XXXII UNCLE TOM
One evening just after the New York steamer had blown her three whistles in honor of my Soldier, as the river steamers always did in passing our wharf, and had gone around the bend, we saw Uncle Tom, the faithful old negro fisherman, coming up the hill with a bag over his stooping shoulders and talking to himself more excitedly than usual.
"Good evening, Uncle Tom," I said, stepping off the porch to greet him. "What have you in your bag for me?"
"Tarepins—dat's what I got fer you, but I got a piece of my mind fer Marse George, en ez dis piece of mind mought not agree wid your temperation I reckon you better g'long in de house en sing some of dem song chunes while I's mekin' a present of de piece of mind to Marse George."
As my curiosity was greater than my fear of mental indigestion, I stayed to share with my Soldier the "piece of mind."
Uncle Tom proceeded to unfold his story to the effect that a carpet-bagger who had come to Bermuda Hundred was inciting the colored people against my Soldier and planning with them to visit us in force. He said that he was a brother of one of the same class of human wreckage who had visited our community some time before, selling to the negroes ointment that was advertised to turn them into white people. My Soldier had reported the enterprising merchant and, with Mr. "Buck" Allen and Colonel John Selden, had taken to Richmond some boxes of the ointment and some of the negroes to whom the ointment had been sold, and the "carpet-bagger" had been put in jail. His brother was now inflaming the credulous colored people with the idea that my Soldier had caused the disappointment of their ambitious aspirations.
The man who thus excited Uncle Tom's indignation and apprehension had lain in the river with his vessel for weeks, sending out his emissaries to tell the poor credulous colored people that the United States government had authorized him to promise that to every colored man who would bring him a good bridle and saddle, thereby showing his fitness for the possession, should be given a mule to fit the saddle and bridle, and that he would receive and receipt for the same every night between the hours of midnight and daybreak. So successful was this impostor that he had almost made up his load before he was caught, and there was hardly a bridle and saddle left in all the surrounding country.
While my Soldier had confidence in Uncle Tom, he did not much believe that the negroes would dare make an attack upon him. He insisted, though, that I should not run any risk, but should take our babies and go to Richmond for a few days. Finding that no persuasion could induce me to leave him, he consented that we might wait together, fearing, yet not believing, that they would come.