Northern Georgia Sketches. Will N. Harben

you a-makin’ all that noise?” asked Gill.

      “I wus prayin’, suh,” answered Big Joe, his face in the shadow.

      “Oh, that was it; I didn’t know!” Gill was trying to master a most irritating awkwardness on his part; in questions of religious ceremony he always allowed for individual taste. Passing the negro, he went into the cabin and lifted the tallow-dip above his head and looked about the room suspiciously. “You was jest a-prayin’, eh?”

      “Yes, suh; I was a-prayin’ to de Gre’t Marster ter tek me off on a bed o’ ease, sence I hatter go anyway. Er death er starvation ain’t no easy job.”

      Gill sat down on the negro’s bed. He crossed his legs and swung a bare foot to and fro in a nervous, jerky manner.

      “Looky’ heer,” he said finally to the black profile in the doorway, “you are a plagued mystery to me. What in the name o’ all possessed do you hanker after a box in the cold ground fer?”

      The slave seemed slightly taken aback by the blunt directness of this query; he left the door and sat down heavily in a chair at the fireplace. “Huh!” he grunted, “is you been all dis time en not fin’ out what my trouble is?”

      “Ef I did know I wouldn’t be settin’ heer at this time o’ night, losin’ my nat’ral sleep to ask about it,” was the tart reply.

      The negro grunted again. “Do you know Marse Whit’s Liza?” he asked, almost eagerly.

      “I believe I’ve seed ’er once or twice,” Gill told him. “A fine-lookin’ wench—about the color of a sorghum ginger-cake. Is she the one you mean?”

      The big man nodded. “Me ’n her was gwine ter git married, but Marse Whit’ hatter go ’n trade ’er off ter Marse Stafford, en Marse Stafford is done give ’er ’er freedom yistiddy.”

      “Ah, he set ’er free, did he?” Gill stared, and by habit awkwardly stroked that part of his face where a beard used to grow.

      “Yes, suh; Marse Gill, he done set ’er free, en now a free nigger is flyin’ roun’ her. She won’t marry no slave now, suh!”

      Gill drew a full breath and stood up. “Then it wasn’t becase you thought yorese’f so much better ’n me ’n my wife that you wanted to dump yorese’f into eternity?”

      “No, suh; dat wasn’t in my min’, suh.”

      “Well, I’m powerful glad o’ that, Joe,” responded Gill, “becase neither me nor my wife ever harmed a kink in yore head. Now, the gospel truth is, I was drawed into this whole business ag’in’ my wishes, an’ me an’ Lucretia would give a lots to be well out of it. Now, I don’t want to be the cause o’ that free nigger walkin’ off with yore intrusts, so heer’s what I ‘ll do. Ef you ’ll ride in town with me in the mornin’ I ’ll git a lawyer to draw up as clean a set o’ freedom papers as you ever laid your peepers on. What do you say?”

      Big Joe’s eyes expanded until they seemed all white, with dark holes in the center. For a minute he sat like a statue, as silent as the wall behind him; then he said, with a deep breath: “Marse Gill, is you in earnest—my Gawd! is you?”

      “As the Almighty is my judge, in whose presence I set at this minute.”

      The negro covered his face with a pair of big, quivering hands.

      “Den I don’t know what ter say, Marse Gill. I never expected to be a free man, en I had give up hope er ever seein’ Liza ag’in. Oh, Marse Gill, you sho’ is one er His chosen flock!”

      Gill was so deeply moved that when he ventured on a reply he found difficulty in steadying his speech. His voice had a quality that was new to it. He spoke as gently as if he were promising recovery to a suffering child.

      “Now, Joe, you crawl back in bed an’ sleep,” he said, “an’ in the mornin’ you ’ll be free, as shore as the sun rises on us both.”

      Then he went back to bed and told his wife what he had done.

      “I’m powerful glad we can git out of it so easy,” she commented. “It’s funny I never thought o’ settin’ ’im free. It looked to me like he was a-goin’ to be a burden that we never could git rid of, an’ now it’s a-goin’ to end all right in the Lord’s sight.”

      They were just dozing off in peaceable slumber when they heard a gentle rap on the door.

      “It’s me, Marse Gill,” came from the outside. “I’m mighty sorry to wake you ag’in, but I’m so hungry I don’t think I kin wait till mornin’.”

      “Well, I reckon you do feel kinder empty,” laughed the farmer as he sprang out of bed. He lighted a candle, and following the specter-like signals of his wife, who sat up in bed, he soon found the meal she had arranged for the slave at noon. “Thar,” he said, as he handed it through the doorway; “I had clean forgot yore fast was over.”

      The next morning the farmer and Big Joe drove to town, two miles distant. Gill was gone all day and did not return till dusk. His wife went out to meet him at the wagon-shed.

      “How did you make out?” she asked.

      “Tip-top,” he said, with a laugh. “As we went to town, nothin’ would do the black scamp but we must go by after the gal. She happened to be dressed up, an’ went to town with us. I set in front an’ driv’, while they done their courtin’ on the back seat. I soon got the papers in shape, an’ Squire Ridley spliced ’em right on the sidewalk in front o’ his office. A big crowd was thar, an’ you never heerd the like o’ yellin’. Some o’ the boys, jest fer pure devilment, picked me up an’ carried me on their shoulders to the tavern an’ made me set down to a hearty dinner. Joe borrowed a apron from the cook an’ insisted on waitin’ on me, La me, I wisht you’d ’a’ been thar. I felt like a blamed fool.”

      “I reckon you did have a lots o’ fun,” said Mrs. Gill. “Well, I’m glad he ain’t on our hands. I wouldn’t pass another day like yis-tiddy fer all the slaves in Georgia.”