by Kyle Onstott
‘Now, howsomever, at last yo’ kin rest your bones and fatten your niggers. We hope you’ll squander some time with us, leastwise till after the spell of weather.’
‘No, thankee, I reckon I better git along this same evenin’, more ’specially that yo’ cain’t spare me no niggers. The nigger crop is real slim ever’whure. And the prices are going up like balloons in the wind,’ complained Brownlee.
‘No hurry at all,’ argued Maxwell. ‘Not many gen’lemen honour us at Falconhurst.’
‘Got to git along. Got to git along. I values your hospitality, suh, but I got to git along.’
‘Come morning and I might, I jest might, fix my mind on letting yo’ carry away a buck or two. We are all run over with young niggers, got to kick ’em out of the way to walk, but they jest too young to dispose of to advantage me.’
‘I need niggers, I do indeed, suh,’ emphasized Brownlee. ‘If there is a chance to dicker and yo’ prices are not too powerful, I’ll settle down and discommode you all fer the night.’
‘Nothin’ at all, nothin’ at all. Yo’ cain’t discommode me one bit. Charmed to enjoy your conversation. Of course yo’ remember I say I might sell, not that I would sell. I’ll have to counsel with my son. Turn the whole plantation-shebang over to him to run, account of my rheumatiz. But come into the house, suh, come right in and set,’ urged Maxwell, spitting into his hand and hurling to the ground a cud of tobacco he had been harbouring in his jaw. ‘Dinner will be ready soon as Ham rides up.’
Brownlee paused on the gallery which fronted the house to remove on the foot-scraper some of the mud that was drying on his boots.
‘Never mind that, never mind,’ said Maxwell as he held open the door. ‘We ain’t got no finery, jest rag carpets all over and plenty of nigger grease to clean things up. A little mud don’t matter at all.’
‘Seem to me a purty fine mansion,’ Brownlee looked about him. ‘Mighty comfortable.’
‘My grandpappy built a log house in the clearing right here. My pappy built this nine-room clapboard, which was good enough, a plain and common house in his day, purty fancy, fact is, then, fer these parts. I was jest aiming to build a better’n—could well afford it too—somethin’ like Mista Tom Jefferson’s place back in Virginia—fitten to live in like a gen’leman—when my wife upped and passed away seven years back. My wife was a Hammond, daughter of ol’ Mista Theophilus Hammon’ of Anglebranch Plantation.’
‘Fine family; fine, fine family,’ interposed Brownlee.
‘I aimed to build a mansion, as I’m a-telling you, when she come down, some female trouble, a growth. And when she went to her reward, it jest nearly tore the bowels right out’n me. I ain’t got over it yet. I jist dropped everything. This old house good enough fer the boy and me. Course, if Hammon’ marry some fine lady like his mamma (and I’m a-countin’ on it) he’ll prob’bly build her a fine home over on the other knoll and let this place go to quarters. We’re cramped fer quarters anyhow; two families with an extrie wench or two in ever’ cabin, and the extrie boys bedded down on straw in the stable. It ain’t healthy. Come an epizootic and it would ruin us.’
A genial fire in the wide fireplace warmed the sitting-room into which Mr. Maxwell welcomed his guest, who gingerly eased his lean body into a large rocker. The host baked himself in front of the fire, alternately facing it and turning his back to it in an effort to relieve the rheumatic pains that racked his joints.
‘Memnon! Memnon!’ he called. Before the boy arrived he questioned his guest, ‘How do you like your corn?’
‘Uncontaminated, please, suh, uncontaminated.’
‘A glass of unwatered whisky fer the gen’leman and a toddy fer me—hot, mind,’ the host gave his orders to the Negro.
Brownlee eyed the slave appraisingly. ‘Right smart boy,’ he declared. ‘Ain’t fer sale, I reckon.’
When Agamemnon returned with the drinks, Brownlee seemed even more interested in the boy than in the whisky. As the Negro approached to hand him the brimming water goblet, Brownlee reached out and grasped his leg, felt his muscles critically. ‘Kneel down,’ he commanded and ran his hands over the shoulders, opened his mouth and ran his fingers perfunctorily along the sound teeth. ‘ ’Bout thirty, I should say.’
‘Not that old,’ observed the master proudly.
