Litchfield enquirer., 1878-03-28


 talking all the time with occasional flashes o1 wit, and an unconscious suggestion of feroci- ty in the way he hacked and tore the meat with his clasp-knife, and his strong white teeth. Esther stood, nothing could induce her to sit, in the masters presence. She ate and drank quietly, and dropped courtesy whenever he spoke to her, not from any espe- cial respect or gratitude, however, but from habit. ''I may possibly teach the man some thing, thought the school-master; ''but what a terrible creature to turn loose in the world, with power in his hand! Hundreds of these men will die, nay,. must die violent deaths be fore their people can learn what freedom means, and what it does not mean. AS fol the woman. it is hopeless she cannot learn. But her child can. In truth, our hope is ir the children" "A. .....
 And then he threw away every atom .oi the food, washed his dishes made up the lire, and went back to the beginning again apd cooked a second supper. For he still shranR from personal contact with the other race. A Southerner would have found it impossible tc comprehend the fortitude it required for tho New Englander to go through his daily rounds among them. He didhis best but it was du- ty, not liking. Supper over, he went to the school-house again in the evening, he taught the old people. It was an odd sight to note them as they followed the letters with big crooked foreinger, slowly spelling out words of three letters.s They spelled with their whole bodies, stooplng, over the books which lay be- fore them until their old grizzled heads and gay turbans looked as if they were set on the table by the chins in a long row. Patiently the master taught them they had gone nc farther than ''cat" in five long months He made the letters for them on the blackboard again and again, but the treat of the evening was the making of these letters on the board by the different scholars in turn. 'Now, Di. nah-B." And old Dinah would hobble ur proudly, and, with much screwing of her mouth and tongue and many long hesitations, produce some thing which looked like figure eight gone mad. Joe had his turn next, and he would make, perhaps, an H for D. The master would go back and explain to him care fully the difference, only to find at the end of ten minutes that the whole class was hopeless ly confused Joe's mistake had routed them all. There was one pair of spectacles among the old people; these were passed from hand to hand as the turn came, not from necessity always, but as an adjunct to the dignity of reading.
 ''Never mind the glasses, Tom. Surely you can spell bag without them"
 "Dey helps Mars King David, replied old Tom with solemn importance. He adorned himself with the spectacles, and spelled it. "g, a, b."
 But the old people enjoyed their lesson i'm mensely no laughter no joking broke the so- lemnity of the scene, and they never failed to make an especial toilet, much shirt-collar for the old men, and clean turbans for the old women. They seemed to be generally half crippled, poor old creatures; slow in their movements as tortoises, and often unwieldy their shoes were curiosities of patches, rags, strings, and carpeting. But sometimes fine old black face was lifted from the slow-mov- ing bulk, and from under wrinkled eyelids keen sharp eyes met the masters, as intelligent as his own.
 There was no church proper in Jubilee; on Sundays, the people, who were generally Bap- lists, assembled in the school-room, where ser vices were conducted by brother who had 'de gif' ob preachin' and who poured forth a flood of Scripture phrases with volubility, incoherence and earnestness alike extraordina- ry. Presbyterian David attended these servi- ces, not only for the sake of example but also because he steadfastly believed in ''the public assembling of ourselves together for the wor- ship of Almighty God"
 Perhaps they understand him, :" he thought noting the rapt black faces, land 1, at least, have no right to judge them,-I, who with all the lights have had, still find myself unable to grasp the great doctrine of Election" For David had been bred in Calvinism, and many a night when younger and more hopeful of ar irving at fnalities, had he wrestled with it's problems. He was not so sure, now, of ar irving at finalities, either in belief or in dai- ly life; but he thought the fault lay with him self, and deplored it.
 The Yankee school-master was of course, de- barred from intercourse with those of his own color in the neighborhood. There were no ''poor whites" there; he was spared the sight of their long, clay y-celored faces lank yellow hair, and half open mouths; he was not brought into contact with the ignorance and dense self-conceit of this singular class The whites of the neighborhood were planters, and they regarded the school-master as an interlo- per- fanatic, a knave or fool, according to their various degrees of bitterness The phan- tom of cotton-feld still haunted the master, and he often walked by the abandoned fields of these planters, and noted them carefully. In addition to his fancy, there was now anoth- CT motive. Things were not going well at Ju- bilee, and he was anxious to try whether the men would not work for good wages paid reg ularly, and for their Northern teacher and friend. Thus it happened that Harnett Am merton, retired planter, perceived, one after noon, stranger walking up the avenue that led to his dilapidated mansion and as he was near sighted, and as any visitor was, besides, a welcome interruption in his dull day, he went out upon the piazza to meet him, and, not until he had offered 8 chair did he recog- nize his guest He said nothing; for he was in his own house. But a gentleman can freeze the atmosphere around him even in his own house, and this he did The school-master stated his errand simply; he wished to rent one of the abandoned cotton-fields for year. The planter could have answered with satis- faction that his fields might lie forever untitled before Yankee hands should touch them But he was poor man now, and money was mon ey. He endured his visitor, and he rented his field; and, with the perplexed feelings of his class he asked himself how it was, how it could be, that man like that, yes like that-had money, while he himself had none! David had but little rnoney,-a mere handful to throw away in day, the planter would have thought in the lavish old times; but David had the New England thrift.
 q am hoping that the unemployed hands over at Jubilee will cultivate this field for me-" he said; 'tfor fair wages, of course. I know nothing of cotton myself"
 ''You will be disappointed" said the plant
 But they must live; they must lay up for the winter"
 ''They do not know enough to live. They might exist, perhaps, in Africa as the rest of their lace exists, but here, in this colder eli mate, they must be taken care of, worked, and fed, as we work and fed our horses-precisely in the same way"
 Il cannot agree with you," replied David, a color rising in his thin race. ''They are idle and shiftless, I acknowledge that but it is not the natural result of generations of servftude and ignorance?"
 ''They have not capacity for anything save ignorance"
 "You do not know then, perhaps, that = that am trying to educate those who are over at Jubilee," said David. There was no ag- gressive confidence in his voice; he knew that he had accomplished little as yet He looked wistfully at his host as he spoke.
 Harnett Anmerton was born patriclan; poor, homely, awkward David felt this in eve " nerve as he sat there. For he loved beauty in spite of himself, and in spite of his belief that it was tendency of the old Adam (Old Adam has such nice things to bother his de- scendants with almost monopoly, if we are to believe some creeds.) So now David tried not to be influenced by the fine face before him. and steadfastly went on to SOW little seed, if possible, even upon this prejudiced