The Bishop and the Boogerman

by Joel Chandler Harris

"No, Jonas; you don't wonder, an' you needn't pertend to. Nuther here nor here-arter, will that sorter thing work. When I ketch you wonderin', I'll know you've took one of them infectious diseases that you read about. You could see Cally-Lou, an' so could I, if our gizzards was in the right place. But I kin say as much as that nigger did—I mighty nigh seed her. Folks tell me that you kin see the wind ef you'll take a handsaw at the right time of day, an' hold it so the breeze kin blow over it. I an't got the least doubt that we could see a heap of things that we never do see, ef we know'd when, an' whar, an' how to look."

The three men were silent a long time until Lawyer Tidwell remarked, with something that sounded like a sigh, "I reckon we'd better be going, Mr. Sanders." They went away, leaving old Jonas alone in the house. He neither bade them good-bye, nor turned his head when they went. But when he heard the door shut, he went to the window, as if to make sure they had really gone; and when he was satisfied on this point, he shuffled to the back porch, and called for Randall. The negro came silent, but wondering. For years he had been in a state of uneasy expectation, and he found it almost impossible to free himself from it now. Old Jonas was blunt and brief.

"Go over to the courthouse, walk into the Ordinary's office, and ask if Mr. Sanders and Lawyer Tidwell have been there. As a matter of fact, they haven't been there, and they are not going there, but old Tuttle will think they are coming and he'll be worried about it. I want you to show yourself to him just once. Answer every question he asks you. Tell him where you are staying; say that I have employed you; but pretend you don't know him. Then walk around the public square, and through the town, make yourself known to some of your coloured friends, and come right back here and go to work about the lot and yard just as if you had been here a long time."

Randall made no reply; he merely stood scratching his head, and fumbling with his hat trying hard to come to some understanding, however dim, of the motive and purpose that lay behind old Jonas's command; but, try as he would, he couldn't make out the puzzle that seemed to envelope and becloud his mind. Still fumbling with his hat, and standing on first one foot and then the other, he remarked, with some hesitation, "Well, suh, I'll go ef it's yo' will—but you know what St. Paul (er it may be St. Second Timothy) tells us. He tells us, one er both, for to go not whether we'll be treated contretemptous, not by day an' not by night—Paul er St. Second Timothy, one er both."

Old Jonas regarded the negro with amazement; for the first time in his life he had a whiff of the kind of education the negroes were picking up here and there.

That, or something else irritated him, and he spoke with some heat. "Well, confound you! do just as you please! Go or don't go—you're free, I reckon. But if you do go, say to old Tuttle that you're glad to see him looking so well. You are a Republican, I reckon?"

"Yes, sir," replied Randall, with some degree of hesitation; "ef you put it that way, I speck I is. Nobody ain't never gi' me no chanst for to be anything else. I jest did squeeze in the Northron Methodist Church; ef I'd 'a' had on a long coat, the tail would 'a' been ketched in the crack of the door. All these here new doin's an' new fashions makes me feel right ticklish, an' sometimes I ketch myself laughin' when they ain't nothin' to laugh at, an' it took me long for to find out that when you laugh in the wrong place it's because you ought to be cryin' by good rights. All this has been gwine on now some time, an' I done come to that pass that when a piece of paper blows round the cornder right sudden, I mighty nigh jump out'n my skin. I'm tellin' you the plain truth, suh! An' now, after all this, you want me to put on what little cloze I got an' walk right into Mr. Tuttle's jaws—the identual man that I've been runnin' fum I dunner how long—him that I come mighty nigh joltin' across—I done forgot what St. Luke (or maybe it wuz St. Mark—they run so close together in the book that I skacely know t'other fum which). Anyhow, they's a Bible name for the thing you want me to do; an' I tell you right now, I dunner whether for to do it or not. You white folks don't keer much what you do—I've done took notice of that; but when it comes down to a plain nigger, why, he's got to walk as thin as a batter cake; he's got to step like he's afeard of stickin' a needle in his foot. I'm tellin' you the truth, suh; I been dodgin' an' hidin' so long that when I hear anybody walkin' fast behind me, the flesh crawls on my back—yes, suh, natchally crawls—an' I have to hol' my breath for to keep fum breakin' loose an' runnin'. I'll go there, suh, an' I hope it'll be all right; but I never is to forget what St. Paul (or it may be St. Second Timothy) says on that head."

Old Jonas frowned heavily, and further betrayed his irritation by a smothered malediction that included the entire negro race. Randall waited for no further outbreak; he melted, as it were, from the doorway, and disappeared as far as old Jonas was concerned, but Adelaide, who was sitting in a little bower she had made for herself, saw him standing by the fence gazing into space. The child after awhile turned her attention to play, but Randall held his ground for a long time, looking into the bright sky far beyond the bermuda hills for a proper solution of the problem he had in his mind. But it was a problem that the windy spaces with their blue perspective could not solve, and so, with a sigh, he betook himself to the courthouse, where the man whose life he had nearly taken was now holding forth as an officer of the law. The slave-driver had become a belated Unionist, then a Republican, and was now a Radical of the stripe and temper of poor Thaddeus Stevens, who was at that time the centre and motor of Radical politics.

Now, Mr. Tuttle was by no means asleep; he had watched and waited for the return of Randall. He carried in his pocket book a warrant, duly made out and officially signed, for the arrest of the negro. The charge was assault with intent to murder. He saw Randall long before Randall saw him, called the deputy sheriff, who had a room across the corridor, apprised him of the fact that a criminal was to be arrested, pulled from his pocket-book the wrong document, and the moment the negro entered the courthouse he found himself in custody of the dread officer of the law. To say that he was frightened would be putting it rather mildy; he was paralysed with sickening fear, which was only overcome by desperate rage against the white people, all and singular, who had caused him to walk into such a trap.

The park in which the courthouse stands was separated from the rest of the public square by a small, neat fence, over which, at the entrances, steps led, so that instead of opening a gate, you simply walked up the steps, over the fence, and down on the other side. On top of the most frequented of these stiles or steps Mr. Sanders and Lawyer Tidwell were sitting. Lawyer Tidwell was on his way to the courthouse for the purpose of examining some legal documents relating to a case he had on the docket, and Mr. Sanders had accompanied him as far as the enclosure. Their conversation grew so interesting that they finally seated themselves on the topmost step of the stile. They may have been talking of something serious, or they may have been relating anecdotes; but whatever the character of their conference, it was brought to a sudden conclusion by the appearance of the deputy sheriff with his humble and unresisting prisoner. The deputy had a fine and high opinion of the dignity of his position; he magnified his office. "Make way, gentlemen!" he cried, and stood waiting for Mr. Sanders and the lawyer to move respectfully aside.