That they should take who have the power
And they should keep who can.”
Barney had the power. Therefore he took. He loved green peavines as the Scot loves his haggis, and whenever he fancied them he had but to lean against the miserable fences enclosing the negroes’ patches, walk through, and help himself. The negroes would shoot him up with firearms and ammunition of all sorts and his hide was constantly full of lead of every size from mustard seed to swan shot, but fear kept the marksmen from getting near enough to hurt him seriously, so Barney philosophically took the lead without, and the peavines within, and after eating his fill would lie down in the field and chew his cud complacently, walking out later through the owner’s front yard, pausing to paw the dirt contemptuously and pull a few mouthfuls from the Seewee bean vines that climbed about the garden palings.
One day Friday’s field was invaded, and, hat in hand, he came to the doorstep to complain. “Missis,” he said, “dat bull Baa’ney, she is ridickilus! Missis, I mek my fench ten rail high. I stake her and I rider her, but ole Baa’ney she put her breas’ agains’ my fench, she lean on her, she break her down. She enter my fiel’, she eat my peas. I shoot her, but she is indifferent to my shot. When she conclude eatin’ my peas, she lie down, and, Missis, she was so full that she could not rise!” But Friday was a gentlemanly old darkey and treated his sturdy, quick-talking wife, Minda, with great gallantry, practical gallantry, too, as she bore him (and raised) 17 sons and daughters, thereby earning the well-done of her kindly though thrifty old master. “Maussuh lub me ’cause uh hab chillun so fas’,” she boasted. “I fetch’um uh fine nigguh eb’ry year Gawd sen’!”—meaning that the old gentleman had a pre-Rooseveltian objection to race suicide on the plantation.
Although old Bo’sun Smashum, the herdsman, who had raised Barney from a calf, would twist his tail in the barnyard and chevy him about with impunity, the bull was truculent toward outsiders and on more than one occasion disputed the highway with planters of the neighborhood, who were forced to turn back and drive a mile or so out of the way in the interest of safety; while negroes riding or driving oxen, on sighting Barney in the road half a mile away, would take to the woods or the fields and make a wide and respectful detour. The danger would be enhanced should the animal between the shafts of the primitive cart be one of the “bull yellin’s” so much affected by the freedmen for combination purposes. The silly song, “Everybody works but father,” had not then been evolved from the near-brain of the writer of music hall lyrics, and the labors of a beast of burden were held not incompatible with the paternity of a bovine family. So these little creatures multiplied and continued to lead their double lives. Barney held in utter contempt even the authenticated bulls of the community, but he so terrorized the little harnessed scrubs that their owners could hardly avert a stampede when the great bull bellowed in the vicinity.
One hot Sunday afternoon three or four hundred negroes were holding services at the old log church near the Parker’s Ferry cross-roads. Too numerous for the building, they were using outdoor bush shelters covered with green boughs and with hewn saplings for seats. At the tail of a “distracted meetin’” that had been running for several days, while grass grew in their crops, they were in a state of exaltation, and the high, sweet voices of the women blended in harmony with the deep, rich basses of the men in the perfect rhythm characteristic of African music. Old time hymns and “sperrituals” alternated. At first, only two or three voices followed the leader, then one by one the singers joined in major and minor keys, until at the last the entire congregation swelled the diapason that floated away on the summer wind. The little oxen and bulls, whose harness permitted the indulgence, lay down at their hitching posts, the less fortunate stood between the shafts and chewed their cuds, drowsing with half-closed eyes in the soft, warm air of the pineland, fragrant with the blossoming partridge peas.
The singers walked up and down the aisles of the open-air church, working up enthusiasm in camp meeting fashion.
“Sistuh Chizzum, won’t you meet me yonduh?” Sister Chisolm would, so she responded to the masculine invitation, “Oh yaas, Lawd!”
“Bredduh Hacklus, won’t you meet me yonduh?” And Brother Hercules, a wizened little member of Sister Chisolm’s “class,” shouted in acquiescent gallantry, “Oh yaas, Lawd!”
The meeting drew to a close, the last inspiring “sperritual,” of African suggestiveness, remained to be sung. Who should raise the tune? Simon Jenkins the “squerril” hunter, a devout old rascal, called to his brother-in-law, John Chisolm, “hice’um, Chizzum! You hice de chune.”