Gabriel Tolliver: A Story of Reconstruction

by Joel Chandler Harris

It has been demonstrated recently on some very wide fields of action that the atmosphere of commercialism is unfavourable to the growth of sentiments of an ideal character. That is why wise men who believe in the finer issues of life are inclined to be suspicious of what is loosely called civilisation and progress, and doubtful of the theories of those who clothe themselves in the mantle of science.

Whatever the feeling in the cities may have been when news of the surrender came, it caused the most poignant grief and despair in the country places: and there, as elsewhere in this world, whenever suffering is to be borne, the most of the burden falls on the shoulders of the women. It is at once the strength and weakness of the sex that woman suffers more than man and is more capable of enduring the pangs of suffering.

As for the men they soon recovered from the shock. They were startled and stunned, but when they opened their eyes to the situation they found themselves confronted by conditions that had no precedent or parallel in the history of the world. It is small fault if their minds failed at first to grasp the significance and the import of these conditions, so new were they and so amazing.

A few years later, Gabriel Tolliver, who, when the surrender came, was a lad just beyond seventeen, took himself severely to task before a public assemblage for his blindness in 1865, and the years immediately following; and his criticisms must have gone home to others, for the older men who sat in the audience rose to their feet and shook the house with their applause. They, too, had been as blind as the boy.

It was perhaps well for Shady Dale that Mr. Sanders came home when he did. He had been in the field, if not on the forum. He had mingled with public men, and, as he himself contended, had been "closeted" with one of the greatest men the country ever produced—the reference being to Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Sanders had to tell over and over again the story of how he and Frank Bethune didn't kidnap the President; and he brought home hundreds of rich and racy anecdotes that he had picked up in the camp. In those awful days when there was little ready money to be had, and business was at a standstill, and the courts demoralised, and the whole social fabric threatening to fall to pieces, it was Mr. Billy Sanders who went around scattering cheerfulness and good-humour as carelessly as the children scatter the flowers they have gathered in the fields.

Mr. Sanders and Francis Bethune had formed a part of the escort that went with Mr. Davis as far as Washington in Wilkes County. On this account, Mr. Sanders boasted that at the last meeting of the Confederate Cabinet held in that town, he had elected himself a member, and was duly installed. "It was the same," he used to say, "as j'inin' the Free-masons. The doorkeeper gi' me the grip an' the password, the head man of the war department knocked me on the forrerd, an' the thing was done. When Mr. Davis was ready to go, he took me by the hand, an' says, 'William,' says he, 'keep house for the boys till I git back, an' be shore that you cheer 'em up.'"

This sort of nonsense served its purpose, as Mr. Sanders intended that it should. Wherever he appeared on the streets a crowd gathered around him—as large a crowd as the town could furnish. To a spectator standing a little distance away and out of hearing, the attitude and movements of these groups presented a singular appearance. The individuals would move about and swap places, trying to get closer to Mr. Sanders. There would be a period of silence, and then, suddenly, loud shouts of laughter would rend the air. Such a spectator, if a stranger, might easily have imagined that these men and boys, standing close together, and shouting with laughter at intervals, were engaged in practising a part to be presented in a rural comedy—or that they were a parcel of simpletons.

One peculiarity of Mr. Sanders's humour was that it could not be imitated with any degree of success. His raciest anecdote lost a large part of its flavour when repeated by some one else. It was the way he told it, a cut of the eye, a lift of the eyebrow, a movement of the hand, a sudden air of solemnity—these were the accessories that gave point and charm to the humour.

Mr. Sanders had cut out a very large piece of work for himself. He kept it up for some time, but he gradually allowed himself longer and longer intervals of seriousness. The multitude of problems growing out of the new and strange conditions were of a thought-compelling nature; and they grew larger and more ominous as the days went by. Gabriel Tolliver might take to the woods, as the saying is, and so escape from the prevailing depression. But Mr. Sanders and the rest of the men had no such resource; responsibility sat on their shoulders, and they were compelled to face the conditions and study them. Gabriel could sit on the fence by the roadside, and see neither portent nor peril in the groups and gangs of negroes passing and repassing, and moving restlessly to and fro, some with bundles and some with none. He watched them, as he afterward complained, with a curiosity as idle as that which moves a little child to watch a swarm of ants. He noticed, however, that the negroes were no longer cheerful. Their child-like gaiety had vanished. In place of their loud laughter, their boisterous play, and their songs welling forth and filling the twilight places with sweet melodies, there was silence. Gabriel had no reason to regard this silence as ominous, but it was so regarded by his elders.

He thought that the restless and uneasy movements of the negroes were perfectly natural. They had suddenly come to the knowledge that they were free, and they were testing the nature and limits of their freedom. They desired to find out its length and its breadth. So much was clear to Gabriel, but it was not clear to his elders. And what a pity that it was not! How many mistakes would have been avoided! What a dreadful tangle and turmoil would have been prevented if these grown children could have been judged from Gabriel's point of view! For the boy's interpretation of the restlessness and uneasiness of the blacks was the correct one. Your historians will tell you that the situation was extraordinary and full of peril. Well, extraordinary, if you will, but not perilous. Gabriel could never be brought to believe that there was anything to be dreaded in the attitude of the blacks. What he scored himself for in the days to come was that his interest in the matter never rose above the idle curiosity of a boy.