University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
IN WHICH A VARIETY OF CHARACTERS APPEAR.

In the forward part of the boat, not the least attractive
object, for a time, was a grotesque negro cripple, in
two-cloth attire and an old coal-sifter of a tamborine
in his hand, who, owing to something wrong about his
legs, was, in effect, cut down to the stature of a Newfoundland
dog; his knotted black fleece and good-natured,
honest black face rubbing against the upper
part of people's thighs as he made shift to shuffle about,
making music, such as it was, and raising a smile even
from the gravest. It was curious to see him, out of his
very deformity, indigence, and houselessness, so cheerily
endured, raising mirth in some of that crowd, whose
own purses, hearths, hearts, all their possessions, sound
limbs included, could not make gay.

“What is your name, old boy?” said a purple-faced
drover, putting his large purple hand on the cripple's
bushy wool, as if it were the curled forehead of a black
steer.

“Der Black Guinea dey calls me, sar.”

“And who is your master, Guinea?”

“Oh sar, I am der dog widout massa.”

“A free dog, eh? Well, on your account, I'm sorry
for that, Guinea. Dogs without masters fare hard.”

“So dey do, sar; so dey do. But you see, sar, dese
here legs? What ge'mman want to own dese here
legs?”

“But where do you live?”

“All 'long shore, sar; dough now I'se going to
see brodder at der landing; but chiefly I libs in der
city.”

“St. Louis, ah? Where do you sleep there of
nights?”

“On der floor of der good baker's oven, sar.”

“In an oven? whose, pray? What baker, I should
like to know, bakes such black bread in his oven,
alongside of his nice white rolls, too. Who is that
too charitable baker, pray?”

“Dar he be,” with a broad grin lifting his tambourine
high over his head.

“The sun is the baker, eh?”

“Yes sar, in der city dat good baker warms der stones
for dis ole darkie when he sleeps out on der pabements
o' nights.”

“But that must be in the summer only, old boy.
How about winter, when the cold Cossacks come
clattering and jingling? How about winter, old
boy?”

“Den dis poor old darkie shakes werry bad, I tell
you, sar. Oh sar, oh! don't speak ob der winter,” he
added, with a reminiscent shiver, shuffling off into the
thickest of the crowd, like a half-frozen black sheep

nudging itself a cozy berth in the heart of the white
flock.

Thus far not very many pennies had been given him,
and, used at last to his strange looks, the less polite passengers
of those in that part of the boat began to get
their fill of him as a curious object; when suddenly the
negro more than revived their first interest by an expedient
which, whether by chance or design, was a singular
temptation at once to diversion and charity, though,
even more than his crippled limbs, it put him on a
canine footing. In short, as in appearance he seemed
a dog, so now, in a merry way, like a dog he began to
be treated. Still shuffling among the crowd, now and
then he would pause, throwing back his head and
opening his mouth like an elephant for tossed apples
at a menagerie; when, making a space before him, people
would have a bout at a strange sort of pitch-penny
game, the cripple's mouth being at once target and
purse, and he hailing each expertly-caught copper with
a cracked bravura from his tambourine. To be the subject
of alms-giving is trying, and to feel in duty bound
to appear cheerfully grateful under the trial, must be
still more so; but whatever his secret emotions, he
swallowed them, while still retaining each copper this
side the œsophagus. And nearly always he grinned,
and only once or twice did he wince, which was when
certain coins, tossed by more playful almoners, came
inconveniently nigh to his teeth, an accident whose
unwelcomeness was not unedged by the circumstance
that the pennies thus thrown proved buttons.

While this game of charity was yet at its height, a
limping, gimlet-eyed, sour-faced person — it may be
some discharged custom-house officer, who, suddenly
stripped of convenient means of support, had concluded
to be avenged on government and humanity
by making himself miserable for life, either by hating
or suspecting everything and everybody—this shallow
unfortunate, after sundry sorry observations of the negro,
began to croak out something about his deformity
being a sham, got up for financial purposes, which immediately
threw a damp upon the frolic benignities of
the pitch-penny players.

But that these suspicions came from one who himself
on a wooden leg went halt, this did not appear to
strike anybody present. That cripples, above all men
should be companionable, or, at least, refrain from picking
a fellow-limper to pieces, in short, should have a
little sympathy in common misfortune, seemed not to
occur to the company.

