“An old nigger of his picked up a horse the Yankee raiders had turned loose in the country, and brought him home to H——’s plantation. The old nigger gave the horse to his son Sip, and died. The horse had been used up, but he turned out to be a mighty good one,—just such an animal as H—— wanted; so he laid claim to him, and Sip had to go to the Freedmen’s Bureau for an order to compel my friend here to give him up. He told his story, got the order, and brought it home, and showed it to H——, who looked at it, then looked at Sip, and said, ‘Do you know what this paper says?’ ‘It says I’m to have de hoss; dat’s what dey told me.’ ‘I’ll tell you what it says,’ and H—— pretended to read the order: ‘If this boy troubles you any more about that horse, give him a sound thrashing!’ ‘’Fore God,’ says Sip, ‘I done went to de wrong man!’”
I looked to see H——, the just man, who treated his freed people like rational beings, deny the truth of this story.
“G—— has told something near the fact; but there’s one thing he has left out. I just put my Spencer to Sip’s head, and told him if he pestered me any more about that horse, I’d kill him. He knew I was a man of my word, and he never pestered me any more.”
I thought G—— must have intended the story as a hard hit at H——’s honesty; but I now saw that he really meant it as a compliment to his “shrewd management,” and that as such H—— received it with satisfaction.
“But,” said I, “as you relate the circumstance, it seems to me the horse belonged to Sip.”
“A nigger has no use for a horse like that,” replied H——.
“He had been brought on to the plantation and fed there at H——’s expense,” explained G——.
“Hadn’t he done work enough to pay for his keeping?”
“Yes, and ten times over,” said H——, frankly. “I foresaw in the beginning there was going to be trouble about the ownership of that horse. So I told my driver to kill him,—with hard work, I mean. He tried his best to do it; but he was such a tough beast, he did the work and grew fat all the time.”
I was still unable to see why the horse did not belong rightfully to Sip, instead of his master. But one thing I did see, more and more plainly: that it was impossible for the most honorable men who had been bred up under the institution of slavery to deal at all times and altogether honorably with those they had all their lives regarded as chattels. Mr. H—— was one of the fairest and most sensible men in his speech whom I chanced to meet; and I believe that he was sincere,—or at least meant to be sincere. I made inquiries concerning him of his neighbors fifty miles around,—for every large planter knows every other, at least by reputation, within a circuit of several counties,—and all spoke of him as a just and upright man. No doubt if I had had dealings with him I should have found him so. He meant to give the freedmen their rights, but he was only beginning dimly to perceive that they had any rights; and when it came to treating a black man with absolute justice, he did not know the meaning of the word.