Aaron in the Wildwoods

by Joel Chandler Harris

"If I'm going to be hurt," responded George doggedly, "I'd like to know who'll do it."

It would have been better for both if Mr. Gossett had told his son of his experience with Aaron. As it was, George was in danger of losing the little respect he had for his father. When he was warned that he would be hurt if he kept on trying to capture Aaron, he suspected at once that the warning related to Mr. Abercrombie. Who else would dare to hurt him, or even threaten to hurt him? Certainly not the runaway. Who, then, but Abercrombie?

The suggestion was enough. It made George Gossett so furious that he never thought to reflect that he himself had invented it. Once invented, however, every circumstance seemed to fit it. His father had suddenly lost interest in the runaway, though he had paid out money for him, and had hardly received a week's work in return. Why? Because Mr. Abercrombie had overawed his father in a crowd, just as he did the day Aaron was sold from the block. The young man had not forgotten that episode, and his resentment was rekindled and grew hotter than ever, for it was now reinforced by inward shame and disgust at the way his father had allowed himself to be overcome—and that, too, in regard to his own property.

The first result of George Gossett's resentment was his nearly successful effort to make the Teacher, Richard Hudspeth, the victim of the violent and natural prejudice that existed at that time against abolitionists; an event that has been related in "The Story of Aaron." The rescue of the Teacher by Mr. Abercrombie, and the fact that George Gossett was knocked flat by the Black Stallion, caused his resentment to rise to a white heat. He brooded over the matter until, at last, a desire to injure Mr. Abercrombie became an uncontrollable mania, and it went so far that one night, inflamed by whiskey, he set fire to the dwelling-house of the man he believed to be his father's enemy.

Then it was that Aaron rescued Little Crotchet and Free Polly, and fell fainting to the ground. And then it was that Mr. Gossett seized the first plausible opportunity that had presented itself to sell Aaron to Mr. Abercrombie. It is true, he drove a sharp bargain, suspecting that the runaway had seriously injured himself; but he would have sold Aaron in any event, being anxious to get rid of him.

George Gossett disappeared that night and was seen no more in that region. Years afterward, a homesick Georgian returning from Texas brought word that George Gossett had made a name for himself in that State, being known as a tough and a terror.

It's an ill wind that blows no good to any one. George Gossett little knew, when he applied the torch to the Abercrombie dwelling, that the light of it would call Aaron from the wildwoods and show him the way to a home where he was to live, happy in the love of Little Crotchet and of children as yet unborn, and happy in the respect and confidence of those whose interest he served.

Perhaps if George Gossett could have looked into the future, the blaze that produced these results would never have been kindled, and in that event the story of Aaron in the Wildwoods could have been spun out at greater length, but the conclusion would not have been different.

Richard Hudspeth remained long enough to see Aaron duly installed in his new home, for the Abercrombie mansion was at once rebuilt on a larger scale than ever, and to see him serve as the major-domo of the establishment. But the departure of the Teacher was not delayed for many months after his experience with the reckless and irresponsible young men who had placed themselves under the leadership of George Gossett. Duties more pressing and more important than those he had assumed in Georgia called him to his Northern home, where a larger career awaited him—a career that made him famous.

He became the most intimate adviser of Abraham Lincoln, and that great man found in him what, at the outset, he found in few New England men, the deepest sympathy and highest appreciation.