The particular freedman who desired to have his feelings soothed by law was a lazy young negro about sixteen years old whom the General had ordered whipped and sent from the stables into the fields on one occasion during the war while on a visit to his farm. Evidently the boy had a long memory.
“Now don’t that beat the devil!” exclaimed the General.
“What is it?” asked his foreman.
“I’ve got to leave my work, ride on an old freight train thirty miles, pull through twenty more miles of red mud in a buggy to get to Hambright, and lose four days, to answer such a charge as that before some little wizeneyed skunk of a Bureau Agent. My God, it’s enough to make a Union man remember Secession with regrets!”
“My stars, General, we can’t get along without you now when we are getting this machinery in place. Send a lawyer,” growled the foreman.
“Can’t do it, John—I’m charged with a crime.”
“Well, I’ll swear!”
“Do the best you can, I’ll be back in four days, if I don’t kill a nigger!” said the General with a smile. “I’ve got a settlement to make with the farm hands anyhow.”
There was no help for it. When the court convened, and the young negro saw the face of his old master red with wrath, his heart failed him. He fled the town and there was no accusing witness.
The General gazed at the Agent with cold contempt and never opened his mouth in answer to expressions of regret at the fiasco.