“Da’ duh my maussuh,” said the recipient proudly, filling his pipe as the hunters rode away.
“Cump’ny fawm two t’ickness’ een de rank,” shouted Mingo savagely. “Don’ look at de buckruh, look at yo’ officer!” and, turning to the smoker, he added: “Me yent hab no maussuh. Uh free ez uh buzzut!”
“Yaas, bubbuh. Buzzut free en’ buzzut black, but buzzut ent free ’nuf fuh light ’puntop nutt’n’ ’cep’n’ ’e dead, en’ nigguh ent free ’nuf fuh mek buckruh fuh bex!”
“OLD HARRISON”
A few years after the war old John Harrison came into the coast country from somewhere beyond Caw Caw Swamp. He boasted a strain of Indian blood, and he showed it in his pigeon-toed walk and the red, coppery tint that stained his bronzed face. Six feet tall and powerfully built, he carried his fifty-odd years lightly, although his high, heavy shoulders were somewhat hunched from the heavy burdens to which they were accustomed for, a noted “pot hunter,” he thought nothing of “packing” a hundred and fifty-pound buck five or ten miles through the forest. During the close season for game he was not averse to working, and had quite a local reputation as a shingle-maker and rail-splitter. His speech was the ordinary “cracker” dialect of the low-country with a suggestion of the Gullah, but he clipped his words, and when excited, his sentences ran into a quick crescendo, almost unintelligible and defying reproduction in print.
When he came to Pon Pon he was allowed to clear a small field in a distant part of the plantation, a mile away from the “big house,” now only a beautiful ruin, with ivy, woodbine, and Lamarque roses clambering 50 feet in the air over the 200-year-old chimneys of English brick. On his “new ground,” old Harrison built a large and trim-looking log cabin, and here he took up residence with his motherless children, two small girls and a straight and strapping son of 18, who helped his father with his work, but not in the chase, for Harrison hunted alone, sometimes, with a single well-trained hound, disappearing for two or three days at a time, to return laden with venison or wild turkeys which were sold at the railway station. His dog, like those of most of the “pot hunters” who follow the chase on foot, was trained to silence, and never gave tongue. A small bell was attached to his collar and he was seldom out of sight of his master, who could tell by the movement of his ears and tail when the animal had found a trail, and when the lifting of the ears and the more rapid wagging of the tail indicated the near approach to the myrtle thicket where the deer lay in his bed, both barrels of the muzzle-loader were cocked and Harrison usually got a shot as the deer “jumped.”
Ben Summers, a large black negro in late middle-age, was a “locus” preacher in the neighborhood and, a jackleg carpenter, worked as well as preached. Throughout his life he had been partial to wives, having been more or less affiliated with six or seven, whom he put away and took back again, with no more ceremony than his change of mind. Unruly and insubordinate as a slave, he became “swonguh” with freedom, and was more or less insolent, save to his former master’s family. He was regarded as a rascal by whites and blacks, and when a calf or a shoat was missed in the community, Ben was not infrequently suspected of having shared the meat, either as a participant in the slaughter, or as a welcomed guest at the banqueting board of the thief.
One of Ben’s wives had achieved a son by a former husband, before Ben took her over, and this stepson had acquired a wife, a husky, cornfed wench, an Amazon in strength and fierceness. Soon after her marriage, old Ben, a rough-talking, brutal fellow, who tyrannized over the women of his entourage, undertook to discipline this step-daughter-in-law with physical chastisement. Cutting a hickory, he proceeded to manhandle her as he had been accustomed to use his wives. She accepted two or three blows, and then turned upon him so swiftly that he was swept off his feet and mauled almost into unconsciousness. After he had been patched up and rehabilitated, and the first bitterness of defeat had worn off, he really liked to tell the story, laying the unction to his soul that only his Christian spirit had stayed his hand and saved the life of the virago.
“Ben, you are a big strong man, why did you let that woman beat you?”
“Gin’ul, lemme tell you de trute, Gawd bin wid me dat day. You know, all me life uh bin uh strong man. Uh nebbuh hab no man fuh outdo me fuh wu’k, eeduhso fuh fight, en’ uh bin nyuse fuh lick ’ooman en’ t’ing all me life. W’en ’ooman ent sattify me wid ’e wu’k, eeduhso ’e mannus, uh lick’um fuh mek’um mannusubble. W’en my wife Sarah’ son John’ wife come een my house dat day, ’e sassy ’tell ’e mek me bex. Uh nebbuh tek sassy f’um no ’ooman, uh dunkyuh ef ’e big ez cow, en’ da’ gal big ’ooman fuh true. So uh cut one ’tick en’ uh graff’um by ’e sleebe en’ biggin fuh lick’um. Gin’ul, de ’ooman tu’n on me en’ box me same lukkuh him duh man. Blood bin een me yeye! Uh ’membuh de time w’en uh could’uh box’um en’ kick’um alltwo one time, en’ ef uh ebbuh leh de foot folluh de han’, uh would uh kill’um dead. But Gawd hol’ me han’ en’ me foot, alltwo, Gawd tell me fuh peaceubble, en’ spayre de ’ooman life. Gin’ul, me don’ want no ’ooman life ’pun me han’. Enty you know, suh, ef uh had uh kick dat ’ooman ’e would uh dead? Gawd tek’care uh ol’ Ben dat day. Da’ ’ooman t’ink suh him lick me, Gin’ul, but enty you know suh him oughtuh tengk Gawd fuh sabe’um? Ef uh didn’ bin hab ’lij’un, da’ ’ooman’ cawpse would’uh gone Jacksinburruh een one oxin cyaa’t weh ’e come f’um. All de time ’e binnuh box me, uh bin study ’bout how da’ ’ooman’ cawpse would’uh look ef uh had uh hit’um like de time w’en uh nyuse to be uh Ben! En’ uh study ’pun him husbun’, my wife Sarah’ boy John, en’ uh study ’pun John’ maamy, en’ uh t’ink ’bout how dem will mo’n ef uh kill dis ’ooman, en’ wid Gawd’ help uh hab strengk ’nuf fuh hol’ me han’. Gin’ul, w’enebbuh uh look ’puntop de’ dead ’ooman een me mine’, uh tengk Gawd eb’ry day fuh hol’ me han’!”