SUPERSTITIONS REGARDING K. K. K.
Impressions after a K. K. K. Raid—Will Morning never come?—Conjectures Regarding the Subject in the Minds of those who should have been Prepared to Render an Opinion—What Superstitious People thought—The Mill Council—Boys and Colored Men—K. K. K. Arraigned on various Charges, and Acquitted for Want of Testimony—The Subject an Enigma—Man a Superstitious Animal—Education the Best and a Poor Antidote.
On the immemorial night referred to Crow Hide slept uneasily, for besides an indefinable something in the air, that brooded over men’s spirits like a spell from the other world, there were strange sounds from without creeping into hallways and banging at the doors of apartments; dogs were disconsolate, and whined incessantly; barn-yard echoes stole in on every breeze; and the moon-beams, falling into windows, and past the forms of sleepers, by their jerky, undecided motion, said, as plainly as words, “We are dissatisfied with ourselves.” Children tossed their arms about wildly as they slept, and when wakened, requested that their couches might be removed from the neighborhood of windows. A weird somnambulism took possession of the forms of men and women, leading them to doors and windows, and sometimes rents in the wall, where they awoke to find themselves in listening attitudes, and to listen. Horses neighed, cattle lowed, and chains which might have been attached to watch-dogs, but were not, made the circuit of buildings, or were tossed against the boundaries of closes.
Would morning never come? Girls and timid boys revolved this query in their minds, building a faint hope thereon; but when they held their breaths and listened, they found, as their fears had informed them, that the clock pendulums, hammering away at the seconds, made no gap in time. Others, who felt no certain fear, but a boding uneasiness, thought to count the moments on their fingers while the gloom lasted; but so frequently were they interrupted by strange sounds from without, that they found themselves ever recurring to the point where they began. Even the chickens on their roosts were witch-ridden, and crowed lustily for day, when the half-grown moon had not yet passed meridian.
But “the longest lane has its turn,” at one or both ends, and when the shadows slept, and the gray messengers of morn tripped along the eastern hills, the enchanter’s wand was lifted from its hills and valleys, and Crow Hide, unclosing its eyes, gave thanks. Now a breath of peacefulness had come upon its affairs, and so radiant seemed the morning skies, and so innocent of evil the sweet landscapes lying bathed in dew-sparkles, that there were few who looked abroad without being inspired with doubts of the existence of the latter, even as an abstraction. Even those who had been controlled by the most abject emotions while the terrors of the night lasted, when morning came, stood up boldly for a common sense solution of the mystery. Those who had all their lives been troubled with superstitious fears, and were in danger of becoming imbued with the error in its grosser forms, by the aid of such experiences as that through which they had recently passed, admitted the possibility of this. If, therefore, it did not come as a positive revelation, it was a relief to all to be informed, as they were at an early hour, that the initials of the monster haunt who during the night had managed to reflect as many individualities as there were farm-houses in the district were K. K. K. But though this was accepted as a fact by all, seeing that no other theory was advanced, yet the question remained, did it furnish a satisfactory solution of the mystery, or, indeed, any solution whatever? According to the neighborhood version, the Ku-Klux themselves were about as intangible examples of ghostliness as were ever wrapped in loose-fitting bombazine; and if so, wherein was gossip made the wiser? The very difficulty which the most scholarly person would experience in seeking out the words indexed by the famous K(u) K(lu) K(lan), was enough to evince to the world that there was something radically wrong with its genealogy.
On the morning in question, the chore emissaries (boys and negroes) of the farms for miles around had assembled at the neighborhood mill, awaiting their turns of grinding, and when rumor brought the subject into the mill council, the conflict of opinion, involving original arguments advanced and the weight of authorities adduced, became truly Brobdignagian. The night raiders had been seen by some of the party, and of this number all had crossed the boundaries of persuasion, and were absolutely convinced regarding some physical (if the term may be used) peculiarity of the ghostly phalanx.
An urchin of twelve summers, who confessed to sub rosa practices while the paternal premises were being raided, but nevertheless claimed to get one eye squarely on them as they rounded a hill, one and three-quarters of a mile distant, was convinced that the heads of the rear files (front not visible) extended above the tops of the trees. This statement was delivered with much earnestness of manner, and at its conclusion all the saints and martyrs in the calendar were invited to give it their indorsement.
Peter Burleson, aged fifteen, who saw the party ride out of the village cemetery (a whim of the raiders, inducing the belief that they had undergone a partial hibernation amid these surroundings), was able to state something as to its numbers in keeping with the above. According to this witness, the weird force was composed of two battalions and a squadron, or about two thousand men and horses, exclusive of a section of artillery, and an indefinite number of pack-mules. The horses composing the procession were deep black in color, emitted columns of smoke and flame from their nostrils (vide pictorial papers), and varied in height from a lamppost to a telegraph pole. Of the raiders themselves he would say nothing (under the impression, doubtless, that the theme had been exhausted); but as to the “rig” they wore, he was morally certain that an inverted churn constituted the head-dress, a wagon sheet of mammoth pattern the shoulder-garb, and army canteens (probably bisected and thus made to do double duty) the button ornaments.
Observing something at this point in the countenances of his auditors which he did not quite like, he availed himself of their knowledge of dictionary superlatives in an exhortation of some length, and concluded by submitting as his wish that he be “hung, drawn, and quartered,” and such further disposition made of his remains as the skeptics of the crowd might propose.