| “I ain’t fergot dat ar ’possum” | [Frontispiece] |
| FACING PAGE | |
| “Well, he can’t lead me” | [6] |
| He wore a blue army overcoat and a stove-pipe hat | [8] |
| “Sholy you-all ain’t gwine put dat in de paper, is you?” | [10] |
| Inquired what day the paper came out | [14] |
| “I was on the lookout,” the Major explained | [18] |
| In the third he placed only powder | [26] |
| We administered to his hurts the best we could | [30] |
| “I’d a heap rather you’d pull your shot-gun on me than your pen” | [32] |
| The Committee of Public Comfort | [72] |
| Buying cotton on his own account | [76] |
| “Miss Vallie!” | [78] |
| “I saw him fling his hand to his shoulder and hold it there” | [80] |
| “Dat ar grape jelly on de right han’ side” | [82] |
| “‘Conant!’ here and ‘Conant’ dar” | [84] |
| “Drapt down on de groun’ dar an’ holler an’ cry” | [90] |
| “Oh, my shoulder!” | [122] |
| “Marse Tumlin never did pass a nigger on de road” | [124] |
| “We made twelve pies ef we made one” | [126] |
| “I gi’ Miss Vallie de money” | [128] |
| “Ef here ain’t ol’ Minervy Ann wid pies!” | [130] |
| “You see dat nigger ’oman?” | [132] |
| “An’ he sot dar, suh, wid his haid ’twix’ his han’s fer I dunner how long” | [134] |
| “You’ll settle dis wid me” | [136] |
| “Dat money ain’t gwine ter las’ when you buy dat kin’ er doin’s” | [160] |
| Trimmin’ up de Ol’ Mules | [162] |
| “She wuz cryin’—settin’ dar cryin’” | [164] |
| “Here come a nigger boy leadin’ a bob-tail hoss” | [166] |
| “He been axin’ me lots ’bout Miss Vallie” | [172] |
| “Marse Tumlin ’low he’ll take anything what he can chaw, sop, er drink” | [176] |
| “I hatter stop an’ pass de time er day” | [178] |
| “Hunt up an’ down fer dat ar Tom Perryman” | [180] |
THE CHRONICLES OF
AUNT MINERVY ANN
I
AN EVENING WITH THE KU-KLUX
The happiest, the most vivid, and certainly the most critical period of a man’s life is combined in the years that stretch between sixteen and twenty-two. His responsibilities do not sit heavily on him, he has hardly begun to realize them, and yet he has begun to see and feel, to observe and absorb; he is for once and for the last time an interested, and yet an irresponsible, spectator of the passing show.
This period I had passed very pleasantly, if not profitably, at Halcyondale in Middle Georgia, directly after the great war, and the town and the people there had a place apart, in my mind. When, therefore, some ten years after leaving there, I received a cordial invitation to attend the county fair, which had been organized by some of the enterprising spirits of the town and county, among whom were Paul Conant and his father-in-law, Major Tumlin Perdue, it was natural that the fact should revive old memories.
The most persistent of these memories were those which clustered around Major Perdue, his daughter Vallie, and his brother-in-law, Colonel Bolivar Blasengame, and Aunt Minervy Ann Perdue. Curiously enough, my recollection of this negro woman was the most persistent of all. Her individuality seemed to stand out more vitally than the rest. She was what is called “a character,” and something more besides. The truth is, I should have missed a good deal if I had never known Aunt Minervy Ann Perdue, who, as she described herself, was “Affikin fum ’way back yander ’fo’ de flood, an’ fum de word go”—a fact which seriously interferes with the somewhat complacent theory that Ham, son of Noah, was the original negro.
It is a fact that Aunt Minervy Ann’s great-grandmother, who lived to be a hundred and twenty years old, had an eagle tattooed on her breast, the mark of royalty. The brother of this princess, Qua, who died in Augusta at the age of one hundred years, had two eagles tattooed on his breast. This, taken in connection with his name, which means The Eagle, shows that he was either the ruler of his tribe or the heir apparent. The prince and princess were very small, compared with the average African, but the records kept by a member of the Clopton family show that during the Revolution Qua performed some wonderful feats, and went through some strange adventures in behalf of liberty. He was in his element when war was at its hottest—and it has never been hotter in any age or time, or in any part of the world, savage or civilized, than it was then in the section of Georgia now comprised in the counties of Burke, Columbia, Richmond, and Elbert.
However, that has nothing to do with Aunt Minervy Ann Perdue; but her relationship to Qua and to the royal family of his tribe, remote though it was, accounted for the most prominent traits of her character, and many contradictory elements of her strong and sharply defined individuality. She had a bad temper, and was both fierce and fearless when it was aroused; but it was accompanied by a heart as tender and a devotion as unselfish as any mortal ever possessed or displayed. Her temper was more widely advertised than her tenderness, and her independence more clearly in evidence than her unselfish devotion, except to those who knew her well or intimately.