University of Virginia Library

10. A Pompous Old Negro
By EDWARD ALBERT POLLARD (1858)

I HAVE reserved for you some account of that most distinguished palaverer, romancer, diplomat, and ultimately a cobbler of old shoes—Junk. He was a short, puffy, copper-colored negro, very greasy, always perspiring, and a little lame. "Missis Perline "can , tell you of many sore experiences of Junk's shoe-leather; when by especial privilege, she was mounted on "hip-shot Jack "to go to church, Junk would way lay her in the woods at a distance from the house, and claim a lift behind her; once there, by dint of his best boots and crutch, seconded by his young mistress' endeavors with the switch, the afflicted horse would be forced into all sorts of shuffling excuses for a gallop.

Junk had not always been a cobbler; to believe his own narrative, he had been a circus-rider, an alligator hunter, an attaché of a foreign legation, and a murderer, stained with the blood of innumerable Frenchmen, with whom he had quarreled when on his European tour.

The fact was that Junk's master was once sent on a European mission, and proposed at first to take our hero in his company. Before leaving the limits of Virginia, however, he became alarmed at the risk of taking Junk among the abolitionists, and finally disposed of him by hiring him out as a shoemaker or cobbler, in a town at some distance from his former residence. Junk, never forgave his master for this unlooked-for slight; it cut him hard and deep. As an instance of the pride of our hero, it is well known

that when Junk was in his working clothes, he always professed to belong to the man who kept the shoe shop, and that it was only when he disported himself in his holiday attire, that be claimed to belong to the minister plenipotentiary.

When Junk returned to the old plantation his great importance began. He commenced by imposing on all the negroes round about, old and young, the story that he had actually been to France with his master, who still remained there, and that during the time he had been missed from the Green Mountain he had been lionizing in the famous city of Paris. The story took with the innocent darkies and gained Junk great fame. He became the oracle of the kitchen, and the negroes would crowd around him on every possible occasion, as he told the eventful experiences of his pilgrimage. Some few of the men were skeptical, many were envious; but Junk held his own, and was still the especial object of the admiration of the housemaids, who gave their sympathy and cheers in every combat he had with rival beaux as tributes to the truth of his information. "'Twarnt no use,"Miss Irene would remark, "to talk to niggers that never knowed nothin' bout de furrin country and de Parish, where ole mass'r was minister and out-preached dem all. Didn't Mr. Junk speak the langwig?—and dar is dat nigger, Colin, wid his swelled head, must always put in his mouth, and make Mr. Junk out a born liar."

The ideas concerning the French which Junk spread among the negroes were somewhat extraordinary. He represented them as a good-for-nothing set, much below the standard of negro civilization, a set of puny barbarians, who regarded an American darkey as a

being of great majesty. Junk had slain Frenchmen, had treated the little, barbarous negro-worshippers with disdain, and had received from them tokens of great distinction. To these points Colin's cross-examinations were mainly directed. He doubted Junk's prowess; he laughed incredulously at his deeds of blood; and he even went so far as to dispute the assertion of Junk's intimacy "wid barbarians dat were white folks,"and to contend that his friend, the count, was some old "no count nigger "he had come across among the benighted regions outside of Ole Virginny.

We boys used often to join the crowd of Junk's listeners, and would have our own amusement in quizzing the old cobbler. "I suppose, Uncle Junk,"Dick would say, "when you were in Paris you saw the Palais Royal."

"Saw de Paris Lawyers, young mass'r! Why, in course I did. You see when I got dere, I went to de courthouse to hear'em. plead. And when I come in, de Paris lawyers were pleading in French; but when dey seed me, dey den commence pleadin in Amerikin."

The skeptical Colin would again come up to the attack."I say, big hoss, I hope you didn't disgrace Ole Virginny by wearing dose boots in de city "—referring contemptuously to Junk's immense cowhide boots, which showed the deformity of one of his feet. But Junk was always ready for the attack; and immediately remarked with a serious and gloomy look, that he had once killed a certain small Frenchman who had insulted his boots.

"How was it, Junk?"

"Well, you see I was walking in de garden wid ern breeches tucked down in my boots, when two of dese

mean Frenchmen come along, and de one to toder cast an insult on my boots, cos you see he didn't know dat I knowd de langwig and could bear him. Well, I wouldn't stan' no insult from no Frenchman, no how;

A FIELD HAND.

[Description: Etching of Negro woman with hoe and pail.]

so I jes struck him wid my nerves. And one lick was jes enuf— it killed de man; and dey sent for de secretary to sot on him."

"But what did he say about de boots, big hoss? would inquire the persistent Colin.

"Well, you see de man talked French, and tain't while to tell dat to poor ignorant black trash like you.

But Colin was pressing. He wanted to hear Junk's French. The housemaids too, desired a specimen of the same, if Mr. Junk would kindly consent to put his rival down. "Dat nigger Colin had too much sass anyhow—Mr. Junk, won't you please say what de Frenchman say?"

"Well,"replied Junk, with a sudden jerk of condescension, "de man didn't say much. He say Poly glot sots,' and de Amerikin for dat, you know, is 'de boots brought de fool.'"And while all joined. in laughing at Colin's discomfiture, Junk would make his retreat good, walking off with a careless and provoking whistle.