That was true, poor soul! but could avail nothing, and the appointed sentence was carried into execution. The soul of the boy returned to its Creator and its Judge, and the old mother was taken to her cabin almost as lifeless as the body that swung in the air half a mile away.
If the fact that they flocked to the place of execution cannot be ascribed to any idiosyncrasy of the negro race, it was curious to see how they were afterward overwhelmed with superstitious fear. We had no more trouble about the melons and grapes. The negroes found another route to the village market, and the little well-worn path became overgrown with grass and ox-eyed daisies, like the rest of the old field. Even after the body had been buried far off and the scaffold removed, in broad daylight they shunned the place, but at dusk or after dark neither bribery nor persuasion could have induced one of them to go near it. Mr. Smith tried some of them.
"But what the d——l are you afraid of?" he asked impatiently.
"I dunno, sir," returned one of the men doggedly. "All I does know is, I ain't gwine (no disrespek, sir). But when a man is took off dat onnateral kind o' way, de sperrit is always hangin' 'roun', tryin' to git back whar it come from."
"But Tony is buried a mile away."
"I can't help dat, sir. De sperrit were let out in de ole field, an' maybe it don't know whar to find the pusson it 'longs to. Anyhow, ef it come back dar lookin' for Tony, I gwine take good keer it don't find me!"
An amusing eccentricity of feeling, certainly a very nice distinction, was shown during slave times by a woman belonging to a friend of ours. Some disturbance had taken place on the premises of a neighbor, Mr. H——, who, being a severe old man, forthwith forbade that any negro should again visit his place. This result was very dispiriting to Judy, the slave above referred to, for she had a cousin belonging to Mr. H—— to whom she was in the habit of paying frequent visits, and for whom she felt undoubtedly very great affection; and as time passed and Mr. H—— continued implacable, her indignation grew and her wrath waxed exceeding strong. It came to pass that the cousin one night fared over-sumptuously on cold cabbage and beans, and when the mists of dawn had fled she too had left to join her friends over Jordan.
Presently a messenger came from Mr. H——: "Would Mrs. S—— be so kind as to allow Judy to come over and prepare the body for burial?"—that being one of Judy's specialties.
The family was at table when the message was delivered, and Judy was serving cakes and muffins, with short parentheses sacred to the memory of her cousin. Mrs. S—— had respected her affliction and given her permission to retire, but Judy continued to return with more cakes and more muffins, and, as soon as they were handed, to retire to a corner with her apron at her eyes, even after Mr. H——'s message had been delivered and she had been told to go. During one of her temporary absences Mr. S—— asked his wife, "Why don't you tell her to go, if she is going? It seems nobody can be 'laid out' without Judy, but any of the rest can wait at table."
"But this is her cousin, and she may not wish to perform so trying a service; so I will leave it to her.—Judy, if you prefer not going to Mr. H——'s just at present, I will send word that I cannot spare you."