Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1893-03-23


and He Climbed the Trees Monkey
Fashion-How He Managed to Live.
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 tC
escape punishment for something done OF
lett 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 wild life as instinctively as
an Indian, and who might almost be
termed the professional runaway.
Your genuine runaway was 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 ali 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 wasmore
for companionship than anything else, for.
single handed, with his snares. trans 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
wet, while cold, the negros 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-
tion. 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 sodden the wood, all that he
asked was chunk" or, lacking that, a
coal of fire, to be as happy as king-the
ideal, not the real king, mean. From a
coal which, in unskilled hands, would
scarcely have sufficed to light Il pipe he
could, with even the 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 Prometheus
himself
In the most essential feature of cave
archltecture-secrecy-he easily surpassed
all imitators. Between two suns, and
oftener than not with only the wornout
stump of hoe, the runaway would dig
and conceal caEe which defied detection
from the eyes of lynx. At the same time
several cubic yards of upturned 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 wornout "old
fields" of the southern states were the fa-
vorite site of the cave digger. These dreary
wastes, given over to gulleys, broom sedge
and scrub pines, being deserted by man
hood i'll general, were of course his safest
retreat. The soil having been over ex-
hausted and turned out" and the sappy.
twisted pines being held worthless for
either rails or fuel, there was no danger of
the woodman's 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 ancognito-where
indeed the dense screen of the low, thick
pines would have confined their vision to
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 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 contliving means to approach and
depart from ais burrow and leave no sign.
AS have said, the gully was his favorite
path, thougl occasionally he had recourse
90 the Indians highways stream Some
times he would sever at the ground long,
stout grapevine, the other end being Sc
curely interlaced among the tree limbs
many feet above. By gasping this vine he
was able to swing clear of the ground many
feet, or even cross u considerable ravine
and drop just at the mouth of his cave.
Again, when the pines were thick, he
might climb tree, and passing from limb
to limb, monkey fashion, slide down n tree
trunk at the proper spot. Still another,
which could sometimes be practiced, was
to mount stray OK, and forcing him to
the proper place spring off. One very orig
inal old darky, little dreaming that history
was repeating itself-with "A variaton-is
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 minded,
in passing a lifetime "hid out" But up
among the hills of the central portion,
where there were no retreats impenetrable
to all but the initiated, where the farm
houses were close together and compara-
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, "varmintlike" 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. | 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.
A Tideless Sea.