Meantime, the negro's countenance, before marked
with even more than patient good-nature, drooped
into a heavy-hearted expression, full of the most
painful distress. So far abased beneath its proper
physical level, that Newfoundland-dog face turned in
passively hopeless appeal, as if instinct told it that the
right or the wrong might not have overmuch to do
with whatever wayward mood superior intelligences
might yield to.

But instinct, though knowing, is yet a teacher set
below reason, which itself says, in the grave words of

Lysander in the comedy, after Puck has made a sage of
him with his spell:—
So that, suddenly change as people may, in their dispositions,
it is not always waywardness, but improved
judgment, which, as in Lysander's case, or the present,
operates with them.

Yes, they began to scrutinize the negro curiously
enough; when, emboldened by this evidence of the
efficacy of his words, the wooden-legged man hobbled
up to the negro, and, with the air of a beadle, would,
to prove his alleged imposture on the spot, have stripped
him and then driven him away, but was prevented
by the crowd's clamor, now taking part with the poor
fellow, against one who had just before turned nearly
all minds the other way. So he with the wooden leg
was forced to retire; when the rest, finding themselves
left sole judges in the case, could not resist the opportunity
of acting the part: not because it is a human
weakness to take pleasure in sitting in judgment upon
one in a box, as surely this unfortunate negro now
was, but that it strangely sharpens human perceptions,
when, instead of standing by and having their
fellow-feelings touched by the sight of an alleged culprit
severely handled by some one justiciary, a crowd
suddenly come to be all justiciaries in the same case
themselves; as in Arkansas once, a man proved guilty,
by law, of murder, but whose condemnation was deemed

unjust by the people, so that they rescued him to try
him themselves; whereupon, they, as it turned out,
found him even guiltier than the court had done, and
forthwith proceeded to execution; so that the gallows
presented the truly warning spectacle of a man hanged
by his friends.

But not to such extremities, or anything like them,
did the present crowd come; they, for the time, being
content with putting the negro fairly and discreetly to
the question; among other things, asking him, had he
any documentary proof, any plain paper about him,
attesting that his case was not a spurious one.

“No, no, dis poor ole darkie haint none o' dem waloable
papers,” he wailed.

“But is there not some one who can speak a good
word for you?” here said a person newly arrived from
another part of the boat, a young Episcopal clergyman,
in a long, straight-bodied black coat; small in stature,
but manly; with a clear face and blue eye; innocence,
tenderness, and good sense triumvirate in his air.

“Oh yes, oh yes, ge'mmen,” he eagerly answered,
as if his memory, before suddenly frozen up by cold
charity, as suddenly thawed back into fluidity at the
first kindly word. “Oh yes, oh yes, dar is aboard here
a werry nice, good ge'mman wid a weed, and a ge'mman
in a gray coat and white tie, what knows all about me;
and a ge'mman wid a big book, too; and a yarb-doctor;
and a ge'mman in a yaller west; and a ge'mman wid a
brass plate; and a ge'mman in a wiolet robe; and a
ge'mman as is a sodjer; and ever so many good, kind,

honest ge'mmen more aboard what knows me and will
speak for me, God bress 'em; yes, and what knows me
as well as dis poor old darkie knows hisself, God bress
him! Oh, find 'em, find 'em,” he earnestly added, “and
let 'em come quick, and show you all, ge'mmen, dat dis
poor ole darkie is werry well wordy of all you kind
ge'mmen's kind confidence.”

“But how are we to find all these people in this
great crowd?” was the question of a bystander, umbrella
in hand; a middle-aged person, a country merchant
apparently, whose natural good-feeling had been
made at least cautious by the unnatural ill-feeling of
the discharged custom-house officer.

“Where are we to find them?” half-rebukefully
echoed the young Episcopal clergymen. “I will go
find one to begin with,” he quickly added, and, with
kind haste suiting the action to the word, away he
went.

“Wild goose chase!” croaked he with the wooden
leg, now again drawing nigh. “Don't believe there's
a soul of them aboard. Did ever beggar have such
heaps of fine friends? He can walk fast enough when
he tries, a good deal faster than I; but he can lie yet
faster. He's some white operator, betwisted and
painted up for a decoy. He and his friends are all
humbugs.”

