The darkies rolled their eyes in great astonishment, and then went about their work with alacrity. In a few minutes the wagons were driven up to the door, and the darkies began to pile in the clothes. While Mr. Sprague was watching them he became aware that somebody was trying to attract his attention. A pebble thrown by a friendly hand hit him on the shoulder. He faced about, and saw one of the darkies behind the house. When he saw Mr. Sprague looking at him he beckoned to him to come where he was.
CHAPTER IV
CARL BRINGS NEWS
“Say, Marse Sprague, is you Union men going to burn dese houses ober deir heads?” began the darky, so excited that he could scarcely stand still.
“We have given them an hour to take their things out,” said Mr. Sprague. “If they don’t take them out in that time we’ll set the house a-going. If they get all their things out and loaded in the wagons we’ll save the house, so that they can have something to live in when these troubles are all over.”
“Whar do you reckon dey’ll go if dey get the things all tooken out?” asked the negro.
“I don’t know where they will go; over into the next county, probably. But what makes you so anxious?”
“Well, say, Marse Sprague, I don’t care to go ober into the next county wid ’em. Dey’s rebels ober dere.”
“So I have heard.”
“Well, I don’t want to go among dose rebels ’cause I won’t get no freedom. Dey say we’ll get it in a little while if we stays here among dese Union men.”
“Who told you that?”
“Your own Mose told me dat, sah.”
“Is Mose going to take his freedom when he can get it?”
“Sah? No, sah. He say he’s got a Marse who don’t stripe his jacket none, and he ain’t a-going to look at his freedom. I tell you, I don’t care to go ober into dat oder county wid dem people here.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“We-uns didn’t know what to do about it. If we slip away from dem while dey are going ober dar can dey catch us?”
“I don’t know whether they can or not. There’s been an Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln, saying that if they don’t quit their rebellion in six months he will declare their niggers all free.”
“Dat’s just what I want to get at, sah,” said the negro, pounding his knees and shaking his head as if he were overjoyed to hear it. “Dat’s just what I want, sah. De rebels ain’t a-going to go and get up such a ’bellion, and den go and give it up ’cause somebody tells ’em to. I ain’t a-going into dat oder county, and the first thing Marse Swayne knows my folks and me will be missing.”
“Well, you have got to depend on yourself,” said Mr. Sprague. “I cannot help you if you do run away from them.”
“I knows dat mighty well. But you just watch out and see if you hain’t got more black folks up to your plantation dan you ought to have. You is a Union man and I know it, and you ain’t a-going to give me up just ’cause Marse Swayne says so.”
The negro started one way because he heard somebody calling him, and Mr. Sprague joined the men on the porch feeling as if he had a big responsibility resting upon him. He didn’t agree to take all the darkies in the county who might make up their minds to run away from their masters, and how was he going to support them all and find work for them to do?
“I tell you, this thing is coming to a head,” said Mr. Sprague to the man who sat next to him. “You remember what Stephens said about having a Government whose cornerstone should be slavery?”
The man remembered it perfectly. They used to get Confederate papers when the war first broke out, but now that they were in rebellion, and the postmaster was a rebel, they didn’t get a sight of one. The man who had charge of the office removed to Mobile as soon as he saw how things were going, and since then there had not been any post-office.
“Well, sir, old Cuff has just been talking to me, and he thinks of running away. He says that if he goes over into the other county he won’t get his freedom.”
“Good” said the man. “I am glad of it. We’ll see how their ‘corner-stone’ is going to hold out when they get their Confederacy. But they ain’t a-going to whip.”
“But this old Cuff thinks I am going to support him,” said Mr. Sprague. “I haven’t got any work for him to do.”
“Send him into the woods to cut logs for you,” said the man.
“I might do that, but I don’t see where I am going to find market for them. But I will get along somehow. Well, half an hour is gone, and they haven’t got many things out yet. Leon and Tom seem to be making it all right with Carl, don’t they?”
The two boys referred to stood patiently by until the resolutions were complete; then Tom took his copy and Leon fastened his eyes upon the torn manuscript and waited for him to read it. It was all correct; there wasn’t a mistake in it.
“You write a pretty good hand for a boy who hasn’t been to school more than you have,” said Leon.
“Keep your compliments for them that need them,” said Carl, snappishly. “I don’t care to hear them.”
“You haven’t got through with this business yet,” said Leon, in a voice which he meant should carry conviction with it. “You found this resolution on a tree, and you tore it down so that people couldn’t see it. I intend that you shall go back and post this thing up there.”
“But you told me I should have to help my uncle carry out his things,” said Carl, anxious to shirk all the responsibility he could.
“Oh, we’ll wait until you carry out your things,” said Leon, with a smile. “You are going right by the tree, and it won’t hurt you at all to stop and nail this thing up.”
Carl gathered up the pen and ink and disappeared in the house, and Leon and Tom went down the steps to join the men who were sitting there.
“I got it, but I had hard work in getting it, too,” said Leon. “How much longer time has he got?”
“Not quite fifteen minutes,” said Mr. Sprague.
“And I see he is hustling things more lively than he did. You won’t start the fire when the quarter of an hour is up, seeing that he is doing the best he can to get them out?”
“Oh, no. I wanted to see him get to work, that is all.”
At the end of half an hour the furniture and clothes they intended to take with them had been loaded on the wagons, and then the women began to slam the blinds and fasten them securely. When Mr. Swayne came out on the porch he locked that door and put the key into his pocket.
“We have got some things in there yet, but we don’t want these traitors to have them,” said his wife, in a tone which was intended very plainly for the ears of Mr. Sprague and his friends. “Let them go somewhere else and steal somebody else poor.”
Mr. Swayne did not pay any attention to it. He buttoned up the key in his pocket, and looked all around as if he were searching for someone. At last he called out:
“Cuff! Where is that lazy nigger Cuff? Come here this minute, or I will stripe your jacket till you can’t rest.”
Mr. Sprague was surprised. He thought it very likely that he could tell Mr. Swayne what had become of the negro Cuff. He had been sent with all his companions to the quarters to bring some clothes and other things they wanted to save, and he hadn’t showed up since. It would be very easy for them to slip through the cornfield, and so into the woods, and that was right where Cuff was when his master was calling him.
“Carl, suppose you run down to the quarters and hurry them up,” said his uncle. “We want to get away from here as soon as we can. There’s too many Union