CHAPTER IV
CARL BRINGS NEWS

“Say, Marse Sprague, is you Union men going to burn dese houses ober deir heads?” began the darky, so excited that he could scarcely stand still.

“We have given them an hour to take their things out,” said Mr. Sprague. “If they don’t take them out in that time we’ll set the house a-going. If they get all their things out and loaded in the wagons we’ll save the house, so that they can have something to live in when these troubles are all over.”

“Whar do you reckon dey’ll go if dey get the things all tooken out?” asked the negro.

“I don’t know where they will go; over into the next county, probably. But what makes you so anxious?”

“Well, say, Marse Sprague, I don’t care to go ober into the next county wid ’em. Dey’s rebels ober dere.”

“So I have heard.”

“Well, I don’t want to go among dose rebels ’cause I won’t get no freedom. Dey say we’ll get it in a little while if we stays here among dese Union men.”

“Who told you that?”

“Your own Mose told me dat, sah.”

“Is Mose going to take his freedom when he can get it?”

“Sah? No, sah. He say he’s got a Marse who don’t stripe his jacket none, and he ain’t a-going to look at his freedom. I tell you, I don’t care to go ober into dat oder county wid dem people here.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“We-uns didn’t know what to do about it. If we slip away from dem while dey are going ober dar can dey catch us?”

“I don’t know whether they can or not. There’s been an Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln, saying that if they don’t quit their rebellion in six months he will declare their niggers all free.”

“Dat’s just what I want to get at, sah,” said the negro, pounding his knees and shaking his head as if he were overjoyed to hear it. “Dat’s just what I want, sah. De rebels ain’t a-going to go and get up such a ’bellion, and den go and give it up ’cause somebody tells ’em to. I ain’t a-going into dat oder county, and the first thing Marse Swayne knows my folks and me will be missing.”

“Well, you have got to depend on yourself,” said Mr. Sprague. “I cannot help you if you do run away from them.”

“I knows dat mighty well. But you just watch out and see if you hain’t got more black folks up to your plantation dan you ought to have. You is a Union man and I know it, and you ain’t a-going to give me up just ’cause Marse Swayne says so.”

The negro started one way because he heard somebody calling him, and Mr. Sprague joined the men on the porch feeling as if he had a big responsibility resting upon him. He didn’t agree to take all the darkies in the county who might make up their minds to run away from their masters, and how was he going to support them all and find work for them to do?

“I tell you, this thing is coming to a head,” said Mr. Sprague to the man who sat next to him. “You remember what Stephens said about having a Government whose cornerstone should be slavery?”

The man remembered it perfectly. They used to get Confederate papers when the war first broke out, but now that they were in rebellion, and the postmaster was a rebel, they didn’t get a sight of one. The man who had charge of the office removed to Mobile as soon as he saw how things were going, and since then there had not been any post-office.

“Well, sir, old Cuff has just been talking to me, and he thinks of running away. He says that if he goes over into the other county he won’t get his freedom.”

“Good” said the man. “I am glad of it. We’ll see how their ‘corner-stone’ is going to hold out when they get their Confederacy. But they ain’t a-going to whip.”

“But this old Cuff thinks I am going to support him,” said Mr. Sprague. “I haven’t got any work for him to do.”

“Send him into the woods to cut logs for you,” said the man.

“I might do that, but I don’t see where I am going to find market for them. But I will get along somehow. Well, half an hour is gone, and they haven’t got many things out yet. Leon and Tom seem to be making it all right with Carl, don’t they?”

The two boys referred to stood patiently by until the resolutions were complete; then Tom took his copy and Leon fastened his eyes upon the torn manuscript and waited for him to read it. It was all correct; there wasn’t a mistake in it.

“You write a pretty good hand for a boy who hasn’t been to school more than you have,” said Leon.

“Keep your compliments for them that need them,” said Carl, snappishly. “I don’t care to hear them.”

“You haven’t got through with this business yet,” said Leon, in a voice which he meant should carry conviction with it. “You found this resolution on a tree, and you tore it down so that people couldn’t see it. I intend that you shall go back and post this thing up there.”

“But you told me I should have to help my uncle carry out his things,” said Carl, anxious to shirk all the responsibility he could.

“Oh, we’ll wait until you carry out your things,” said Leon, with a smile. “You are going right by the tree, and it won’t hurt you at all to stop and nail this thing up.”

Carl gathered up the pen and ink and disappeared in the house, and Leon and Tom went down the steps to join the men who were sitting there.

“I got it, but I had hard work in getting it, too,” said Leon. “How much longer time has he got?”

“Not quite fifteen minutes,” said Mr. Sprague.

“And I see he is hustling things more lively than he did. You won’t start the fire when the quarter of an hour is up, seeing that he is doing the best he can to get them out?”

