ONE OF THE DEACONS.
BY MRS. JULIA E. NELSON.
"A short, heavy-set, black man," "A good carpenter," "A man who can turn his hand to 'most anything," "None of your trifling fellows; somebody you can depend on every time." Such are the descriptions given of Deacon Jeremiah Edwards by the people among whom the chief part of his fifty years have been passed.
"The pump is out of kilter." "So? Well, tell Jeremiah Edwards to come and doctor it up."
"There's a leak in the roof, and the tinners can't seem to find it." "I'll send Jerry 'round to attend to it."
"Can't find the key of my bureau drawer; reckon Bud or the baby has lost it; drawer locked, and not a key can I find to fit in either of the hardware stores. I never saw such a place." "Don't fret about it, Carrie, I'll send Uncle Jerry up to file off one of these keys or make a new one; and while he's here, have him repair the organ and mend the picket-fence, and set the glass in the chamber window and the back bedroom. Better let him take the umbrella to his shop and mend it, and is there anything else? Oh! those shears and the butcher-knife you've been complaining about so long; let him take them along and sharpen them up." "Do you suppose, Harry, he could do anything with the cooking-stove? There's something broken about it; I reckon it's broken, but the cook says it's burnt out. Likely she broke it, though; niggers are so careless and good-for-nothing." "Certainly, certainly. Jerry used to work in an iron-foundry; he's a regular Tubal Cain. If he can't fix anything that's made of iron or brass or wood, it can't be fixed, that's flat."
Now what would the residents of a town like Jonesboro, a town over one hundred years old, and very small of its age—what could they do in an emergency if, instead of a missing key, there should be a missing Jerry? The probabilities are that it will take something mightier than the Western fever and more powerful than Colonization projects to carry Jerry Edwards away from the snug little home that he has made for himself, his good wife Patsey, and his little granddaughter. Many a millionaire finds less satisfaction in his palatial mansion than the proprietor of that little white cottage among the trees, as he gathers fruit from his own well-kept orchard, vegetables from his prolific garden, and corn from his own field. How much sweeter music is the cackling of hens to one who has brought them up from downy chickenhood! That and the robins' songs give more pleasure at the cottage than would the notes of imprisoned canaries.
A horse that "knows more than some people," cows that show generous keeping, and the "prettiest pigs you ever saw" are some of the adjuncts of the Edwards establishment. A pig is not pretty? Own the pig—own the pig and watch him as he grows ripe for the pork barrel. Everybody's pig, like everybody's baby, is prettier than anybody's.
"Let everybody go West that wants to," says Jerry Edwards, "and let them that want to be Africans go to Africa. I'm an American, and I shall stay right here the balance of my days. If I couldn't make a living here, I should be striking out after work, but I don't need to go anywhere to hunt work; work is hunting for me all the time." And so it is.
Speaking in the Literary Society on the relative merits of trades and the learned professions, he said, "Everybody ought to work with his hands that can't work with his head. Now, some try to work with their heads when they'd be doing a good deal better for themselves and everybody else if they'd just go to work with their hands. Now, I couldn't make a living by headwork if I wanted to. I don't know how it would have been if I'd had a chance for an education when I was young. I never went to school a day in my life except Sunday-school. What little knowledge I have of reading and writing is just picked up. Because I've got along without an education, I don't think everybody else ought to do the same. I'd have got along better if I'd had more. I feel as if I am crippled by the want of it, and am just crutching along. Young men, get all the education you can, but at the same time remember that it's a good thing to have a trade to fall back upon."
In the ante-bellum days, that compound of muscle and will and honesty and skill now known as Deacon Edwards, used to bring home to his master a twenty-dollar gold piece weekly, earned in the foundry where he was hired out without being a party to the contract. His master had a large family, and gave to each of his children a college education. If the earnings of Jerry and his fellow-servants did not suffice to pay bills, a boy or girl (and colored men and women were always boys and girls with their masters) would be sold. The "boy" to whom he gave two trades, although by no means rich, is in better circumstances than any of the sons whose education was paid for by the sweat of dusky brows mingled with countless tears and bitter heart-burnings.
That humorous philosopher, Josh Billings, says, "You never saw a self-made man but what was mighty proud of his job." If any self-made man has a right to be proud, it is he who, having been held as a chattel, has compelled all who know him to admit that he possesses honesty, good sense, moral courage and everything that goes to make up a true man.
Four years ago Jerry Edwards was elected School Commissioner, and served in that capacity for three years. He was the first and only colored man who has ever filled that position in his district, and was elected by an unusually large majority in a place where colored men are greatly in the minority. But he has won victories greater than this—victories over self in breaking the chains of appetite and long-established habit. Eight years ago a temperance society was organized here. "Before that time," says he, "I never heard, and it had never entered my head, that there could be any harm in drinking so long as a man didn't get drunk." He attended the meetings, listened attentively, but did not take the pledge for a long time. At first he argued for the moderate use of stimulants, the harmlessness of pure wine, etc., but yielded point by point to repeated assaults in a war of friendly words.
He had a fine vineyard, made wine, drank it, sold it, and gave it to his friends. There was no market for grapes—what should he do with his vineyard? He feared he could not abstain wholly, and tried total abstinence for several months before venturing to pledge himself to it publicly, "Don't think," said he, during his voluntary probation, "that I don't appreciate what you say, nor that I am not as good a friend to you as anybody in the Temperance Society." We had had some persecutions. "I'll be with you in six troubles," said he. "Ah! yes, Mr. Edwards," said I, "you will, and have been already: but in the seventh trouble, the temperance trouble, there you leave me to fight the battle alone." That was an unmerciful sword-thrust when he was having a harder battle than I, his foes being within and mine without—his enemies being appetite and love of gain, mine principally ignorance and prejudice. Not long after this he joined the temperance society, and now sells or gives away grapes instead of wine.
Over a year ago he resolved that he would no longer be a bond-slave to that bewitching weed whose use civilized men learned from savages. For more than forty years he had used tobacco, having begun at the early age of seven years. A poor kind of candy to reward a good boy with, certainly. It was no easy thing for the veteran smoker and chewer to bid good-bye to pipe and quid, but for fourteen months he has successfully resisted the temptation to defile himself with the unclean thing, although he has craved it every day.
"I know there's differences in religion," said Haley, the trader. "Some kinds is mis'rable. There's your meetin' pious; there's your singin' roarin' pious; them ar ain't no account in black or white; but these rayly is; and I've seen it in niggers as often as any: your rail softly quiet, stiddy, honest pious that the hull world couldn't tempt 'em to do nothing that they thinks is wrong." The "roarin' pious" never give up the use of tobacco; it takes the "stiddy, honest pious" to do that. If you are going to build a church and want solid deacon timber, take the last sort.