University of Virginia Library

8. VIII.
GINGERFORD'S NEAT REVENGE.

Thus the wrath of man continued to work the welfare
of these humble Christians. It is reasonable to doubt
whether the Judge was at heart delighted with his new
neighbors; and jolly Mr. Frisbie enjoyed the joke somewhat
less, I suspect, than he anticipated. One party enjoyed
it nevertheless. It was a serious and solid satisfaction
to the Williams family. No member of which, with
the exception, perhaps, of Joe, exhibited greater pleasure

at the change in their situation than the old patriarch. It
rejuvenated him. His hearing was almost restored. “One
move more,” he said, “and I shall be young and spry ag'in
as the day I got my freedom,” — that day, so many, many
years ago, which he so well remembered! Well, the “one
move more” was near; and the morning of a new freedom,
the morning of a more perfect youth and gladness,
was not distant.

It was the old man's delight to go out and sit in the
sun before the door in the clear December weather, and
pull off his cap to the Judge as he passed. To get a
bow, and perhaps a kind word, from the illustrious Gingerford,
was glory enough for one day, and the old man
invariably hurried into the house to tell of it.

But one morning a singular thing occurred. To all
appearances — to the eyes of all except one — he remained
sitting out there in the sun after the Judge had gone.
But Fessenden's looking up suddenly, and, staring at
vacancy, cried, —

“Hollo!”

“What, child?” asked Mrs. Williams.

“The old man!” said Fessenden's. “Comin' into the
door! Don't ye see him?”

Nobody saw him but the lad; and of course all were
astonished by his earnest announcement of the apparition.
The old grandmother hastened to look out. There sat her
father still, on the bench by the apple-tree, leaning against
the trunk. But the sight did not satisfy her. She ran
out to him. The smile of salutation was still on his lips,
which seemed just saying, “Sarvant, sah,” to the Judge.
But those lips would never move again. They were the
lips of death.

“What is the matter, Williams?” asked the Judge, on
his return home that afternoon.

“My gran'ther is dead, sir; and I don't know where to
bury him.” This was the negro's quiet and serious answer.

“Dead?” ejaculates the Judge. “Why, I saw him
only this morning, and had a smile from him!”

“That was his last smile, sir. You can see it on his
face yet. He went to heaven with that smile, we trust.”

The Judge leaves everything and goes home with his
coachman. Sure enough! there is the same smile he saw
in the morning, frozen on the face of the corpse.

“Gently and late death came to him!” says Gingerford.
“Would we could all die as happy! There is no
occasion to mourn, my good woman.”

“Bless the Lord, I don't mourn!” replied the old negress.
“But I 'm so brimful of thanks, I must cry for 't!
He died a blessed ole Christian; an' he 's gone straight to
glory, if there 's anything in the promises. He is free
now, if he never was afore; — for, though they pretend
there a'n't no slaves in this 'ere State, an' the law freed us
years ago, seems to me there a'n't no re'l liberty for us,
'cept this!” She pointed at the corpse, then threw up
her eyes and hands with an expression of devout and joyful
gratitude. “He 's gone where there a'n't no predijice
agin color, bless the Lord! He 's gone where all them
that 's been washed with the blood of Christ is all of one
color in his sight!” Then turning to the Judge, — “And
you 'll git your reward, sir, be sure o' that!”

“My reward?” And Gingerford, touched with genuine
emotion, shook his head sadly.

“Yes, sir, your reward,” repeated the old woman, tenderly
arranging the sheet over the still breast and folded
hands of the corpse. “For makin' his last days happy, —
for makin' his last minutes happy, I may say. That 'ere
smile was for you, sir. You was kinder to him 'n folks in
gin'ral. He wa'n't used to 't. An' he felt it. An' he 's

gone to glory with the news on 't. An' it 'll be sot down
to your credit there, in the Big Book.”

Where was the Judge's eloquence? He could not find
words to frame a fitting reply to this ignorant black woman,
whose emotion was so much deeper than any fine
phrases of his could reach, and whose simple faith and
gratitude overwhelmed him with the sudden conviction that
he had never yet said anything to the purpose, in all his
rhetorical defences of the down-trodden race. From that
conviction came humility. Out of humility rose inspiration.
Two days later his eloquence found tongue; and
this was the occasion of it.

