Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-12-02

Among the many picturesque figures
with which the old south teemed a most
| striking one was the runaway negro. Not
the occasional "hider out"-the one who
| sought temporary refuge in the woods to
| escape punishment for something done or
left undone. or for fear of being sold to the
spectators, nor even when the crop was
grassy and the work hard but the one
| who chung to a wild life as instinctively as
| an Indian, and who might almost be
! termed the professional runaway
Your genuine runaway vas a born
| woodcraftsman. The habits of wild ami
mails and ways of taking them seemed to
| be his by intuition. He had no difficulty
| in varying his menu of pig, lamb and poul-
! try with all the rabbits, squirrels, opos-
sums and fish that he wanted Sometimes
| he carried his dog into the woods with him,
| although of course it greatly Increased his
danger of being taken. But this was more
| for companionship than anything else, for,
| single handed, with his snares, traps and
| gums" he was more than a match for
wild game of all kinds
| DiscOmforts which would have driven
| the amateur back to the snug chimney
| corner Of the plantation quarters and a
| whipping had no terrOrs for him. Like
| the rest of his race, he cared not a fig for
1 WEI, WHlle COlu, UHe negro 5 dread, he
| knew well how to guard against The art
| Of producing the maximum of fire with
| the minimum of smoke was his to perfec-
| ton. He knew exactly what kind of wood
| and bark to select, and how TO combine
! them to this end. No matter how hard
| the rain, how sOddon the wood, all that he
| asked was chunk or, lacking that, a
| coal of FIRE, to be as happy as a king-the
| ideal, not the real king, / mean. From "A
| coal which, in unsEiiled hands, would
| scarcely have sufiiced to light pipe. he
| could, with even he wettest and most i'm
| possible kind of fuel, soon call into being
| the rarest of roaring fires, while in the
| preservation and transportation OF fire he
| could have given lessons to Prouetheus
| himself.
| In the most essential feature of cave
| rchitecture-secrecy-h easily surpassed
| all imirators. Between TWO suns, and
| oftener than not with only the wornout
| stump of hoe the runaway would dig
! and conceal 4 cave which defied detection
| from the eyes Of a lynx. At the same time
| several cubic yards of up5urned earth had
to be whisked away and hid under distant
| leaves, or, better still, consigned to the safe
| keeping of some running stream.
| For several reasons the vcrncut "old
| fields" of the southern states We're the ia
| vorite site of the cave digger These drearv
| wastes, given over to gulleys, broom sedgc
| and scrub pines, being deserted by man
| hood in general, were of course his safest
| retreat. The soil having been over ex-
| hausted and turned out and the sappv.
twisted pines being held worthless for
| either rails or fuel, there was no danger OF
| the woodlands AK coming that way again
| for many long year. Nor did the squirrel
| or fox hunter have often to seek or follow
| his quarry into this terra incognito-where
| indeed the dense screen of the low, thick
pines would have confined their vision to a
| very limited space.
| Here this Esau of the south, whom in
| deed every mans hand was against, and
| whose hand was against every man, found
| an ideal dominion, every feature OF the
| surroundings adding to his sustenance or
| safety. The weirdness and virtual barren
ness drove off other men. The deep. water
worn gulleys, barriers to the ordinary
traveller, whether mounted or on foot. of
| fered him a highway whose firm or gray
| ely bottom registered no passing foot
| prints TO be read by curious or hostile eyes
| Nowhere did he display more ingenuity
| than in continuing means to approach and
| depart from his burrow and leave no sign.
| AS have said, the gully was his favorite
path, though occasionally he had recourse
to the Indians highway-a stream Some
| times he would sever at the ground a long,
stout grapevine, the other end being Sc
| curely interlaced among the tree limbs
many feet above. BY grasping this vine he
| was able to swing clear of the ground many
! feet, or even cross a considerable ravine
and drop just at the mouth of his cave
| Again, when the pines were thick he
| might climb a tree, and passing from limb
| to limb, monkey fashion, slide down Il tree
| trunk at the proper spot. Still another
| which could sometimes he practiced, was
| to mount a stray OK, and forcing him to
| the proper place spring off. One very orig
inal old darby, little dreaming that history
| was repeating itself-with variations
| said to have fashioned to his shoes an old
| pair of horseshOes, reversed, knowing that
| no runaway hunter would ever think to
( notice horse track.
| Amid the swamps the malaria proof
| negro found little difficulty, if so mi -,
| in passing n lifetime hid OUT I -
| among the hills Of the central pCi., on
| where there were no retreats impenetrable
| to all but the initiated, where the farm
| houses were close together and compare
| lively little land uncleared, it took no lit
| tie skill and cunning to play the runaway
| successfully for any considerable period.
| Yet Johnson's surrender brought in more
than one ragged, ''varmintiike" creature,
| who had spent perhaps the better part of a
long life in this manner There were even
women runaways, and sometimes very sue
cessful ones. A few children were born in
the woods. l knew of one instance in
which the close of the war brought up con-
siderable family of whose existence the le-
gal owner knew nothing.-David Lodge in
Kate Fields Washington
I