Strange as it may seem, to save themselves from the final trial of a heartbreaking farewell, from protests, from the sight of weeping children and excited negroes, three days later Mr. Davenport and his family left by an early train for the west before the negroes, aside from Jerry, knew that they were gone. And in the place of the spectacle of a runaway negro escaping from white owners, the early loungers beheld a runaway white family escaping from the galling bondage of ownership!
CHAPTER IX.
"One touch of nature."—Shakespeare.
As time wore on the family had, in some sort, at least, adjusted itself to the new order of things. The dialect of the strapping Irish-woman who presided over the kitchen of the small but comfortable new home, and the no less unaccustomed speech of the natives, themselves, were a never failing source of amusement to the children and, indeed, to Griffith himself. His old spirits seemed to return as he would repeat, with his hearty laugh, the village gossip, couched in the village forms of speech.
Each day as he opened his Cincinnati Gazette he would laugh out some bit of town news which he had overheard at the post-office or on his way home. The varying forms of penuriousness exhibited in the dealings between the fanners and the villagers impressed him as most amusing of all. The haggling over a few cents, or the payment of money between neighbors for fruit or milk or services of a nature which he had always looked upon as ordinary neighborly courtesy, filled him with mirth. One day, shortly after their arrival, Beverly had brought his mother a dozen peaches from a neighbor's yard. The boy had supposed when asked if his mother would not like them that they were intended as a present. He thanked the owner heartily and said that he was sure his mother would very greatly enjoy.
"After he gave them to me," the boy said, indignantly, "'Six cents wuth, an' cheap at that!' says he, and held out his hand! Well, I could have fainted! Selling twelve peaches to a neighbor! Why, a mountaineer wouldn't do that! And then he had asked me to take them! I had ten cents in my pocket and I handed it to him and walked off. He yelled something to me about change, but I never looked back."
His father enjoyed the joke, as he called it, immensely. He chuckled over it again and again as he sat in the twilight.
One day late in that summer—the summer of '57—the children were attracted by a great uproar and noise in the street. A group of school children, some street loafers, and a few mature but curious, grown citizens were gathered about an object in the middle of the street. Hoots and shouts of derision went up. A half-witted girl circled slowly about the outskirts of the crowd making aimless motions and passes with her hands toward the object of interest. Voices clashed with voices in an effort to gain coherent sound and sense. Was it a bear or a hand organ? The children ran to see. Beverly followed more slowly. Beverly seemed a young man now, so sedate and dignified was this oldest son.
"What is it?"