‘Seems like about thirty, teeth and all. ’Bout a quadroon, I reckon.’
‘ ’Bout that. His dam a mulatto, his sire a white man.’
‘Fully house-broke, I reckon?’ the buyer persisted.
‘Yes, but triflin’. Cain’t git no work out’n him.’
‘Sell him to me and I’ll cure that quick.’
‘And he back talks too. I been laying off to hang him up and have him hided fer quite a spell, but whut with the rheumatiz and all, I put it off and put it off.’
‘No, no, Masta, suh,’ the boy began a plaintive wail. ‘I’s spry nigger; don’t hide me; I’ll be good. No, no, Masta, I’ll——’
‘Dry up,’ the master warned. ‘See whut I mean?’ he addressed himself to Brownlee. ‘He’s al’ays puttin’ his mouth into white folk’s talk. He’s a kind of pet of my son, and Ham has ruint him. My son don’t mind if I peel his rump, but he too busy to do it hisself.’
‘Reckon you don’t want to sell him then?’ interposed the trader.
‘No, I reckon not.’
An irregular step sounded on the creaking floor of the hall and Hammond Maxwell limped in. ‘Sorry, suh, about keeping dinner,’ he explained to his father. ‘I rid around agin to see how the river is comin’ up after the rainin’.’
‘Don’t spoil your dinner with concernment.’ Maxwell turned to address his guest, ‘This son of mine is much too ponderous. His only fault, only fault, suh, is that he loves this damned leeched-out plantation and its blacks more than he loves white ladies. Mr. Brownlee, suh, this is my Hammond; named for his grandsire, suh, Theophilus Hammond.’
‘Right charmed by the honour of your company,’ responded Hammond cordially.
‘Thankee, suh. Right charmed my own self,’ said Brownlee, rising and extending his hand.
‘Mr. Brownlee goin’ about the country purchasin’ negras fer the New Orleans block. Cain’t make a sizeable coffle and so he drop by Falconhurst to look over our stock. Do yo’ reckon we kin accommodate him with a buck or two?’
‘Don’t reckon we kin deny a gen’leman in need. Might hap we kin spare something,’ Ham encouraged Brownlee, his hospitality overweighing his contempt for the profession of his guest. ‘But dinner awaits us. May I escort you, suh, into the other room?’
‘Yes, it’s gitting on to one and you must be wolf-hungry, Son, after all mornin’ in the saddle,’ declared the father, as he led the way into the dining-room.
It was an immense, bare apartment, its size only modified by the height of the ceilings. Against one wall stood a wide sideboard of the Empire period, mahogany, over-ornate, but with some claim to distinction of taste. Its surface, however, was so cluttered with rococo silver and glass as to destroy what dignity it might have possessed.
The large rectangular table in the middle of the long, tall room was covered by a cloth of heavy damask in a checker-board pattern of red and white. In the very centre of the table stood a tall revolvable silver or silver-plated caster with cruets of condiments and jars of various kinds of pickles. From its upright handle were suspended two pairs of tongs and around its perimeter dangled a fringe of silver teaspoons.
On one corner of the table stood a tall, glass pitcher of thick, yellow milk. Places were laid for three. The pinkish willow-ware plates were enormous, ornamented with pictures of Chinese temples and pagodas. Each was flanked with a bone-dish of the same ware. The substantial knives and forks were of steel, their bone handles streaked with yellow from too long boiling in dish-water. The empty coffee cups that stood at the right of each cover, each handle meticulously turned to the exact right of each cup, were on the same oversized scale as the plates. Tall goblets of hea
vy pressed glass, each holding upright in its bowl a red napkin starched and ironed to display its fringed border, stood behind the cups. Except for the pickles in the caster jars, and salt in capacious open dishes of heavy, red glass, no food was visible.
Although there were no flies to be brushed on this chilly day, two sleek boys stood, one on each side of the table, waving fans of frayed peacock-tail feathers monotonously and tirelessly to and fro. The trader began his evaluation of the boys the moment he set eyes upon them. Here was something choice, something fancy. What a price these two would fetch at private treaty in New Orleans! He knew exactly the men who would be interested. The bumper of whisky he had drunk enlarged his imagination. Perhaps these rustics had no comprehension of the value of such a brace in the right market, of the purposes for which they could be sold, of the uses to which they could be put. Either, alone, was a jewel. Together, as a span, twins, they would bring four or five times what they would bring singly.