The body of the old negro was to be buried. That he
should be simply put into the ground, and nothing said,
any more than if he were a brute, did not seem befitting
the obsequies of so old a man and so faithful a Christian.
The family had natural feelings on that subject. They
wanted to have a funeral sermon.

Now it so happened that there was to be another funeral
in the village about that time. The old minister, had he
been living, might have managed to attend both. But the
young minister could not think of such a thing. The
loveliest flower of maidenhood in his parish had been cut
down. One of the first families had been bereaved. Day
and night he must ponder and scribble to prepare a suitable
discourse. And then, having exhausted spiritual grace
in bedecking the tomb of the lovely, should he — good
heavens! could he descend from those heights of beauty
and purity to the grave of a superannuated negro? Could
divine oratory so descend?

Ought the cup of consolation, which he extended to his
best, his worthiest friends and parishioners, to be passed
in the same hour to thick African lips?

Which questions were, of course, decided in the negative.
There was another minister in the village, but he was sick.
What should be done? To go wandering about the world
in search of somebody to preach the funeral sermon seemed
a hard case, — as Mr. Williams remarked to the Judge.

“Tell you what, Williams,” said the Judge, — “don't
give yourself any more trouble on that account. I 'm not
a minister, nor half good enough for one,” — he could afford
to speak disparagingly of himself, the beautiful, gracious
gentleman! — “but if you can't do any better, I 'll
be present and say a few words at the funeral.”

“Thank you a thousand times!” said the grateful negro.
“Could n't be nothin' better 'n that! We never expected
no such honor; an' if my ole gran'ther could have
knowed you would speak to his funeral, he 'd have been
proud, sir!”

“He was a simple-minded old soul!” replied the Judge,
pleasantly. “And you 're another, Williams! However,
I 'm glad you are satisfied. So this difficulty is settled,
too.” For already one very serious difficulty had been
arranged through this man's kindness.

Did I neglect to mention it, — Low, when the old negro
died, his family had no place to bury him? The rest of
his race, dying before him, had been gathered to the
mother's bosom in distant places: long lines of dusky ancestors
in Africa; a few descendants in America, — here
and there a grave among New England hills. Only one, a
child of Mr. Williams's, had died in Timberville, and been
placed in the old burying-ground over yonder. But that
was now closed against interments. And as for purchasing
a lot in the new cemetery, — how could poor Mr.
Williams ever hope to raise money to pay for it?

“Williams,” said the Judge, “I own several lots there,
and if you 'll be a good boy, I 'll make you a present of
one.”

Ah, Gingerford! Gingerford! was it pure benevolence
that prompted the gift? Was the smile with which you
afterwards related the circumstance to dear Mrs. Gingerford
a smile of sincere satisfaction at having done a good
action and witnessed the surprise and gratitude of your
black coachman? Tell us, was it altogether an accident,
with no tincture whatever of pleasant malice in it, that the
lot you selected, out of several, to be the burial-place of
negroes, lay side by side with the proud family-vault of
your neighbor Frisbie?

The Judge was one of those cool heads, who, when they
have received an injury, do not go raving of it up and
down, but put it quietly aside, and keep their temper, and
rest content to wait patiently, perhaps years, perhaps a
lifetime, for the opportunity of a sudden and pat revenge.
Indeed, I suppose he would have been well satisfied to answer
Frisbie's spite with the nobler revenge of magnanimity
and smiling forbearance, had not the said opportunity presented
itself. It was a temptation not to be resisted.
And he, the most philanthropical of men, proved himself
capable of being also the most cruel.

There, in the choicest quarter of the cemetery, shone the
white ancestral monuments of the Frisbies. Death, the
leveller, had not, somehow, levelled them, — proud and
pretentious even in their tombs. You felt, as you read
the sculptured record of their names and virtues, that
even their ashes were better than the ashes of common
mortals. They rendered sacred not only the still enclosure
where they lay, but all that beautiful sunny bank; so that
nobody else had presumed to be buried near them, but a
space of many square rods on either side was left still unappropriated,
— until now, when, lo! here comes a black
funeral, and the corpse of one who had been a slave in his
day, to profane the soil!