Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction

by Thomas Nelson Page

  CHAPTER XVIII

  LEECH AS A STATESMAN AND DR. CARY AS A COLLECTOR OF BILLS

  When Leech arrived at the capital in the capacity of statesman hefound the field even better than he had anticipated. It was a strangeassembly that was gathered together to reconstruct and make laws fora great State after years of revolution. The large majority werenegroes who, a few years before, had been barbers, porters in hotels,cart-drivers, or body-servants, with a few new-comers to the State,like Leech himself: nomadic adventurers, who, on account of thesmallness of their personal belongings, were termed “carpet-baggers.”Besides these, a few whites who, in hope of gain, had allied themselveswith the new-comers; and a small sprinkling of the old residents, whohad either been Union men or had had their disabilities removed, andrepresented constituencies where there were few negroes. They were asdistinguishable as statues in the midst of a mob. But the multitude ofnegroes who crowded the Assembly halls gave the majority an appearanceof being overwhelming. They filled the porticos and vestibules, andthronged the corridors and galleries in a dense mass, revelling intheir newly acquired privileges. The air was heavy with the smoke ofbad cigars, which, however, was not wholly without use, as the scent ofthe tobacco served at least one good purpose; the floors were slipperywith tobacco-juice. The crowd was loud, pompous, and good-natured.Leech looked with curiosity on the curious spectacle. He had had noidea what a useful band of coadjutors he would have. He took a surveyof the field and made his calculations quickly and with shrewdness. Hewould be a leader.

  “Looks like a corn-shuckin’,” said Still, who had accompanied hisfriend to the capital to see him take his seat. “A good head-man couldget a heap of corn shucked.”

  “Does look a little like a checker-board,” assented Leech, “and I meanto be one of the kings. It’s keep ahead or get run over in this crowd,and I’m smart as any of ’em. There’s a good cow to milk, and the oneas milks her first will get the cream.” His metaphors were becomingbucolic, as befitted a man who was beginning to set up as a planter.

  “The cream’s in the drippin’s,” corrected Still.

  “Not of this cow,” said Leech.

  Leech soon came to be regarded as quite a financier. He talkedlearnedly of bonds and debentures, of per cents, and guarantees, anddividends, of which more than half the body did not even know themeaning. Once, when he was speaking of the thousands of “bonds” hewould put on a railway to the mile, one of his confrères asked what hewould put in so many barns.

  “Ain’t you heah him say he’s gwine have a million o’ stock?” askedanother colored statesman, contemptuously. The answer was satisfactory.

  The amount of spoil which in time was found to be divided was somethingof which not even Leech himself, at first, had any idea. The railways,the public printing, insurance, and all internal improvements, werefertile fields for the exercise of his genius. He was shortly anundisputed power. He followed his simple rule: he led. “When someoneoffered a resolution to put down new matting in the Assembly hall,Leech amended to substitute Brussels carpet. To prove his liberalityhe added mahogany furniture, and handsome pier-glasses. The bills wentup into the scores of thousands; but that was nothing. As Leech said,_they_ did not pay them. If rumors were true, not only did Leech notpay the bills, he partly received their proceeds. His aspirationswere growing every day. He had no trouble in carrying his measuresthrough. He turned his committee-room—or one of his rooms, for he hadseveral—into a saloon, where he kept whiskey, champagne, and cigarsalways free for those who were on his side. “Leech’s bar” became aState institution. It was open night and day for the whole eight yearsof his service. He said he found it cheaper than direct payment, andthen he lumped all the costs in one item and had them paid by oneappropriation bill, as “sundries.” Why should he pay, he asked, forexpenditures which were for the public benefit? And, indeed, why? Asfor himself, he boasted with great pride when the matter came up at alater time, that he never touched a drop.

  He had “found the very field for his genius.” He boasted to Still: “Ialways knew I had sense. Old Krafton thinks he’s running the party. ButI’m a doin’ it. Some day he’ll wake up and find I’m not only a doin’that, but a runnin’ the State too. I mean to be governor.” His blueeyes twinkled pleasantly.

  “Don’t wake him up too soon,” counselled Still.

  One of the statesman’s acts was to obtain a charter for a railway torun from the capital up through his county to the mountains. Among theincorporators were himself, Hiram Still, Still’s son, and Mr. Bolter.

  “How will you build this road?” asked Mr. Haskelton, an old gentlemanwho had been a Union man always—one of the few old residents of theState in the body.

