The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-08-11
THE NONPAREIL MAN

but they We're strung directly to the
trees. Along Sandoval avenue the wires
were attached to the bread fruit trees
Owing to the wind or some other unknown
cause the insulation wore off and the
electricity ran out over the trees. The
result was that for two days every bread
fruit tree on the avenue bore a crop of
hot biscuits. The leaks were finally dis
covered and remedied, but it is thought
that something may come of the discovery
in a commercial way.
awol1e last night suddenly while it was
still dark and found that 1 was thinking
intently, and with some emotion, about a
negro who died at All Healing Springs in
North Carolina while I was spending a
week many years ago.
Dave Martin was a sturdy negro about
80 years old. He was married and had
three little darby children with expansive
grins and white teeth. They thought he
was about right and, as for Dave, there
weren't any other pickannieS in Dixie
except his. He had secured little track
of land which he had fenced in and plant
ed largely to cotton with a little garden
truck near the cabin. The cabin was dis
tinctly handmade, but it was comfortable
and airy and it had a rough fiat stone open
fire place that carried off the smoke and
kept the place nice and drafty both in
summer and in winter. Dave "allowed''
ne WOULD get the pace pau lOI SOule Ody
and put in few "hawgs'' and raise lit
tie corn to fatten them with. This was
Dawes dream. Matte 'tallowed'' that they
would be eyerlastingly fixed if they
could get $50 ahead in the bank. In Mat
ties mind the sum of $50 to the good
would turn all tears and woes to bliss.
| The tragic part Of the story that I
awoke and found myself intently thinking
upon was this. Dave "took sick' one
spring with one Of those mysterious vast
ing diseases, call it malaria, tuberculosis
| or whatever you care to, and drifted rap
| idly downwards. Of course doctors were
out of the question for the family only
| lived from hand to mouth anyhow, and
| could not pay doctors bills. One colored
physician who came from a distance to
call out of kindness told them that he
couldn't help Dave much, but he advised
a concoction of herbs that Matte pro-
cured and STEPPED and that Dave took re-
Iigiously but without much effect. Matte
also secured one bottle Of patent medicine
which Dave managed to take.
Late in the fall Dave died and was bur-
| led in a grave under the pines just beyond
the cotton. During the summer he had
worried much about Matte and the
children and had said to her again and
again,
81 dunno wat you-uns is gwine ter do.
| when I'm gone.''
Matte was an up and "a coming woman
and she always answered something like
this:
Nov you quit dat fool talk, man,
you're. gwine ter git we'll an We'll be
all right. You're enough to drive anyone
crazy
But when Matte went out to pick the
cotton which she and the children had put
in assisted to some extent by Dave, she
threw her apron over her head and cried a.
little rocking herself to and fro while the
little girl tried to comfort her. r.
One day not long after the funeral, and
when things had quieted down a little, a
!; half dozen strapping young negroes ap-
peared at the cabin carrying axes.
Good mawnin', Matte
"Good mawnin' boys
Were come to split up yer firewood
{ for the winter SEEM yer amt got no man
| around jest now"
oval that's suttinly polite Of you-uns
/ and I thanks YER
: When the boys went hunting Matte
often got share and many a hunk Of
hawg' found its way to the little cabin.
But all the visits were made during the
day time for the story got abroad that
; Dave couldn't rest easy, no how" and
, that his "h'ant'' had been seen walking
:; across the cotton field to- the cabin. II
Y about it but went bravely to work to keep
e the family going. The last 1 knew she
was doing SO successfully, thanks to the
kindness of the neighbors.
% 1.-THE despised African!' "An inferior
e race" we write it easily, but the same
d loves, hopes, fears, agonies, struggles, de-
feats and triumphs in those dark breasts
n as in our own. God that made the
e world and all things therein
t hath made of one blood all nations of men
y for to dwell on the face Of the EARTH.
S A. J. r.