in the bosom of his hitherto wordless wife. He was even more surprised to see her go with a hasty shuffle to the wardrobe and show him that it had not been locked by throwing the door of it wide open.
With another most contemptuous grunt she resumed her seat and began to pat her foot on the floor vigorously, as if to vent her boiling spleen.
Abraham felt cold to his very marrow. She was then willing to remove every hinderance to his leaving, had, indeed, made an opening by which he could hasten his departure.
He approached the wardrobe slowly, casting helpless glances at Caroline’s heaving back. There among her gowns hung naught he could call his own save a soiled linen duster and his overcoat. With trembling fingers he took the duster from its hook, and stalked out into the night. Slowly he glided with bowed head toward his sister’s house. She sat in the doorway behind a cloud of tobacco smoke.
“Well,” said he almost in a whisper, “well, Marfy, dis trouble is mos’ over wid now. ’Twon’t be long ’fo’ I’ll come, now. I think I got de las’ thing ’cep’ er overcoat. Wid good luck I think I kin git dat ter-morrer night. Ter-night I hope you’ll ’low me ter sleep in yo’ company-room. I want ter let Ca’line en Asphy git use’n ter stayin’ in dat house alone.”
Martha rose and moved into the adjoining room to arrange his bed. Her movements betrayed high elation. Things had taken a shape at last that she had hardly hoped for. She lay awake until past midnight listening to Abraham’s creaking bedstead and gloating over the prospective triumph over her heretical sister-in-law.
The next morning Abraham ate his breakfast at Martha’s and went to work without going home. He thought that an additional twelve hours to Caroline’s suspense would do much toward showing her how desirable it was to have a man around the house. The ensuing day, be it said, was a long one to him, and he suffered more than he thought she did.
When he slouched into his cottage at dusk that day, he was shocked to see the inevitable wardrobe open. Indeed the door of that receptacle was frowningly held ajar by means of a stick of stovewood.
Abraham, however, had arranged a grand coup d’ etat for this last visit to his home. It remained to be seen how the enemy would receive the movement.
It was Saturday. He had his entire earnings of the week—twelve silver dollars—in his pocket. He wondered whether twenty-four halves or twelve whole dollars would make the biggest display, and had finally decided on the latter.
Drawing his hand from his pocket to scratch his head he contrived to evoke quite a merry jingle of coin as he stepped across the room to a small table. Caroline’s face flushed and she followed his movements with a mien of deep interest. Not since their marriage had he failed to divide his week’s wages with her. He did not, as she feared, hand it to her on this momentous occasion. Instead, he sat down at the table, after he had dusted and carefully rolled up his overcoat in a newspaper and began to arrange his money in divers piles and positions by the light of a small piece of candle which he had taken from his pocket and lighted to show Caroline that he was not obliged to call for the lamp, which shone on the supper table.
Then he drew forth a soiled piece of writing paper, a small stub of a pencil, and seemed to be engrossed in a deep calculation, as he scratched down some strange hieroglyphics and lines, as if they marked out his course in the future.
“Asphy,” said he, dreamily, the better to assume utter unconsciousness of the fact that the child was asleep on its bed. “Asphy, honey, you ain’t never yer anybody seh how fur ’tis ter Texas, has you? De boss ’low it’s er long way off frum Atlanta, but I reckon I kin git deh—de train starts at twelve ter-night.”
Caroline was so excited that her trembling hands made the dishes in the cupboard rattle as she was putting away the supper, which he had refused to touch, although she had kept it waiting for his arrival. She took a seat in the doorway and turned her dusky face out toward the night in order that he might not see her tear-dimmed eyes.
At the table he sat over his coin chessmen and figures until the far-away strokes of a clock-bell rang the hour of ten out to them from the heart of the sleeping city. As if to answer the bell came a rasping, labored cough from slumbering Asphalt, a disconnected jargon murmured as from a breast of pain, half subdued by sleep.
Two pairs of eyes were raised suddenly; one from the coin-strewn table, the other from the long rows of lights which mark out a street on the blackness far away, between long lines of tall buildings. Two hearts quickened their beatings simultaneously. Two minds were focused on one idea.
The mother rose quickly and with a cat-like tread went to the child and bent over him. Abraham all at once had eyes for aught besides his gains. His mouth relaxed from its drawn sternness and fell open as he watched Caroline’s anxious posture at the bed. He went to her side.
They looked like a pair of ebony statues. The light of the lamp and candle seemed to be struggling to produce shadows of the couple on the wall, but the rays of one lessened the power of the other, so that four dim contortions in shade took the place of two. The mother’s hand was on the brow of the sleeper; her breath was held in suspense.
“Ca’line,” more in a rasping gasp was the name pronounced than in Abraham’s usual tones; “Ca’line, dat child has got ’is feet wet somewhar’. Dis typhoid fever is all roun’ dis settlement en pow’ful bad wid chillun. You look atter him honey; I gwine fur er doctor. I’ll be back ez soon ez I kin git yer.” He left his money on the table, without giving it a thought or glance, and darted hurriedly from the room.
Day after day the troubled pair watched over their sick child, hoping and praying for its life to be spared to them.
“Ef it had en’ er been fur dis yer divo’ce we hat up ’twix us, Ca’line, it wouldn’t er come, I know,” said Abraham, in sackcloth and ashes one night. “It’s mighty bad ter tamper wid whut de Lo’d have done jined tergerr, en all ’bout His Own Son, too; better not hat no chu’ches en dat. Sister done gwine sen’ me my things back.”
Caroline was husky of voice when she replied, dampening a towel to cool Asphalt’s hot brow: “Abrum, I’m willin’, en only too willin’ ter go wid you in yo’ chu’ch. I don’t know no diffunce ’twix de two; I des hat my min’ sot on foolish showin’ off. En if God will only spar dis one child, I’ll never open my mouf ergin. Who knows but er gwine in der water wid wet clothes might er been my regular death? Mebby dis spell er Asphy’s is er warnin’ ergin it.”
Slowly Asphalt passed the dread climax, and began to grow better, and to-day Crippletown does not contain a more happy couple than Abraham and Caroline.