  “Oh! we’ll manage that,” declared Leech, lightly. “We are going toteach you old moss-backs a few things.” And they did. He had an actpassed making the State guarantee the bonds. The old resident raised aquestion as to the danger to the credit of the State if it should gointo the business of endorsing private enterprises.

  “The credit of the State!” Leech exclaimed. “What is the credit of theState to us? As long as the bonds sell she has credit, hasn’t she?”

  This argument was unanswerable.

  “But how will you pay these bonds?” urged Mr. Haskelton.

  “I will tell you how we will pay them; we will pay them by taxes,”replied Leech.

  “Ay-yi! Dat’s it!” shouted the dusky throng about him.

  “Someone has to pay those taxes.”

  “Yes, but who?” Leech turned to his associates who were hanging on hiswords. “Do you pay them?”

  “Nor, dat we don’t,” shouted Nicholas Ash.

  “No, the white people pay them—and we mean to make them pay them,”declared Leech.

  This declaration was received with an outburst of applause, notunmingled with laughter, for his audience had some appreciation ofhumor.

  “Lands will only stand so much tax,” insisted his interlocutor; “if youraise taxes beyond this point you will defeat your own purpose, for thelands will be forfeited. We cannot pay them. We are already flat of ourbacks.”

  “That’s where we want you,” retorted Leech, and there was a roar ofapproval.

  The old gentleman remained calm.

  “Then what will you do?” he persisted.

  “Then we will take them ourselves,” asserted Leech, boldly. He lookedaround on the dusky throng behind him, and up at the gallery, blackwith faces. “We will make the State give them as homes to the peoplewho are really entitled to them. They know how to work them.” Agreat shout of applause went up from floor and gallery. Only the oldgentleman, gray and pallid, with burning eyes stood unmoved amid thetumult.

  “You cannot do this. It will be robbery.”

  The crowd, somewhat disturbed by his earnestness, looked at Leech tohear how he would meet this fact. He was equal to the emergency.

  “Robbery, is it?” he shouted, waving his arms, and advancing down theaisle. “Then it is only paying robbery for robbery. You have been therobbers! You robbed the Indians of these lands, to start with. You wentto Africa and stole these free colored people from their happy homesand made them slaves. You robbed them of their freedom, and you haverobbed them ever since of their wages. Now you say we cannot pay them alittle of what you owe them? We will do it, and do it by law. We havethe majority and by —! we will make the laws. If you white gentlemencannot pay the taxes on your homes, we’ll put some colored ones thereto get the benefit.” He shook his hand violently in the vehemence ofhis speech. And again the crowd roared.

  “Don’t shake your finger in my face,” said the old man so quietly thatonly Leech heard it. He backed off.

  He became an undisputed leader. “By —! I had no idea I was such anorator,” he said to Still, smiling.

  “I haven’t made such a speech as that since just before the war. I madethat old coon admit he was flat on his back.”

  “A coon fights better on his back ’n’ any other way,” w
arned Still.

  “I’ll put some hunters on this coon that will keep him quiet enough,”said Leech. “I’ll arm a hundred thousand niggers.”

  Leech made good his promises. The expenditures went up beyond belief.But to meet the expenses taxes were laid until they rose to double,quadruple, and, in some parts of the State, ten times what they hadbeen. Meantime he had been in communication with Mr. Bolter, who hadcome down and paid him and Still a flying visit, and a part of thebonds of his railroad were “placed.”

  The taxes, as was predicted, went far beyond the ability of thelandowners to pay them, and vast numbers of plantations throughoutthe State were forfeited. To meet this exigency, Leech was as goodas his word. A measure was introduced and a Land Commission wasappointed to take charge of such forfeited lands and sell them tohis followers on long terms, of fifteen to twenty years. Leech wasa member of the general Commission and Still was appointed agentof the Board in his section of the State. Still was a very activecommissioner—“efficient,” the Commission called him.

  Several places were sold which shortly were resold to Leech and Still.Leech added to a place he bought on the edge of Brutusville, adjoiningGeneral Legaie’s, the plantations of two old gentlemen near him.Sherwood had bought one and Moses the other. Leech gave them “a fairadvance.” He said it was “all square.” He was now waiting for GeneralLegaie’s place.

  Leech built himself a large house, and furnished it with furniturericher than that in any other house in the county. It was rumored thathe was preparing his house for Virgy Still.