“Oh, no. I wanted to see him get to work, that is all.”

At the end of half an hour the furniture and clothes they intended to take with them had been loaded on the wagons, and then the women began to slam the blinds and fasten them securely. When Mr. Swayne came out on the porch he locked that door and put the key into his pocket.

“We have got some things in there yet, but we don’t want these traitors to have them,” said his wife, in a tone which was intended very plainly for the ears of Mr. Sprague and his friends. “Let them go somewhere else and steal somebody else poor.”

Mr. Swayne did not pay any attention to it. He buttoned up the key in his pocket, and looked all around as if he were searching for someone. At last he called out:

“Cuff! Where is that lazy nigger Cuff? Come here this minute, or I will stripe your jacket till you can’t rest.”

Mr. Sprague was surprised. He thought it very likely that he could tell Mr. Swayne what had become of the negro Cuff. He had been sent with all his companions to the quarters to bring some clothes and other things they wanted to save, and he hadn’t showed up since. It would be very easy for them to slip through the cornfield, and so into the woods, and that was right where Cuff was when his master was calling him.

“Carl, suppose you run down to the quarters and hurry them up,” said his uncle. “We want to get away from here as soon as we can. There’s too many Union people here.”

The man who had threatened to burn the house before they got out of it was sitting on the steps a little way from Mr. Sprague. He wiggled and twisted and wanted to say something in return, but there was his superior officer who didn’t say anything, and he thought he would hold in for a better opportunity. Carl was away about fifteen minutes, and when he came back his face bore evidence that he was utterly confounded.

“There ain’t a nigger about the quarters,” said he. “Their clothes, both bedding and wearing apparel, are gone, and that proves that they have run away.”

“That’s the first time I ever had a nigger serve me that way,” said Mr. Swayne, pacing up and down the porch. “Run away, have they? If I ever get my hands on them I’ll make it awfully uneasy for them to lie down, now I tell you. Did you follow them into the woods to see where they went?”

“No, I didn’t. I saw their tracks leading through the cornfield, and then I came home to report the matter to you. Those niggers think they are going to get their freedom now.”

“Yes, and you might have expected it,” said his aunt, turning her flashing eyes upon Mr. Sprague. “What are these Union men here for if it isn’t to coax the niggers away from an honest Confederate?”

“Mrs. Swayne, we had no hand in inducing your negroes to run away from you,” said Mr. Sprague, who now began to get angry. “They said they were not going into the other county with you, and I told them that they must depend entirely upon themselves.”

“By gum! You want to see your house go before you get away from it,” said the man who had threatened to burn them out. “Any more such talk as that and I’ll set her a-going; by gum I will.”

“Carl, you will have to do some driving for us, for we can’t stop to hunt the niggers,” said Mr. Swayne.

“Oh, now, I didn’t agree to do driving,” whined Carl. “Let’s stop and go into the woods after them.”

“You have already got your things loaded on the wagons, and I must ask you to drive on,” said Mr. Sprague. “It is my duty to stay by you until you get beyond Ellisville.”

“Carl, jump on that wagon and drive after me,” said Mr. Swayne. “I don’t want to hear any more argument about it.”

“Tom, you haven’t got any horse, and I advise you to get into that wagon with Carl,” said Leon. “When you come to the tree on which the resolution was posted, make him get out and post this one in its place. He’ll object, but we can’t help it.”

While Carl was tying his riding-horse behind the wagon Tom climbed in and seated himself on the table which had been placed there for one of the negroes who had gone off with Cuff. Carl saw what he was doing, but didn’t make any fuss about it. He had arrived at his uncle’s conclusion that the best thing they could do was to take no notice of the Union men. By doing that they would irritate them, and they would not have so much to brag of when they talked about driving Confederate families out of the county. But they didn’t know Mr. Sprague and his friends. The task was one they did not like, but they did it because they had been ordered to. Carl kept his mouth resolutely closed until they came to the tree from which he had torn down the resolutions. He whipped up his mules when he came there, but Tom laid hold of the reins and stopped them.

“Now, Carl, this is the place,” said he. “Here’s the notice, and you want to get out and tack it up. The nails are all there.”

Carl didn’t know whether to refuse or not, but just then Leon came up on his side of the wagon. Leon had a revolver in his pocket, and Carl did not like to see that; so he grabbed the notice and sprang out of the wagon. In a few minutes it was tacked up just the same as it was before.

“There,” said Leon, “that will do. Now anybody who comes along here and who wasn’t at the convention can see what we did there.”

“Now I guess you had better get out,” said Carl, addressing himself to Tom Howe.

“No, I reckon not,” replied Tom. “I’ve got to go with you as long as you stay in the county, and I reckon I can get along here as well as I can afoot. Drive on.”