As he glanced from one to the other, he was not able to detect a trace of difference. The contours of closely shorn skulls were exactly alike, the same round faces with full cheeks, the same noses only slightly flat with nostrils somewhat large, the same neat ears, the same large full mouths turned upward at the corners, the same large eyes with irises so black that it was impossible to detect that they had pupils. The facial skins were alike in colour and in texture—a light amber through which shone a rosiness round the cheek-bones. They appeared burnished, but it was with health and the soft soap that had been recently applied to render them fit for service in their master’s dining-room.
Down to their small, arched, bare feet they were made alike, height, arm length, leg length, flatness of chest, roundness of buttock. It was not by design that they were uniformly clad, because the small boys on Falconhurst after six or eight were all dressed alike in rough shirts and rougher pants, which were their only garments. Before six or eight, often up to ten, boys wore nothing at all, although girls were clothed a little earlier. The boys’ clothes were uniform also, in their age and drabness—it could not be called colour.
Brownlee’s survey of the room and his evaluation of the twins were rapid. It took no more time than for Agamemnon to withdraw the horse-hide covered chair, and to seat his rheumatic master at the head of the table, after which he pulled out Brownlee’s chair and seated him. Hammond dispensed with the Negro’s assistance and sat down at the side of the table opposite Brownlee, whose liquorish eye continued to steal glances at the boys.
Agamemnon fetched from the kitchen an immense platter of stewed chicken enveloped with dumplings, tender as tissue. This was followed by another platter on which rested slice after centre slice of fried ham surrounded by the red gravy in which it had been cooked. A third platter contained eggs, more than a dozen of them, fried on one side only.
Next to be handed round was a heaped-up dish of boiled potatoes, followed by tender spring greens on which reposed a large piece of bacon.
Agamemnon filled the glasses with the creamy milk from the pitcher, then filled the cups from a battered tin pot of strong, black, and hot coffee, upon which he floated cream so thick that it oozed from the pitcher only semi-liquid. He then passed a pitcher of light-coloured molasses with which the coffee was to be sweetened.
‘Eat hearty, suh, eat hearty,’ urged the host. ‘Might as well clean up the vittles. The leavin’s are jest scraped to the servants anyways.’
‘Scrumptious meal, suh,’ declared Brownlee after his fourth cup of coffee.
‘Nothin’ extrie, nothin’ extrie. Jest the general run of dinner,’ Maxwell deprecated the compliment paid to his food, and led the way back to the sitting-room.
‘Now about those servants you offerin’ to sell me,’ Brownlee persisted, sinking his chair before the fireplace.
‘Well, let’s see,’ Maxwell said. ‘Whut you reckon, Ham?’
‘Well, s’pose we drags out that Preacher and that lean, brown boy named Emperor?’
‘Changed Preacher’s name to Barbarossa,’ corrected the father. ‘That’s good. They all right, an’ you say.’
‘They brisk and lively? How big are they?’
‘One about fifteen hands, three inches, I reckon. You saw him. He barned your horse. The other taller, mayhap close to seventeen hands—but they got a spell of growin’ in ’em yet. Yes, they right vig’ous and frisky. They’ll make good hands,’ the elder Maxwell affirmed.
‘They ain’t unsound, but they not sound neither, not quite exactly prime,’ Hammond warned.
‘I was jest calculating’,’ replied the trader, ‘That Preacha’ is kin’ of cripped, ain’t he? Toes off one foot?’
‘Not cripped. It don’t slow him down none,’ said Hammond. ‘Of course, if you don’t crave him——’
‘It’s all right, it’s all right. A nigger’s a nigger—of course, at a price.’
‘Of course,’ Hammond agreed.
‘What ails the other’n?’ inquired Brownlee.
‘A burned scar; don’t ruin him none, but Papa and me, we don’t like to shovel feed into a boy that don’t strip down purty. Falconhurst negras are right sound and we wants to keep ’em so. We right proudish over havin’ good stock without’n blemish or blight. Our only reason fer cheapening these boys.’
‘If’n he kin cut cane and pick cotton, I kin use him—of coursen, with allowance fer price.’