“Have you no charity, friend?” here in self-subdued
tones, singularly contrasted with his unsubdued person,
said a Methodist minister, advancing; a tall, muscular,
martial-looking man, a Tennessean by birth, who in the

Mexican war had been volunteer chaplain to a volunteer
rifle-regiment.

“Charity is one thing, and truth is another,” rejoined
he with the wooden leg: “he's a rascal, I say.”

“But why not, friend, put as charitable a construction
as one can upon the poor fellow?” said the soldier-like
Methodist, with increased difficulty maintaining a
pacific demeanor towards one whose own asperity
seemed so little to entitle him to it: “he looks honest,
don't he?”

“Looks are one thing, and facts are another,” snapped
out the other perversely; “and as to your constructions,
what construction can you put upon a rascal, but
that a rascal he is?”

“Be not such a Canada thistle,” urged the Methodist,
with something less of patience than before. “Charity,
man, charity.”

“To where it belongs with your charity! to heaven
with it!” again snapped out the other, diabolically;
“here on earth, true charity dotes, and false charity
plots. Who betrays a fool with a kiss, the charitable
fool has the charity to believe is in love with him,
and the charitable knave on the stand gives charitable
testimony for his comrade in the box.”

“Surely, friend,” returned the noble Methodist, with
much ado restraining his still waxing indignation —
“surely, to say the least, you forget yourself. Apply
it home,” he continued, with exterior calmness tremulous
with inkept emotion. “Suppose, now, I should
exercise no charity in judging your own character by

the words which have fallen from you; what sort of
vile, pitiless man do you think I would take you for?”

“No doubt”—with a grin—“some such pitiless man
as has lost his piety in much the same way that the
jockey loses his honesty.”

“And how is that, friend?” still conscientiously
holding back the old Adam in him, as if it were a
mastiff he had by the neck.

“Never you mind how it is”—with a sneer; “but
all horses aint virtuous, no more than all men kind;
and come close to, and much dealt with, some things
are catching. When you find me a virtuous jockey, I
will find you a benevolent wise man.”

“Some insinuation there.”

“More fool you that are puzzled by it.”

“Reprobate!” cried the other, his indignation now
at last almost boiling over; “godless reprobate! if
charity did not restrain me, I could call you by names
you deserve.”

“Could you, indeed?” with an insolent sneer.

“Yea, and teach you charity on the spot,” cried the
goaded Methodist, suddenly catching this exasperating
opponent by his shabby coat-collar, and shaking him
till his timber-toe clattered on the deck like a nine-pin.
“You took me for a non-combatant did you?—thought,
seedy coward that you are, that you could abuse a
Christian with impunity. You find your mistake”—
with another hearty shake.

“Well said and better done, church militant!” cried
a voice.

“The white cravat against the world!” cried another.

“Bravo, bravo!” chorused many voices, with like
enthusiasm taking sides with the resolute champion.

“You fools!” cried he with the wooden leg, writhing
himself loose and inflamedly turning upon the
throng; “you flock of fools, under this captain of fools,
in this ship of fools!”

With which exclamations, followed by idle threats
against his admonisher, this condign victim to justice
hobbled away, as disdaining to hold further argument
with such a rabble. But his scorn was more than
repaid by the hisses that chased him, in which the
brave Methodist, satisfied with the rebuke already
administered, was, to omit still better reasons, too
magnanimous to join. All he said was, pointing towards
the departing recusant, “There he shambles off
on his one lone leg, emblematic of his one-sided view
of humanity.”

“But trust your painted decoy,” retorted the other
from a distance, pointing back to the black cripple,
“and I have my revenge.”

“But we aint agoing to trust him!” shouted back a
voice.

“So much the better,” he jeered back. “Look
you,” he added, coming to a dead halt where he was;
“look you, I have been called a Canada thistle. Very
good. And a seedy one: still better. And the seedy
Canada thistle has been pretty well shaken among ye
best of all. Dare say some seed has been shaken out;

and won't it spring though? And when it does spring,
do you cut down the young thistles, and won't they
spring the more? It's encouraging and coaxing 'em.
Now, when with my thistles your farms shall be well
stocked, why then—you may abandon 'em!”