  Nicholas Ash bought a plantation and a buggy and began to drive fasthorses. Many of their fellow-lawmakers bloomed out in the same way.They were the only ones who now rode in carriages. Their proceedingsdid not affect themselves only. They reached Dr. Cary and GeneralLegaie and the old proprietors on their plantations, quite as directly,though in the opposite way. The spoils that Leech, Still, GovernorKrafton and their followers received, someone else paid. And justwhen they were needed most, the negroes abandoned the fields. No onecould expect statesmen to work. Cattle, jewels, and plate were soldas long as they lasted, to meet the piled-up taxes; but in time therewas nothing left to sell, and the plantations began to go. In the RedRock neighborhood, rumors were abroad as to the destiny of the variousplaces. A deeper gravity settled on Dr. Cary’s serious face, andGeneral Legaie’s lively countenance was taking on an expression not farfrom grim. It was less the financial ruin that was overwhelming themthan the dishonor to the State. It was a stab in their bosoms.

  Mr. Ledger was making inquiries as to the possibility of their reducingshortly their indebtedness to him, and the Doctor was forced to writehim a frank statement of affairs. He had never worked so hard in hislife, he wrote; he had never had so much practice; but he could collectnothing, and it was all he could do to meet his taxes.

  “Why don’t you collect your bills?” naturally inquired Mr. Ledger.

  “Collect my bills?” replied the Doctor. “How can I press my neighborswho are as poor, and poorer, than I am?”

  However, inspired by Mr. Ledger’s application, the Doctor did try tocollect some of the money due him. He did not send out his bills.He had never done that in his life. Instead, he rode around on acollecting-tour. He was successful in getting some money; for heapplied first to such of his debtors as were thriftiest. Andy Stamper,who had just returned from town where he had been selling sumac,chickens, and other produce, paid him with thanks the whole of hisbill, and only expressed surprise that it was so small. “Why I thought,Doctor, ’twould be three or four times that?” said Andy. “I’ve kept asort of account of the times you’ve been to my house, and seems to me’tought to be?”

  “No, sir, that’s all I have against you,” said the Doctor, placidly;replying earnestly to Andy’s voluble thanks. “I am very much obliged toyou.” He did not tell Andy that he had divided his accounts by threeand had had hard work to bring himself to apply for anything.

  This and one or two other instances in the beginning of his tourquite relieved the Doctor; for they showed that, at least, some ofhis neighbors had some money. So he rode on. He soon found, however,that he had gleaned the richest places first. On his way home heapplied to others of his patients with far different results. Not onlywas the account he received very sorrowful; but the tale of povertythat several of them told was so moving that the Doctor, instead ofreceiving anything from them, distributed amongst them what he hadalready collected, saying they were poorer than himself. So when hereached home that evening he had no more than when he rode away.

  “Well, Bess,” he said, “it is the first time I ever dunned a debtor,and it is the last.” Mrs. Cary looked at him with the expression in hereyes with which a mother looks at a child.

  “I think it is just as well,” she said, smiling.

  “You must go and see old Mrs. Bellows,” he said. “She is in greattrouble for fear they’ll sell her place.”

  Blair Cary, like her mother, watched with constant anxiety the changein her father. His hair was becoming white, and his face was growingmore worn.

  At length, a plan which she had been forming for some time tookdefinite shape. She announced her intention of applying for one of thecommon schools which had been opened in the neighborhood. When shefirst proposed the plan, it was received as if she were crazy—but herfather and mother soon found that they no longer had a child to dealwith, but a woman of sense and force of character. The reasons shegave were so clear and unanswerable that at length she overcame allobjections and obtained the consent of all the members of the familyexcept Mammy Krenda. The only point on which her father stood out forwas that she should not apply for one of the schools under the newcounty-managers. A compromise was effected and she became the teacherof the school that had been built by the old residents. The Mammy stillstood out. The idea of “her child” teaching a common school outragedthe old woman’s sense of propriety, and threw her into a state ofviolent agitation. She finally yielded, but only on condition that shemight accompany her mistress to the school every day.

  This she did, and when Miss Blair secured the little school at the forkin the road not far from their big gate, the old mammy was to be seenevery day, sitting in a corner grim and a little supercilious, knittingbusily, while her eyes ever and anon wandered over the classes beforeher, transfixing the individual who was receiving her mistress’sattention, with so sharp a glance that the luckless wight was oftendisconcerted thereby.

  As old Mr. Haskelton had said, the old residents were flat on theirbacks. Leech was of this opinion when he passed his measures. Butremembering Still’s warning, to make sure, as the troops had beenwithdrawn from the county, he put through a bill to organize a Statemilitia, under which large numbers of the negroes in the old county andthroughout the State were formed in companies.

  He had other plans hatching which he thought they would subserve.