It was a pitiful sight, and a pitiable ending of the old couple’s dream of freedom. Harbert and the other negroes buried the old man, and the old woman was made comfortable in one of the empty cabins; she never ceased to bless “little marster,” as she called Joe, giving him all the credit for everything that was done for her. Old as she was, she and her husband had followed the army for many a weary mile on the road to freedom. The old man found it in the fence corner, and a few weeks later the old woman found it in the humble cabin.
The next morning, as Joe Maxwell was loitering around the printing-office, talking to the editor, Butterfly came galloping up, ridden by Mink, who was no longer a runaway.
* This incident has had many adaptations. It occurred just
as it is given here, and was published afterward in The
Countryman.
“I seed you put ’im out in de swamp dar, Mars’ Joe, an’ den I seed some er de yuther niggers gwine dar long wid dem Yankee mens, an’ I say ter myse’f dat I better go dar an’ git ’im; so I tuck ’im down on de river, an’ here he is. He mayn’t be ez fatez he wuz, but he des ez game ez he yever is been.”
Joe was pleased, and the editor was pleased; and it happened that Mink became one of the tenants on the plantation, and after a while he bought a little farm of his own, and prospered and thrived.
But this is carrying a simple chronicle too far. It can not be spun out here and now so as to show the great changes that have been wrought—the healing of the wounds of war; the lifting up of a section from ruin and poverty to prosperity; the molding of the beauty, the courage, the energy, and the strength of the old civilization into the new; the gradual uplifting of a lowly race. All these things can not be told of here. The fire burns low, and the tale is ended.
The plantation newspaper was issued a little while longer, but in a land filled with desolation and despair its editor could not hope to see it survive. A larger world beckoned to Joe Maxwell, and he went out into it. And it came about that on every side he found loving hearts to comfort him and strong and friendly hands to guide him. He found new associations and formed new ties. In a humble way he made a name for himself, but the old plantation days still live in his dreams.