“What does all that mean, now?” asked the country
merchant, staring.

“Nothing; the foiled wolf's parting howl,” said the
Methodist. “Spleen, much spleen, which is the rickety
child of his evil heart of unbelief: it has made him
mad. I suspect him for one naturally reprobate. Oh,
friends,” raising his arms as in the pulpit, “oh beloved,
how are we admonished by the melancholy spectacle of
this raver. Let us profit by the lesson; and is it not
this: that if, next to mistrusting Providence, there be
aught that man should pray against, it is against mistrusting
his fellow-man. I have been in mad-houses
full of tragic mopers, and seen there the end of suspicion:
the cynic, in the moody madness muttering in
the corner; for years a barren fixture there; head lopped
over, gnawing his own lip, vulture of himself;
while, by fits and starts, from the corner opposite came
the grimace of the idiot at him.”

“What an example,” whispered one.

“Might deter Timon,” was the response.

“Oh, oh, good ge'mmen, have you no confidence in
dis poor ole darkie?” now wailed the returning negro,
who, during the late scene, had stumped apart in
alarm.

“Confidence in you?” echoed he who had whispered,

with abruptly changed air turning short round; “that
remains to be seen.”

“I tell you what it is, Ebony,” in similarly changed
tones said he who had responded to the whisperer,
“yonder churl,” pointing toward the wooden leg in
the distance, “is, no doubt, a churlish fellow enough,
and I would not wish to be like him; but that is no
reason why you may not be some sort of black Jeremy
Diddler.”

“No confidence in dis poor ole darkie, den?”

“Before giving you our confidence,” said a third,
“we will wait the report of the kind gentleman who
went in search of one of your friends who was to speak
for you.”

“Very likely, in that case,” said a fourth, “we shall
wait here till Christmas. Shouldn't wonder, did we not
see that kind gentleman again. After seeking awhile in
vain, he will conclude he has been made a fool of, and
so not return to us for pure shame. Fact is, I begin to
feel a little qualmish about the darkie myself. Something
queer about this darkie, depend upon it.”

Once more the negro wailed, and turning in despair
from the last speaker, imploringly caught the Methodist
by the skirt of his coat. But a change had come over
that before impassioned intercessor. With an irresolute
and troubled air, he mutely eyed the suppliant;
against whom, somehow, by what seemed instinctive
influences, the distrusts first set on foot were now generally
reviving, and, if anything, with added severity.

“No confidence in dis poor ole darkie,” yet again

wailed the negro, letting go the coat-skirts and turning
appealingly all round him.

“Yes, my poor fellow, I have confidence in you,”
now exclaimed the country merchant before named,
whom the negro's appeal, coming so piteously on the
heel of pitilessness, seemed at last humanely to have
decided in his favor. “And here, here is some proof
of my trust,” with which, tucking his umbrella under
his arm, and diving down his hand into his pocket, he
fished forth a purse, and, accidentally, along with it,
his business card, which, unobserved, dropped to the
deck. “Here, here, my poor fellow,” he continued,
extending a half dollar.

Not more grateful for the coin than the kindness, the
cripple's face glowed like a polished copper saucepan,
and shuffling a pace nigher, with one upstretched hand
he received the alms, while, as unconsciously, his one
advanced leather stump covered the card.

Done in despite of the general sentiment, the good
deed of the merchant was not, perhaps, without its
unwelcome return from the crowd, since that good deed
seemed somehow to convey to them a sort of reproach.
Still again, and more pertinaciously than ever, the cry
arose against the negro, and still again he wailed forth
his lament and appeal; among other things, repeating
that the friends, of whom already he had partially run
off the list, would freely speak for him, would anybody
go find them.

“Why don't you go find 'em yourself?” demanded a
gruff boatman.

“How can I go find 'em myself? Dis poor ole
game-legged darkie's friends must come to him. Oh,
whar, whar is dat good friend of dis darkie's, dat good
man wid de weed?”

At this point, a steward ringing a bell came along,
summoning all persons who had not got their tickets to
step to the captain's office; an announcement which
speedily thinned the throng about the black cripple,
who himself soon forlornly stumped out of sight,
probably on much the same errand as the rest.