‘Memnon, gather up them two boys, Preach and Emp; shuck ’em down; and give ’em a hunk of hard soap. Tell ’em to go down to the river and wash all over good, and then come on back here and tarry in front of the gallery.’ Hammond gave instruction. ‘And sen’ fer my hoss.’
‘You ain’t goin’ out, Son. It’s rainin’ right down.’
‘Got to see after that passel cutting stove wood up beyond that fur clearin’. Not a hand would cut a stick if I wasn’t there to drive them.’
‘Don’t want you to ketch your death, Son, a-workin’ in this kin’ of weather—cold and rain.’
‘Don’t fret yourself, Papa,’ said the boy. ‘I’m warm dressed and waterproof.’
‘Whut am I goin’ to rate Mr. Brownlee fer them boys?’ the senior asked.
‘Whutever’s right and fair,’ the boy replied. ‘You’ve had more truck in that kind of messin’ than ever I had.’ He bent over and kissed his father, bowed to the trader and was gone.
The father sighed, arose and trudged painfully to the cloudy window on which he wiped a space through which to watch his son mount his horse.
Despite Brownlee’s anxiety to inspect his prospective purchases, Maxwell chose to enjoy awhile in anticipation the pleasure he knew would be his in conducting the transaction. He surmised how ardent the trader was to buy, and was confident to wait until his fish had fully swallowed the hook.
‘Hammond think this a cotton plantation,’ he observed. ‘Falconhurst ain’t a cotton plantation at all. It a nigger farm, that whut it is, a nigger farm. It’s been cropped and cropped fer cotton year after year till there ain’t no more cotton in the dirt.’
Brownlee was but little interested in Alabama cotton economy. Every little while he arose and paced to the window and looked at the two nude Negroes waiting patiently beneath a tupelo tree that partially shielded them from the wind-driven rain.
‘That burn on that buck is middlin’ bad,’ he observed.
‘Jest looks that way through that wrinkled pane. That winder light is all wavy. Ain’t nothin’ at all, scarcely. But Hammond jest cain’t abide a nigger on the place that ain’t perfect. Funny that way. Mayhap it reminds him of his own stiff leg which he got from that pony gelding when he was six years old. His mamma didn’t want he should have a pony so young. She warned me, but I’ve got a stubborn streak too. Besides the little feller wanted a pony, wanted it bad. I never could suffer that child to crave nothin’ and to not git it. I cain’t yet. That spotted pony seemed gentle when I traded for it, but you cain’t never trust a gelding, horse or nigger. They villainous and double-hearted
. The varmint throwed the boy off the third day he had him, bucked him right off withouten no reason at all. I didn’t think the boy was hurt none, but I toted him into the house (didn’t trust him to no nigger) and laid him down on that very lounge there in the corner, eased his cryin’, undressed him gentle-like as I could, and rubbed him down with whisky. Lucretia Borgia, the cook, that is, suckin’ them two twins—the two you saw in the dining-room—and her and I give the babies to Ham fer a bribe to let her rub him with whisky ever’ day. Didn’t do no good, howsumever. His knee stiffened up. Cain’t scarcely bend it at all.’
Brownlee was less interested in Hammond’s stiff knee than in the Negroes in the dooryard. ‘We better look after them boys out there. Standing nekid in this drivin’ rain is liable to give ’em lung fever or somethin’.’
Maxwell led the way through the hall to the front doors, which Agamemnon opened for him, guiding his way down the single step to the verandah. The Negro brought rocking-chairs, but only his master sat down. Brownlee, in his concern to get down to business, continued to stand and Agamemnon to hover about his master for the primary purpose of overhearing the negotiations.
‘Git them boys up here onto this gallery and sop that rain offn ’em,’ Maxwell ordered Agamemnon, drawing a soiled bandana from his pocket and heaving it toward him. ‘Mr. Brownlee craves to finger ’em over.’
The two young Negroes approached the gallery with misgivings. They had never been permitted to come so close to the house, and, now that they were summoned, they were aware of their muddy feet. Both shivered as much from fear as from cold. Preach’s teeth chattered but the mouth of the lanky Emperor was so much overshot that his teeth failed to meet and the convulsions of his jaw made no sound.
